Koshland museum set to open

WASHINGTON, DC—The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will unveil the “Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences on April 23. The museum's aim is to present and explore the oftentimes-controversial science underpinning public policy by displaying exhibits based on the themes of past NAS reports.

The museum is funded primarily through a $25 million gift from former Science editor Daniel Koshland, a professor of cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. An heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune, Koshland made the gift to memorialize his wife Marian, an immunologist and active academy member who died in 1997. Koshland opted for a science museum. “I've always been interested in the public understanding of science,” he told The Scientist.

The museum, whose 6000 square feet is modest compared with the nearby Smithsonian Air and Space and Natural History museums, at 161,000 and 197,000 square feet, respectively. “I tell people ...