National Geographic Museum Blog

Design that Matters, Inc., created the Kinkajou Microfilm Projector and Portable Library to address adult illiteracy in rural West Africa.

Eliminating the need for books, which are expensive and difficult to distribute in places where adult classes are held at night by oil lamps, Kinkajou combines the efficiency of LEDs with the durability and storage capacity of microfilm. The unit is easy to maintain and includes a solar panel for off-grid use.

Come check out the projector at the exhibition Design for the Other 90%.

Learn more about Design that Matters, Inc.

Come join us for a special demonstration in the exhibition Design for the Other 90%!

Watch dirty water become drinkable as you learn about worldwide efforts to increase access to clean and safe water.
Free
Saturday, May 29: 2pm & 3pm

This is our public debut of a new schedule of exhibition-based activities. Check out the rest of this summer’s events.

Here at the Museum we’ve been spending every day with some really amazing design solutions in the exhibition Design for the Other 90% – innovations that aim to solve the world’s humanitarian and sustainability crises. Imagine our excitement when we found out about some new design solutions being showcased in Washington, D.C. next Wednesday – June 2nd at 12 p.m. at The National Press Club.

The Buckminstr Fuller Institute will announce the winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. The Challenge is the world’s only large prize program rewarding integrated, whole-systems approaches to solving the world’s sustainability crises. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP required by June 1st: rsvp@bfi.org. Plus there is a reception afterward. What could be better? We’ll be there.

Follow this link to read more about the six finalists and their work.

Least Tern – approximately 15,000
Sterna antillarum
Fremont, Nebraska

Found across the United States, the least tern, particularly populations in the interior states, is a victim of dams. Impoundments and new channels disrupt historic waterways, drowning the sandbars that terns use for nesting colonies. Reservoir water is often too cold for the fish these birds eat. The interior and West Coast subspecies are on the federal endangered list.

“I had spent a day at an abandoned sand and gravel mine along the Platte River in central Nebraska to do a portrait of an adult least tern, working with a Nebraska biologist named Mary Brown. Mary insisted that, because the chicks were so adorable, I needed to make the time to do a quick portrait of them at day’s end. We found a pair of hours-old siblings in a nest, and I photographed them for a few minutes on a piece of white board in the deep shade of her truck, where I noticed the light had turned blue. They slept through it all, exhausted after hatching.” – Joel Sartore, photographer

Grizzly Bear – approximately 1,500
Ursus arctos horribilis
Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita, Kansas

Protected in the lower 48 states, grizzlies are returning to old haunts while conservationists work to reconnect remaining habitats in the northern Rockies. Humans nearly exterminated these bears. Montana grizzly expert Chris Servheen estimates that between 1920 and 1940 fewer than 300 existed in the lower 48 states. In Alaska and worldwide, population numbers are higher.

To get this photograph and stay safe, Joel Sartore had to photograph the bear through bars: “The grizzly you see isn’t tame; he’s just hungry. My friends at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita allowed me to paint an off-exhibit cell with nontoxic white paint and then load in the bear. He stood in the center of the room, hoping to get treats tossed in, and I shot through the bars. As soon as our photo shoot was over, we powerwashed the paint off the walls and floor. Mission accomplished.”

Just when you thought we were all done with the terra cotta warriors….remember the most recent official excavation begun by the Chinese government back in June 2009? Well, some of the first results are in! Excavators have announced the recovery of 114 terra cotta warriors, many of which were brightly colored. Authorities say photos will be released some time in the next month. Stay tuned – we’ll post photos as soon as we can get our hands of some.

In the meantime, check out at story on BBC. Can anyone spot the error in the BBC story?

Boulder Darter – approximately 4,100
Etheostoma wapiti
Conservation Fisheries, Knoxville, Tennessee

This three-inch-long perch makes its home in the Tennessee River Valley and feels the effects of poor water quality. Improvements in wastewater treatment and the reduction of light industry upstream have enhanced the species’ prospects, but sedimentation remains a problem.

About half the world’s poor suffer from waterborne disease and over 6,000 die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water. The international company Vestergaard Frandsen is committed to developing and manufacturing products designed to prevent waterborne, vector-borne and neglected tropical diseases.

One of their products is the LifeStraw, which was initially produced to help halt the spread of guinea worm disease. The LifeStraw family of products now includes simple home filters that remove 99.9% of all bacteria, viruses, and parasites. It can provide enough safe drinking water for a family for up to three years before it needs to be replaced.

Watch the home filter in action as the CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen puts one up against the cow dung test.

To learn more about the LifeStraw, click here or stop by National Geographic Museum for a free demonstration on May 29, June 12, June 26 at 2pm and 3pm. Look for us in the Design for the Other 90% exhibition.

Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus
No more than 3,000
Echinocactus horizonthalonius var. nicholii
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, Arizona

This attractively rotund cactus has long caught the eye of collectors. Whether they take the whole plant or just the seeds, the result is the same: a net loss for a rare species. The high Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and adjacent Mexico is the only home to the Turk’s head cactus.

Higgin’s Eye – more than 250,000
Lampsilis higginsii
Genoa National Fish Hatchery, Genoa, Wisconsin

An important food source for muskrats, otters, and other wildlife, these native pearly mussels are losing ground to competing zebra mussels from abroad. Limited to drainages in the Upper Mississippi, it has been reduced to half its historic range. Industrial runoff also harms this bivalve, as toxic metals and chemicals become concentrated within the mussel.