April 2012

Posted April 20, 2012

Blue Ribbon Science Fair Entries on Display at Linda Hall Library

For Immediate Release
April 20, 2012
Media Contact: Kimberly Allen, Director of Development
816-926-8792

Blue Ribbon Science Fair Entries on Display at Linda Hall Library

(Kansas City, MO)—Future scientists, engineers, and inventors are being recognized at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology in Kansas City. Several participants from the recent Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair, sponsored by Science Pioneers, have been given the opportunity to display their work in the Library’s Main Reading Room from April 16 until May 15, 2012. Staff from Linda Hall Library chose projects for display based on scientific content, unique approaches to problem solving, and visual composition. The selected students represent a range in grades from fourth through high school.

In addition to the project display, the Linda Hall Library also presents the Shipman Award annually for mastery of scientific writing demonstrated in either a project or paper. The award is given in memory of the Library’s first director Joseph C. Shipman.

This year’s winner Megan Smith, who attends Shawnee Mission West High School, is sponsored by her teacher Brenda Bott. The topic of her project is “The Effect of Coffee Extract and Caffeine on the Locomotory Rate and Basal Slowing Response of a LRRK2 Transgenic (G2019S Mutation) Caenorhabditis elegans Model of Parkinson’s Disease.”

The projects on display are indicative of scientific curiosity, good understanding of the scientific process, and are visually impressive. Parents and their children, as well as anyone interested in our future scientists, are encouraged to visit this engaging display. A reception to honor the winners will be held on May 15 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the Library’s Main Reading Room.

The Linda Hall Library, the world’s largest privately funded library of science, engineering and technology, is located at 5109 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Missouri. The Library, exhibition galleries, and William N. Deramus III Cosmology Theater are open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. The exhibition galleries and William N. Deramus III Cosmology Theater are also open the second Saturday of each month 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

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Posted April 18, 2012

"Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins"

For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Kimberly Allen, Director of Development
April 18, 2012
816-926-8792, allenk@lindahall.org

Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins

KANSAS CITY, MO- “Lucy is a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton who has become the spokeswoman for human evolution. She is perhaps the best known and most studied fossil hominid of the twentieth century, the benchmark by which other discoveries of human ancestors are judged.”–From Lucy’s Legacy by Donald Johanson. Johanson will present information about this amazing find and its significance at the Linda Hall Library on April 24th at 7:00 p.m. This lecture, which is the second in the Relatively Human lecture series, is fully subscribed at this time.

In his New York Times bestseller, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, renowned paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson told the incredible story of his discovery of a partial female skeleton that revolutionized the study of human origins. Lucy literally changed our understanding of our world and who we come from. Since that dramatic find in 1974, there has been heated debate and–most important–more groundbreaking discoveries that have further transformed our understanding of when and how humans evolved.

In Lucy’s Legacy, Johanson takes readers on a fascinating tour of the last three decades of study–the most exciting period of paleoanthropologic investigation thus far. In that time, Johanson and his colleagues have uncovered a total of 363 specimens of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy’s species, a transitional creature between apes and humans), spanning 400,000 years. As a result, we now have a unique fossil record of one branch of our family tree–that family being humanity–a tree that is believed to date back a staggering 7 million years.

Focusing on dramatic new fossil finds and breakthrough advances in DNA research, Johanson provides the latest answers that post-Lucy paleoanthropologists are finding to questions such as: How did Homo sapiens evolve? When and where did our species originate? What separates hominids from the apes? What was the nature of Neandertal and modern human encounters? What mysteries about human evolution remain to be solved?

Donald Johanson is a passionate guide on an extraordinary journey from the ancient landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia–where Lucy was unearthed and where many other exciting fossil discoveries have since been made–to a seaside cave in South Africa that once sheltered early members of our own species, and many other significant sites. Thirty-eight years after Lucy, Johanson continues to enthusiastically probe the origins of our species and what it means to be human.

The Relatively Human lecture series is made possible by support from Tuck and Susan Spaulding, Dr. Richard Gentile, Bob and Sally West, and the Linda Hall Library Annual Fund.

The Linda Hall Library, the world’s largest privately funded library of science, engineering and technology, is located at 5109 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Missouri. The Library, exhibition galleries, and William N. Deramus III Cosmology Theater are open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. The exhibition galleries and William N. Deramus III Cosmology Theater are also open the second Saturday of each month 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
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