News and Events for Nantucket Island
The Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) biological collections’ oldest specimen is the Wood Fern (pictured above). Maria Louisa Owen, an expert in mosses and moss-like plants, collected this fern in 1879. This was during the height of “Pteridomania” – also known as the Victo- rian fern craze – which was sweeping […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Fangs. The photo to the right is a close up of a tarantula – or a purseweb spider – hiding out in its tubular home, and giving the camera a toothy grin. Nantucket is home to a few unusual spiders, including tarantulas, […]
by Amy Jenness Maria Mitchell spent the first 11 years of her adulthood living a quiet life on Nantucket, first as a teacher and then as librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum. But that changed on a clear October night in 1847 when she saw a comet through her telescope and […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Among the historic gray-shingled houses of Vestal Street and hidden in the gardens of the Maria Mitchell Association’s Hinchman House Natural Science Museum, sits a whale skull found thirty years ago at Cisco Beach. The bone belongs to a right whale: an […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ The story of the orphan tropical fish sounds like it could be the nautical version of “Annie,” or a spin off of “Finding Dory,” but the story of the orphan tropical fish hinges on the theme of displacement and is an example […]
On Thurs., July 14 at 8 pm. David Mindell, MIT professor and author of Our Robots, Ourselves: Robots and the Myths of Autonomy will give a lecture on artificial intelligence and human/machine relationships at Great Harbor Yacht Club as part of the Nantucket Atheneum’s 2016 Geschke Lecture series. Each summer […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Have you seen stones inscribed with these messages? “Northern Extremity of the Town’s Meridian Line” “Southern Extremity of the Town’s Meridian Line” These two stones are located near the Pacific National Bank and the Fair Street Quaker Meetinghouse in downtown Nantucket. The […]
~ by Katherine Brooks Maria Mitchell Association ~ Have you heard a piercing shriek in the night accompanied by a flurry of white light? Although it sounds like the making of a summercamp ghost story, what you might be observing is the barn owl – unique in its aesthetics with […]
