DinoBlender

Dinosaurs have a magical grip on the imaginations of young and old so we begin this blender with the perspective of a paleontologist in the making, six-year-old Ulysses Yarbrough. Uly, as he is known, admits to confusing the Jurassic and Triassic eras upon occasion but he is not confused about his passion for the ancient creatures known to us today only by the fossil remnants they left behind.

Paleontologist Ralph Chapman follows with an insider’s guide to the technology scientists use to study dinosaurs or, as Ralph puts it, “21st century technology to study 65 million-year-old creatures.” The former director of the National Museum of Natural History’s Applied Morphometrics Laboratory and the former director of the Idaho Virtualization Laboratory (Uly assure us he’s read about Ralph and Ralph knows what he’s talking about), Ralph will demonstrate how scientists use fossil fragments and computer programs to recreate the thunder lizards of old (now known to be bird ancestors, of course.)

Linda Deck, Bradbury Science Museum director, will relate Ralph’s comments to her work at the Smithsonian and other institutions where she has created paleontology exhibits and overseen the use and care of one-of-a-kind specimens for public displays. Dealing with the original, the virtual, the replica and sometimes the “especially durable prototype,” as Linda calls them, is all part of her work as a museum expert, including 20 years as senior exhibit developer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where she met and married Ralph, and five years as director of the Idaho Museum of Natural History.