Report of the Provost 



13 



torian Lonn Taylor, based on research carried out as part of 

 rhe projecr, will be published by the museum and Harry N. 

 Abrams, Inc., in the spring of 2000. 



Galapagos Behind the Scenes 



A Smithsonian marine biologist's scientific explorations, 

 undersea and on land, are revealed in realistic detail in Gala- 

 pagos, a spectacular 3D IMAX® film produced for the 

 National Museum of Natural History's new Johnson The- 

 ater. The 40-minute film follows Carole Baldwin on her first 

 research trip to the Galapagos Islands, the isolated, geologi- 

 cally young archipelago 600 miles west of South America on 

 the equator, studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s. Bald- 

 win is the human lead in the film, but she shares the screen 

 with a cast of blue-footed boobies, sea lions, moray eels, 

 hammerhead sharks, and other wild residents of this Ecuado- 

 rian national park. 



Galapagos wildlife are unusually tame, and Baldwin fre- 

 quently found herself inches away from creatures that live 

 nowhere else on Earth, among them giant tortoises and ma- 

 rine iguanas. The highlight of the expedition was diving at 

 depths of up to 3,000 feet in the Johnson Sea-Link sub- 

 mersible. Many of the species collected on the expedition 

 came from the little-explored realm between 400 and 1 ,000 

 feet. Batfish that stride across the ocean bottom on leglike 

 fins, viper fish equipped with formidably long fangs, and 

 other odd creatures were brought back for the museum's pre- 

 served fish collection, the largest in the world. 



While Galapagos tours IMAX® theaters around the 

 world, Baldwin will be working at the museum to describe 

 several new species collected in the islands, including a new 

 kind of cat shark and a new sea bass. She will also be identi- 

 fying scores of larval fish — one of her research 

 interests — brought back from the expedition. 



The museum's partners in the Galapagos project were 

 Imax Corp., the National Science Foundation, and Mandalay 

 Media Arts. America Online is sponsoring the film's interna- 

 tional tour. Discovery Communications, Inc., is the principal 

 sponsor of the 80,000-square-foot, $40.6 million Discovery 

 Center, which houses the Johnson Theater, a cafe, and a mu- 

 seum shop. 



"Posted Aboard RMS Titanic " 



The drama of rhe sinking of the RMS Titanic played out over 

 just a few hours, yet this tragic event has captivated our 

 imaginations for decades. What few realize is that the Titanic 

 was more than the largest and most luxurious vessel of her 

 time. She also was an "RMS" — a Royal Mail Ship. Using ar- 

 tifacts recovered at sea nearly nine decades ago, "Posted 

 Aboard RMS Titanic, " an exhibition at the National Postal 

 Museum, examines the tragedy from this previously over- 

 looked perspective. 



The sinking of the Titanic cost the lives of five valiant 

 postal workers who struggled in vain to save the mailbags in 

 the ship's final hours. American sea post clerks John Starr 

 March, Oscar Scott Woody, and William Logan Gwinn, 

 along with their two British colleagues, postal workers 

 James Bertram Williamson and John Richard Jago Smith, 

 were last seen by Albert Thessinger, a steward aboard the 

 Titanic who survived the sinking. Thessinger was briefly 

 pressed into service to help the five clerks move mailbags, 

 but he gave up on this seemingly suicidal task when the 

 water in the mailroom rose to waist height. Thessinger later 

 recalled, "I urged them to leave their work. They shook their 

 heads and continued at their work." Despite the clerks' 

 valiant effort, none of the mail was saved. Video film footage 

 shown in the exhibition reveals that the mailbags remain 

 within the sunken liner. 



"Posted Aboard RMS Titanic," which opened on Septem- 

 ber 17, 1999, and continues until June 12, 2000, was made 

 possible by generous gifts from Dr. Jeanette Cantrell Rudy, 

 the James E. Pehta Foundation, the Atlantic Envelope Com- 

 pany, the American Postal Workers Union, the AFL-CIO, 

 and the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Hus- 

 bandry. 



An Earth-Bound Innovation from SAO 



The development of low-field magnetic resonance imaging 

 (MRI) by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) sci- 

 entists was cited by the American Institute of Physics as one 

 of the outstanding developments in physics in 1998. A typi- 

 cal MRI device uses a huge, high-field magnet to polarize 

 hydrogen nuclei inside water molecules in the human body. 

 The spinning molecules produce radio signals that can im- 

 age most organs in great detail — to detect tumors, for 

 example. SAO researchers use lasers to increase the nuclear 

 spin-polarization of inert gases like helium, enabling MRI of 

 the inhaled gas in the lung, the sinuses, and other body cavi- 

 ties where MRI has been ineffective. This new biomedical 

 imaging technique, a spin-off of research in atomic physics, 

 is only about five years old. Already, doctors are using laser- 

 polarized gas MRI to diagnose and plan treatment for people 

 with lung diseases, such as emphysema and asthma. 



The SAO innovation, developed in cooperation wirh the 

 Massachusetts General Hospital, uses small, low-field mag- 

 nets for MRI of laser-polarized gas. It promises much 

 simpler, less intimidating, and lower-cost MRI unirs in hos- 

 pital settings, as well as portable instruments that can be 

 used in remote, cramped environments, such as space vehi- 

 cles. Recently, SAO scientists have begun to apply 

 laser-polarized gas MRI in other fields, such as probing the 

 porous structure of rocks that may hold oil, natural gas, and 

 subterranean water. These innovations demonstrate the vital 

 synergy between basic science and pracrical applications, and 

 the important role SAO plays in making these connections. 



