Here’s the first of this year’s series of pictures proving that our Christmas tree is all about SCIENCE!!! (which, for the record, needs to be said like it’s in a Thomas Dolby song). Some of these will eventually get kind of obscure, but we’ll start with an easy one:
This little guy, obviously, stands for the life sciences and evolution.
Why evolution? Well, because he’s an iguana, and they’re found in the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin did all that work, back in the day.
Also, we got him (her? it’s hard to tell…) at the Darwin exhibit at the science museum in Boston.
You can’t see it very well in this picture, but the ornament is articulated– the tail and body are made of overlapping segments, and can be bent around almost in a circle. It’s not inherently Christmasy (in fact, I’m not 100% certain is was intended to be an ornament), but it’s a little glittery articulated iguana, and who wouldn’t want one of those?
The blue-and-white thing in the background is a blown-glass ornament that I made at the Corning Glass Museum a couple of years ago. “Blown glass” makes it sound like it ought to be fragile, but in fact, it weighs a ton. Glass is kind of science-y, too– lenses and mirrors and beakers and flasks– so there’s some bonus extra science content for you.