Center for PostNatural History showcases human-altered lifeforms

by Jessica Marati on

We live in a world of genetically modified cotton, BioSteel™ goats, and pluots – in other words, a world where much of the nature surrounding us isn’t actually so natural at all. For this new world, Pittsburgh now has a new museum, the Center for PostNatural History, which aims to explore the complex interplay between culture, nature, and biotechnology. Opening on March 2, the museum will provide a unique look at how humans have profoundly influenced the very foundations of life on this planet, particularly in the areas of selective breeding and genetic engineering.

Director and curator Richard Pell says: “The Center for PostNatural History serves as a jumping-off point for thinking about how people shape the living world around them. Humans have been slowly domesticating plants and animals for thousands of years and during the last 35 years we’ve begun altering the DNA of organisms in very specific ways. A good portion of the living world is, in a sense, a cultural artifact reflecting the desires, needs and fears of human society. The CPNH is a place to explore that idea.”

The center aims to compile and preserve a comprehensive catalog of “postnatural” specimens – including some that will undoubtedly resemble something right out of a sci-fi movie. It will be open to the public on Sundays from 12 to 6 p.m., or by special appointment.

[via Grist]

New BBC America cooking show combines travel and adventure

by Laurel Miller on

It was only a matter of time before all the eating of rats and scorpions on “Survivor” grew tiresome. Perhaps that’s why producer Kevin Greene and “Chopped” producer Chachi Senior created a new cooking series for BBC America that combines exotic locales with dodgy outdoor adventures. There’s just one little catch: there’s no kitchen.

“No Kitchen Required” takes 2008 Food & Wine “Best New Chef” Michael Psilakis of New York’s FISHTAG and Kefi, private executive chef Kayne Raymond (aka the resident beefcake), and former “Chopped” champ Madison Cowan, and drops them into ten remote locations to perform some serious hunting and gathering.

After being plunked down in Dominica; Belize; New Zealand; Fiji; Thailand; Hawaii; New Mexico; Louisiana, and Florida, each chef is handed a knife (“Pack your knives and go,” is not a sentence you’ll hear uttered on this series) and a few key ingredients. They’re then left to fish, hunt, forage, and otherwise scrounge up the remaining ingredients to “create a locally-inspired meal that will be judged by the community.”

Despite the gimmicky and somewhat contrived nature of the challenges, there’s a lot to love about this show. It’s fun, innovative, and despite my raging addiction to “Top Chef,” I’m happy to see a cooking show that finally requires the use of local/seasonal ingredients (let’s hope there’s no blow-darting of endangered monkeys or serving of shark fin). Weaving the regional and cultural element into the concept is genius. Braised nutria, anyone?

The series premieres April 3rd.

[Photo credit: © Gilles Mingasson for BBC AMERICA]

10 unusual things to do in New York City

by Jessica Festa on

Many people who visit New York often have the same itinerary: Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Staten Island Ferry. While all of these experiences are worthwhile and should be included in any first-time tour of the Big Apple, here are some fun experiences that can be added to the travel plan to make it a bit more quirky.

Create your own New York-style pizza

New York is world-renowned for its delicious pizza, with many tourists visiting just to sample a slice. Instead of simply trying the pizza, why not learn how to make your own? Pizza a Casa Pizza School will teach you how to make artisanal pizzas without using fancy ingredients or high-tech equipment. Instead, students will learn the school’s genius pizza recipe and how to bring the delightful art home to recreate again and again. Click here for a full class schedule and to order tickets.

Taste the best dumplings in Chinatown

For first-time visitors Chinatown can be overwhelming. Navigating the busy streets, and trying to find the best of what the area has to offer, is basically impossible without help from a local. If you have interest in learning about the history of the area as well as sampling different local specialties, I would highly recommend a tour with Ahoy New York Tours & Tasting. The tour takes you through Chinatown as well as Little Italy and the guide, Alana, is extremely knowledgeable about the area’s past and present. As you learn about the area’s murder-filled and difficult history, enjoy sampling delicacies and Chinese candy. Moreover, if you’d like to solely focus on eating delicious dumplings, for $20 dumpling connoisseur Mark Birch will take you on a dumpling tour to sample the best Chinatown has to offer.

