Carrion, Wayward Readers: Submit Your 'Ask A Scientist' Questions
By Marielle Shaw in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 9, 2015 9:30PM
We hope you're somewhere warm today and near a computer, because Chicagoist is still seeking curious minds and science lovers with burning questions needing answers.
In last month's "Ask a Scientist" installment, we introduced you to Anna Goldman. She's the Field Museum's Associate Curator in the Integrative Research Center (Insects). It's a long title, but what she does is prepares specimens for display. That might be underselling it, actually. Anna gets to let loose the horde of flesh-eating beetles on the corpses of countless animals! And once those beetles are done, the now pristine specimens will be ready for display in museums and for use by the many scientists which work in and with the Field Museum every day. We've been lucky enough to see the little guys in action, and while it's certainly the stuff of nightmares for some people, it's absolutely fascinating watching them work.
So far, we're totally devoid of questions for Anna—blame it on the holidays—so we need your help. What would you like to know about this process? Are you interested in the beetles? The specimens? The strangest things found or where they come from? We know you've got juicy questions just waiting to be picked apart, so we hope you'll put them in the comments below for Anna!