Boston Museum of Science


February 12, 2011 - Even though oddity is my island here at O.T.I.S., regular readers know that I’ll sometimes pretend that mainstream things are odd just to give me an excuse to write about them. Also, that I generally define oddity as anything that catches my eye (no matter how hard I throw it). Truth is, even the most boring, mundane, jejune, bland thing in the world is strange if you stand on your head and look at it, and that’s generally the position I assume when I write.

Science museums are a good example of this, not that they are any of those above-written pejoratives, but they are decidedly mainstream. That said, some of them can get kind of boring if they’re too geared toward “interactive children’s exhibits,” which is just generally a phrase that creeps me out thanks to the juxtaposition of the last two words. These museums are excellent place to see amazing traveling exhibits, though, such as this one on Mythic Creatures or this one on the Science of Aliens.

However, the Boston Museum of Science has some pretty cool stuff on permanent display, including a range of large-animal taxidermy, a giant room-dominating Van de Graaff generator (which for some reason we didn’t take a picture of), and Anakin Skywalker’s Naboo Starfighter (which I only find cool because I way dig movie props, even from movies I hate). And all that in addition to exhibits on space exploration and dinosaurs, the cool kids of the science disciplines peer group.



The museum features a butterfly garden.

















This live possum specimen that they trotted out for a
nature demonstration that we happened to catch.