In February, Assistant Curator for Exhibitions, Lily Hayward, took the Year 5s of North London’s Frith Manor School on a trip to the depths of outer space. The students had already been learning about the planets and the Moon in their science classes, so it was time for them to learn about the realities of living in space.   First, they blasted off to the space stations to discover what life is like in low Earth orbit and how zero-gravity changes the body. From discovering that puffy-face-chicken-leg syndrome is a real medical condition, to making a zero-gravity lunch menu, and learning a ..read more

The X Files has become a cultural touchstone. Starting in 1993 it’s 218 episodes over 11 seasons and 2 feature length films, broke the mould. Its unique aesthetic and complex narrative arcs paved the way for many of the shows we now (binge) watch. Gillian Anderson as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, a role that Anderson won an Emmy for in 1997 The show followed fictional FBI agents Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, and Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, investigating the paranormal. They unravelled alien conspiracies and confronted monsters, everything from half man/half flukeworms to ..read more

The son of two freed slaves, Garrett Morgan was born in Kentucky on 4 March. Like many African Americans, he was unable to continue his education after sixth grade due to racial segregation and a lack of schools for Black people. Instead, aged fourteen, he moved to Cincinnati in the neighbouring state of Ohio where he worked as a handyman. From the age of eighteen he was employed as a sewing machine mechanic; a job which ignited his interest in how things worked. Twelve years later, Morgan opened his own sewing machine shop, and by 1909 ran a clothing manufacturing business. Although Morgan’s ..read more

The achievement of Martin Green, Andrew Blakers, Jianhua Zhao and Aihua Wang in developing Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) technology, will be celebrated alongside previous prize winners in a new gallery, Engineers, opening at the Science Museum on 23 June 2023. The announcement, at Prince Philip House, home of the Royal Academy of Engineering, seemed a fitting end to a day when the Government announced a Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology with a seat at the Cabinet table for the first time in decades, alongside the newly formed Department for Energy Security and ..read more

Born in 1938, in Mount Vernon, New York, Lynn Conway developed an early interest in science and technology as a child – partly born from a love of BBC radio broadcasts. She began a career in engineering and then digital computing, which was undergoing a revolution in the early 1960s.  During this period, computers began to be much more popular in the workplace. With the development of programming languages COBOL and ALGOL, the invention of the mouse, and the use of integrated circuits, the 1960s saw demand for faster and more compact versions of the computer skyrocket.  Lynn Conway i ..read more

Our trail begins on Level 3 and ends on the ground floor. Here we go… Stop 1: Vickers-Supermarine Mk I Spitfire Location: Flight, Level 3 To get to the first stop, travel up to the Flight Gallery on Level 3. Head through the gallery to the cockpit section at ground level then look up. High up over your head you will see two camouflaged WW2 fighter planes with propellers; the lower one is a Vickers-Supermarine Mk I Spitfire plane. Vickers-Supermarine Mk I Spitfire in the Flight Gallery The Spitfire was integral to Britain’s front-line air defence during World War II. One Spitfire pilot was Robe ..read more

Our mission is to inspire the next generation with science and every purchase (large or small) made on our online shop will make a huge difference. Here are some of our can’t-miss items: Science fiction gifts                           sCIENCE FICTION: VOYAGE TO THE EDGE OF IMAGINATION BOOK £30.00 Read the exhibition! To accompany our blockbuster Science Fiction exhibition, we have a gorgeous book published by Thames & Hudson and edited by our very own Glyn Morgan! Across five chapters – and drawing on a wide range of example ..read more

Two years ago, history was made. On 8 December 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to receive a COVID-19 jab outside of a clinical trial. At Coventry University Hospital, she received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine from May Parsons, NHS Matron. This game-changing event features in the Science Museum’s new free exhibition, Injecting Hope: The race for a COVID-19 vaccine. On display is not only the vial of the vaccine administered to Margaret, but also the iconic charity t-shirt she wore to receive it and the uniform May wore to give it.  ‘Margaret Keenan’s v ..read more

Have you ever wondered when our impact on climate was first recorded? 250 years ago today, on 28 November 1772, Luke Howard was born in London. He trained as a pharmacist, but his real passion was studying the weather. He spent his life meticulously recording it and in the 1830s he became the first person to document the impact of human activity on the local climate of cities. Until the 1800s, there was no consistent way of describing and categorising clouds. Ever-changing forms, they were described in poetic terms rather than scientifically classified into different types. All this changed in ..read more

Teams across Wroughton and London took on the challenge of conserving a Cyberman and Dalek. Conservators Sophie Croft and Ruth Nightingale detail their personal encounters with the formidable foes.  Cyberman: A 1980’s Suit fit for a Cyborg  by Sophie Croft  Complete with silver-painted boiler suit, cricket gloves, rubber army boots and infamous side-handled fibre glass helmet, the Cyberman is a sight to behold. Produced in 1988 for the ‘Silver Nemesis’ serial, this member of the Cyber-fleet battled the Doctor in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Cyberman costume as used in the T.V ..read more