Learn the trapeze

Trying new things when traveling can make your trip fun and exciting. While many people attempt feats like skydiving, bungee jumping, scuba diving, and hiking, it’s not all that often that you hear a friend talk about how they learned the art of trapeze on their latest trip. Why not be the first? Trapeze School New York (TSNY) has an array of levels and class styles from flying trapeze to silks, and from trampoline to acrobatics. The classes are designed for anyone who has ever wanted to experience flying gracefully through the air. Click here to see a class schedule and sign up.

Explore the city through a scavenger hunt

New York is home to some of the world’s most quirky and unusual scavenger hunts, which are not only fun but an interesting way to explore the city. My favorite is Accomplice, which is “part game, part theater, and part tour”. Basically, participants are sent out on a mission through the city while receiving clues and encountering various cast members along the way. It’s a great way to be an NYC detective for a day while discovering some of the city’s most off-the-beaten path spots. Another great option is Watson Adventures, which sends participants through various neighborhoods, museums, and public spaces to answer tricky questions. Some of their hunts include “Murder at the MET,” “Secrets of the Jewish Lower East Side,” “Haunted Times Square,” and “SoHo Chocolately.”

Browse the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market

Fifth Avenue isn’t the only place to shop in New York, as the city is also home to myriad boutiques, bazaars, and markets. One unique market is the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market that is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 9AM-5PM. There are usually about 100 vendors selling vintage clothing, jewelry, antiques, furniture, art, housewares, decor, and more. It’s fun to browse and feels great when you come across an interesting find. Remember that bartering is standard practice here so bring your best negotiating skills.

Learn about NYC’s quirky history at the City Reliquary

While the MET, MoMA, and Museum of Natural History are all worthwhile museums, there is another more unusual type of museum that is definitely worth checking out on your next trip to New York– City Reliquary. Here you will find odd New York artifacts including everything from old photographs and videos to the bones of subway rats to pigeon feathers and bed bugs. On certain nights there are also events where collectors will “show and tell” their unique items. Best of all, there is no outrageous admission fee; instead, you can leave a donation and even grab a beer for $3.

Take a trolley tour of Green-Wood Cemetery

While wandering around a cemetery probably isn’t what you picture when you think of your ideal vacation, Green-Wood Cemetery is worth the visit. The 478-acre Revolutionary War site was actually founded in 1838 as one of the country’s “first rural cemeteries” and, due to its international fame and beauty, came to be a “fashionable place to be buried.” In fact, it is Green-Wood that actually inspired the creation of many of New York’s famous parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park. Some features of Green-Wood include 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums, glacial ponds, picturesque paths, valleys, and hills, in addition to its rich historical background.

Check out an improv show

Instead of shelling out a ton of cash for a Broadway performance, a great and budget-friendly alternative is to check out an improv comedy show at one of the many great theaters in New York. For $10 or less, you can see up-and-coming comics try out their funniest, raunchiest, and most outlandish routines, while often inviting audience members on stage and incorporating them into the act. Some of the top improv comedy venues include: Upright Citizens Brigade, the Peoples Improv Theater, and Magnet Theater.

Enlighten your inner Beatles fan

New York is home to many iconic Beatles locations and holds a lot of history for the band. Signing up for an Ultimate Beatles Tour can help you learn more about New York as well as Beatlemania while exploring sites like the Ed Sullivan Theater (shown right), Carnegie Hall, the Plaza Hotel, Strawberry Fields in Central Park, and the Dakota Apartments.

Explore art, nature, and design at the High Line

Built in the 1930’s, the High Line was once the site of an off-the-ground freight train system that was built in order to remove dangerous trains from the streets of the industrial district of Manhattan. Today, the site is an elevated park that is home to some of the most beautiful flora, public art, and architecture in the city. Walking on the High Line will allow you to not only see some great city views, but also, learn about the interaction of art and nature through exhibitions. Additionally, visitors can hike through “woodlands” and relax on aesthetically-pleasing park benches. Click here to check out a map of the High Line.

Shortwave radio memories: BBC World Service turns 80

by Sean McLachlan on

On this day in 1932, the BBC World Service started shortwave radio broadcasts.

