Alcoholic rats, ribless mice, and genetically modified mosquitoes are among the specimens being presented by Professor Rich Pell and the Center for PostNatural History in the upcoming exhibition “That was then. This is now” at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park. This exhibition explores 10,000 years of human-guided evolution in a fascinating view of items from the collections of the Natural History Museum and the Center for PostNatural History. Each object in “That was then. This is now” is simultaneously a piece of natural history and a post-natural artifact of human culture that embodies human desire, hunger, power, and fear.
On Thursday, February 7, the museum will host a discussion with Professor Pell; Matt Dean, Associate Professor of Molecular and Computational Biology at USC; and Amy Gusick, Associate Curator for Archaeology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “That was then. This is now” is on view February 7 through April 28.