Fossil life - on different scales 8 March 2011 The fossil fish Pholidophorus; the circle shows the dark area where the fossil bacteria are preserved A close up of the fossilised bacterial colony, at a magnification of x20,000 Fossils are the remains of ancient life. Most animal fossils are made of the hard parts of the body, such as bones, teeth, scales and shells. On rare occasions however, soft tissues, or even bacteria, can became fossilised. A well preserved fossil fish from Somerset The fossil fish illustrated here was found on Kilve Beach in north Somerset and although it is missing its head, the rest of it is well preserved. The fossil is about 11cm long and its scales outline the shape of the body. Faint traces of the front fins are also visible. The fish is named Pholidophorus; it is an extinct animal that looked similar to a modern-day herring. Almost 200 million years ago, this fish died while swimming in the Jurassic sea that covered Somerset. As scavengers did not disturb the carcass after death, it became buried in fine sediment. This sediment eventually hardened to form the rock in which the fish became fossilised. Microscopic detail reveals further fossilised remains Although it is a fine example, this fossil fish preserves something even more remarkable. Scientists at Amgueddfa Cymru removed tiny fragments from the central area of the fossil to study them using an electron microscope. Zooming in on these fragments 20,000 times, some fine details started to emerge - a layer of tiny, rounded, elongate structures. These are the fossilised remains of bacteria. Fossilised bacteria have been found in many localities around the world, most famously from fossils in South America and Germany. The bacteria are often preserved in calcium phosphate, because calcium is a common element in sediment, and phosphorus is found in the decaying tissues of animals. How do we know these are fossil bacteria? First, they are clustered together in colonies, and are a similar size and shape to modern-day bacteria. Secondly, other very fragile cellular tissues, such as the cells of embryos, as found in the Cambrian rocks of China, have been documented .Fossilised muscle tissues can even preserve the internal details of cells, for example in Jurassic rocks in Brazil and Miocene rocks from Spain. The fossilisation of cells, including bacteria, is being observed more frequently as scientists look ever closer at the fossils in their collections. Finally, on rare occasions, a thin dark layer of fossil bacteria occasionally traces the body outline of a fossil, revealing the shape of the fleshy tissues surrounding the skeleton, as in Eocene rocks from Germany. This tells us that fossilisation of the bacteria took occurred rapidly after the time of death. It is becoming increasingly clear that bacteria play an important part in the processes of fossilisation, with the bacteria themselves sometimes being preserved. Looking at a fossil, it is natural to wonder what kind of animal or plant it is, but some interesting discoveries can be made by asking what the fossil is actually made of. The answer, on close inspection, is often surprising and is the key to finding out how an organism became fossilised in the first place.
Quilt Club Sian Lile-Pastore, 7 March 2011 We had our third meeting of quilt club this saturday, we currently meet every two months with the next meeting being held on 7 May.It's been really lovely to meet so many nice crafty people and do a bit of sewing and there's a nice mixture of beginners and more experienced quilters. We currently have space for some more people so please get in touch if you would like to come, meanwhile have a look at some photos which show what we have been working on.And if you have been coming along, please email me photos of your work in progress!
Revealing historic sketches online Graham Davies, 7 March 2011 Revealing the historic sketches of Francis Place for the very first time…After Museum conservators in the Art department had completed their conservation work on the Francis Place sketchbooks – containing some of the earliest on-the-spot- sketches of Wales in the Museums collections – I was given the task of figuring out the best way in which to present these sketches online.Secret sketches hidden for 200 yearsPlaces' sketchbooks had been taken apart 200 years ago and their pages stuck on a woven paper backing. Recent conservation work has since revealed further sketches on the reverse – sketches that have been hidden for over 200 years.What's more, these hidden sketches were a continuation of the panoramic view from the previous page – so by digitally stitching two double page panoramas together, new complete views could been created that would never have been possible to see before – even by the artist himself!Now, how could we display these new super long panoramas online whilst still allowing the detail to be seen?The default width for our webpages is set at just under 1000 pixels across, this was just not enough to be able to show off these panoramas in any detail, so I decided that the easiest solution was to add scroll bars direct to the image, allowing them to be displayed across the page whilst at the same time allowing the complete panoramas to be studied in detail.Cardiff 1678:One of these newly generated images is of a panoramic view of Cardiff, containing an unique view of the medieval town as it was back in 1678.To show this detailed sketch off in the best possible way, I decided to repurpose our interactive image navigator tool, which allows the user to pan around a high resolution image viewing details close up.By using texts from a previously published article on medieval Cardiff, I was also able to pinpoint and highlight certain aspects of the panorama that were noteworthy – be it places that have remained unchanged since medieval times, or places that have long since vanished.Francis Place goes globalTo promote this work, the marketing team at the Museum distributed several Tweets and Facebook mentions. As well as being picked up by the BBC Wales news website and local media, we also published images onto the photo sharing website Flickr and added the extra information as notes embedded within the image. To make it a bit more user focused, I posted a comment asking users to guess where the artist was postitioned as he sketched… The foreground area of the sketch has altered so dramatically since 1678, it's not as easy as it seems…. Rhagor homepage featuring the Francis Place articles and interactives
Love spoons art cart Sian Lile-Pastore, 7 March 2011 These images are from half term. We had a bit of a love theme and were looking at lovespoons, pockets and stay busks. We looked at all the kinds of patterns you find on lovespoons, from the usual hearts and commas, to horses and forks!Lots of people took their work home, but quite a few added decorations to our large lovespoons that are pictured here. I have to admit that Tracey Williams did a lot of work on the spoons and made them much more beautiful than when they started out. The next art activity i'm involved in will be part of the launch of our new Explore Nature project in Oriel 1
Hocus Crocus! Danielle Cowell, 3 March 2011 As if by magic crocus flowers have sprung up all over Wales!Many opened during the half term holidays, so we should receive a lot more records - now the pupils are back in school.Unusually, this year the crocus has been reported in Mid Wales before being reported in West Wales. Good news for Ysgol Glantwymyn who normally have to wait the longest for their flowers.Read my letter to find out how to win a trip and earn your super scientist certificates.No reports of daffodils yet - but I'm sure we will have a few sightings soon.My daffodils have started to tilt their heads in preparation to flower. The trees in my garden have started to flower and grow leaves, soon their will be lots of colour in my garden. I can't wait! Lots of signs of spring at St Fagans too.Let me know how your flowers are doing?Professor Plant
