Stories

Welcome to Stories, a place to explore—and be inspired by—the wonder of our natural and cultural worlds.

Playing With Fire: Extinction Scene 4
Extinction and Survival at La Brea Tar Pits
Groundbreaking new research from La Brea Tar Pits curators finds that in California, 13,000 years ago, huge Ice Age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change.
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Project Phoenix Icon Green for featured image
Wildfire Smoke and Birds
A Q&A with Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, Director of Project Phoenix
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Life reconstruction of fire at La Brea Tar Pits during the Pleistocene as bison are stuck during a wildfire
Why Did the Ice Age Titans Go Extinct?
A new study reveals that human impacts in an environment made fire-prone by climate change and herbivore loss led to large mammals vanishing from southern California.
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Research and Collections
Jurassic Perks
How Jurassic Park helped spark a boom in new dinosaur discoveries
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Hamlin with Guy Irwin, 1907 Riding in a Franklin Automobile
Start Your Engines
Cruise through automobile history in a behind-the-scenes look at our vintage image collection of L.A.’s early driving scene.
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UNLAB Mentees 2023 Group
Naturalist
How Our Museum Grows
A unique and transformative museum mentorship program about biodiversity begins
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CoachArt Design
Imagination Collaboration
CoachArt Kids and NHM's Performing Artists team up for dino-mite workshops.
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Green returning to the Angeles National Forest in Southern California six months after the Station Fire.
Where There's Smoke
A look at what we know and don't know about how growing wildfires impact our natural world, and how we can learn to cope
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