Beautiful, interesting, and unfortunate

I was in DC this weekend and on Sunday went to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. We came in the back door, so one of the first things I saw was this:

This is part of the hyperbolic reef project. You can see more about it at the Smithsonian's site, including a video of the project's founder giving a presentation for TED.

It's hard to tell since I went in tight with the photos, but this installation rises well over my head.

Absolutely gorgeous. Also visited the Human Reunion exhibit. It was a wonderful exhibit, and despite a few occasions of theory being presented as fact, I learned lots of new things I didn't know before, and got to visit a gallery of reproduction prehistoric art,

This looks like a study to me, with the artist working progressively on form and detail.

I love the abstractness of this one, but I'm going to do what all abstract novices do and say that if I let my brain relax it looks a little like the prehistoric Venus form.

  

Not my favorite, probably simply because the poor kangaroo's been shot in the bum.

The signage said this was swimming elk or deer (don't remember which),  but again, this looks more like a study to me.

And rendered myself as a Neanderthal.

I'm warning you, it's not pretty--although maybe another Neanderthal might thing otherwise.

Oh, and don't mind the glasses.

They did get the grey hairs right, though. :-)