The American Museum of Natural History’s popular exhibit Frogs: A Chorus of Colors is open to visitors through January 3, 2010. There are more than 200 live frogs, from the tiny golden mantella frog to the enormous African bullfrog.

We followed Hazel Davies, AMNH’s Manager of Living Exhibits, as she prepped and fed the frogs before visitors arrived. And we caught up with Dr. Christopher Raxworthy, the Museum’s Associate Curator of Herpetology, to find out the role frogs play in our world.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on October 9, 2009.

A spectacular and extremely rare textile, woven from golden-colored silk thread produced by more than one million spiders in Madagascar is now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in the Grand Gallery.

Drawing on the legacy of a French missionary, Jacob Paul Camboué, this contemporary textile measures 11 feet by 4 feet and took four years to make using a painstaking technique.

Hear from Dr. Ian Tattersall, Curator, Division of Anthropology at AMNH, as well as Nicholas Godley, co-creator and owner of the silk along with his partner Simon Peers as they discuss this rare work.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on September 24, 2009.

There’s a scene in the 1960 film Spartacus that captures the mindset of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo — a man that had just suffered years of persecution after being listed as one of the Hollywood Ten. Defeated by the Romans, Spartacus and his rebel army’s lives are threatened unless they give up their fearless leader.

With not a moment of hesitation the entire slave army leaps to their feet and bellows “I’m Spartacus.” Kirk Douglas’ character slowly bows his head, seemingly overwhelmed with emotion. His brotherhood would risk torture and ultimately death just so that Spartacus isn’t singled out. Sadly, such solidarity was a mere Hollywood construct. This ideal was something that Trumbo would never find in real life.

In 1947 Trumbo was one of ten Hollywood writers and directors jailed for refusing to give information to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The government agency was on a mission to expose communists in America. Hollywood became a clear target. Rather than stand as one, some in the creative community decided to single their comrades out when asked to name names.

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In 1909 the American Museum of Natural History’s Herbert Lang and James Chapin embarked on a scientific expedition to the northeastern Belgian Congo. Their trip would ultimately last five and a half years yielding significant zoological and anthropological findings for the museum.

Exactly 100 years later another museum scientist, Dr. Mark Siddall, embarked on an expedition to the neighboring Rwanda. As a curator of invertebrate zoology he travelled to Rwanda in search of leeches — an animal that Lang and Chapin brought back amongst their original findings. Siddall’s research focuses on various aspects of leeches including the compound allowing them to stop blood from clotting and their DNA. In total he collected five distinct species of leeches on this latest trip.

Watch as Siddall traverses Rwanda’s rugged landscape and interacts with the local population in search of the curious blood sucking creatures.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on August 31, 2009.

If you ask Alexis Bledel whether college was a worthwhile experience, you’d discover that without her time at school she might not have become an actress. Now 27, she started out with a focus on writing and directing. “I figured out that I was interested in acting while at NYU,” she told me while discussing her new film, Post Grad.

Unlike many recent college graduates fighting unemployment Bledel has had a fairly easy go of things when it comes to work. She landed the lead role in Girlmore Girls opposite Lauren Graham in 2000. Since then she has gone on to star in the popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies.

In Post Grad Bledel plays Ryden, a young lady just entering the work force and hoping to make a career in book publishing. Ryden lands an interview at her dream company Happerman & Browning, a Los Angeles based publisher — think Random House. But she fails to land the job and is forced to move back in with her family, played by a star cast including Michael Keaton, Carol Burnett and Jane Lynch.

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