It was a different world back then. Television was an experimental curiosity, satellites and the Internet were unknown, and so the only way to get news around the world instantly was via shortwave radio. Shortwave radio waves bounce off the ionosphere in our upper atmosphere to return to Earth hundreds or even thousands of miles away. While FM only transmits to spots within the line of sight of the transmitter, a shortwave broadcast can easily cross the Atlantic.

This was especially useful for the BBC, which transmitted news to the far-flung corners of the British Empire. They soon became the leaders of the shortwave radio scene and their broadcasts continue to be of the highest quality.

For most of us these days, shortwave radio is a quaint product of a different age, a bit like the aerogramme. There was a time, though, when shortwave was king, and it’s still vitally important to people in remote and developing regions, and to adventure travelers. This article on BBC interviews four people who still use shortwave to listen to BBC.

I used to love shortwave radio. As a bored child of the Eighties living in the middle of nowhere, it gave me a window on the world. With my clunky old radio I could listen to broadcasts from just about anywhere. Most of the national radio services had broadcasts in English, so I tuned in to news and programs from my favorite stations: Radio Damascus, Deutsche Welle (Germany), Radio Beijing, Radio Moscow (the Soviet Union), Radio Quito (Ecuador) and of course the BBC.

The BBC was my favorite. While not as exotic as Radio Pyongyang or the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service, the signal was always strong and they had programming on an endless number of topics.

Shortwave radio also gave me an insight into the world that the TV networks couldn’t, or wouldn’t. When the Iran-Iraq War was raging, I listened to both Radio Baghdad and Radio Tehran. It was like they were talking about different wars. Each side claimed crushing victories, often on the same day, and both upheld their cause as just. Comparing the Voice of America and Radio Moscow, I realized it wasn’t just nasty Third World dictatorships that played that game.
There were also the challenges of hunting rare and unusual stations–the pirate stations, or offshore protest stations like The Voice of Peace, and low-power stations from small countries. One I could never track down was Radio Nepal. I still remember the frequency, 5005 khz. No matter what the time of day or night and no matter how favorable the conditions, I could never pick up its signal in North America.

It was fitting, then, that when I first visited Nepal in 1994, I was greeted at the border by a Nepali soldier with his ear glued to a small handheld shortwave set.

“Nixon?” he asked.

“Um, yes,” I replied, not quite knowing what he meant.

“Dead,” he said.

Through the Nepali chatter on his radio I recognized the former president’s name.

“Oh,” I said.

He held out his hand.

“Passport, please.”

In my backpack I was carrying a shortwave set. I hadn’t turned it on that day or I would have known about Nixon. I did use it regularly, though, all that wonderful year as I journeyed overland across Asia visiting some of the countries whose radio stations I’d been listening to since I was a kid. I discovered a lot of strange local stations, but time and again I’d go back to my old favorite, the BBC World Service.

I don’t use shortwave much these days, only when I’m working in remote areas like Ethiopia. Even there satellite television is beginning to take over. For me, like most people in the West, shortwave radio has been displaced by the Internet. That’s not a bad thing, I guess. Still, it’s nice to know you can pick up a radio and hear the other side of the world. I think I’ll tune in today.

Lost temple discovered at Ur, Iraq

by Sean McLachlan on

A team of Iraqi and Italian archaeologists have discovered a temple at the ancient city of Ur in Iraq.

This is the first foreign team to excavate in Iraq for 20 years and they hit pay dirt in the form of a 4,500 year-old temple and associated graveyard. Little information has been released about the find but it promises to herald a new era in the study of one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.

Ur was one of the most powerful Sumerian city-states and dates its beginnings back to at least 6000 BC. It reached its height in the third millennium BC, the same period as the newly discovered temple. At its height, Ur was a center of trade and featured many monumental buildings such as its famous Great Ziggurat, shown here in this Wikimedia Commons image. The Sumerians developed writing, an elaborate bureaucracy, and the beginnings of science.

While the Italians are the first archaeologists to return to Iraq after the Gulf War, another Italian team and an American team will soon be conducting their own excavations. In the meantime, Iraqi archaeologists have been valiantly struggling to preserve their nation’s heritage in the face of war, looting, political turmoil, and lack of funding. Iraq is an archaeological wonderland and has some of the most impressive ancient sites in the world. It’s the Holy Grail of adventure travel and a trickle of hardy travelers are making their way there. There’s even a tour company offering trips to Iraq.