The museology of dinosaurs : in search of the authentic museum dinosaur

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The museology of dinosaurs : in search of the authentic museum dinosaur - Volume 1

Dinosaur museums aspire to communicate authenticity to their visitors by displaying 'authentic dinosaurs' or what they perceive as 'authentic representations' of dinosaurs. The museums do this by employing a varied arsenal of objects, from bones still embedded in the rocks in which they were found to mounted skeletons, murals and computer-controlled life-size models. These same museums however, neglect to explicitly define what authenticity is, and fail to specify the criteria by which this quality might be defined.;Two distinct perspectives were revealed while exploring the vocabulary of authenticity and adapting it to the case of dinosaurs and museums: the museum's perspective and that of the visitor. This work focuses on the museum's perspective, one, which exists in a combination of needs, obligations, restraints, beliefs, and demands, some of which derive from forces within the museums while others are a reflection of influences from outside.;Using museum visits and written sources, mainly the ephemera produced by museums, this work demonstrates how the notion of authenticity is constructed by museums. The concept of authenticity and its theoretical understanding was examined in the museums context as well as in the often parallel worlds of private collectors, commercial manufacturers, the movie industry, and other agents of popular culture.;A considerable variety of techniques and materials have been used to create a sense of the dinosaur but in variable degrees the sense of authenticity they generate is governed by the following four criteria; Composition , Provenance, (degree of) Intervention and (scientific) Accuracy. Most of these are fairly static criteria; only a notion of scientific accuracy changes rapidly over time as a result of new knowledge superseding old, and old knowledge being perceived as inaccurate (wrong)

Short-term watering-distance and symmetry effects on root and shoot growth of bell pepper plantlets

Drip lines were located at distances ranging from 0 to 60 cm from one or both sides of a row of pepper plantlets, and we monitored the effects on their shoot development during 76 days from transplanting to full-size first fruits, on the final root system, and on the areal water and salt distributions in the upper 15-cm soil layer. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse with a sandy soil, and excess fresh water (1.9 L d-1 per plant) was applied via short daily irrigations. In addition, the effects of watering distance and symmetry on the potential water uptake rate were analyzed with a coupled-source-sink steady flow and uptake model. Initial faster shoot growth with the one-side system and short distances progressively changed to faster growth with the two-side system and longer watering distances, with the optimum at 30-40 cm. These temporal changes are attributed to temporal changes in the root uptake of irrigation water: small plants with small root systems benefit from the larger water supply to a smaller soil volume provided by the one-side system, whereas larger plants with greater water needs could extract more irrigation water when they developed larger, split root systems in the two-side irrigation. Balanced root systems and maximal shoot growth can be obtained by starting the irrigation with a line on each side, near the plants, and moving the lines after a short time.Drip irrigation Water flow and uptake modeling