The great museums of the world harbor a secret: They’re home to millions upon millions of natural history specimens that almost never see the light of day. They lie hidden from public view, typically housed behind or above the public exhibit halls, or in off-site buildings.

We now know what history going up in flames looks like. On Sept. 2, the National Museum of Brazil lit up Rio de Janeiro’s night sky. Perhaps started by an errant paper hot air balloon landing on the roof or a short circuit in a laboratory, the fire gutted the historic 200-year-old […]

Americans clearly love their museums, particularly in the summer months. In fact, museum attendance is estimated at about 850 million visits a year, significantly more than all the major league sporting and theme parks combined (about 483 million in 2011).

When Victorian tea-merchant Frederick Horniman was looking to build a new home for his extensive collection of natural and cultural artefacts, his own back garden offered the perfect spot. Situated on one of the highest points in London, Surrey Mount – the Horniman family home – enjoyed commanding views across […]

A 36-year-old man has been arrested and placed in psychiatric care after he smeared a glass screen encasing the Mona Lisa with cake in a purported protest against artists not focusing enough on “the planet”.

An art show has become Brazil’s latest political battleground. For those who didn’t get to see the 270 LGBTQ-themed works that comprise “Queer Museum,” good luck: You may never see them. The exhibition, until recently on display at the Santander Cultural Center in Porto Alegre, was abruptly closed on September […]

As the climate crisis threatens millions of species worldwide, biodiversity conservation is now an all-hands-on-deck operation. Natural history collections play a critical role in this effort as repositories holding records of historical biodiversity shifts, like libraries made of biological specimens.

In many parts of the world, museums are considering how to present history through different lenses, rather than just representing colonial and imperialistic views of certain events, countries or whole continents.

Campaigns for the repatriation of certain objects in prominent museums dominate media reporting on the fraught legacies of historical collections. The Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles, Benin Bronzes, and the “Gweagal” shield are among the most conspicuous examples.

The eye-popping sale price of US$69 million on March 11, 2021, for a non-fungible token created by the digital artist Beeple sent shock waves through the art world. More multimillion-dollar sales of these digital assets that exist on a blockchain and are maintained on networked computers soon followed.