This National Road Safety Week (14 – 20 November 2022) William Sims, Associate Curator at the National Collections Centre, explores the origins of the Transport Road and Research Laboratory and the work they carry out to make our roads safe.
Marking Halloween and the tradition of bobbing for apples, Assistant Curator Laura Büllesbach searched for the juiciest apples in our collections and uncovered some unexpected stories.
The modern-day cosmetic market is vast, with many people following beauty regimes to some degree every single day. This is nothing new, with evidence of embellished looks seen in Egyptian drawings and referenced in the works of Roman philosophers. But throughout history, the search for beauty has come with risks – as far back as in Ancient Egypt the iconic heavy lined eye look was achieved with kohl, a black powder made from galena, a mineral form of lead sulfide.
Assistant Curator Katie McNab explores the many selfies in the Science Museum Group Collection which predate the very term ‘selfie’, and how the act of taking a ‘selfie’ is an important part of self-expression and is ultimately a social activity.
Assistant Curator Kerry Grist charts how it became possible to record sound, how we can listen to music performed a century ago and picks some of her favourite recordings that have been preserved in the Science Museum Group Collection.
To mark the start of Black History Month in the UK, Assistant Director & Head Curator Andrew McLean explores the legacy of Asquith Xavier, who successfully fought to become the first black worker employed as a train guard at London Euston station in 1966. This post is part of our Open for All series.