Society member Ricardo Rozzi and colleagues have published a fascinating new virtual exhibition with the Rachel Carson Center: From “Hand Lenses to Telescopes: Exploring the Microcosm and Macrocosm in Chile’s Biocultural Laboratories.” In this exhibition, you can explore both the miniscule and the cosmic, aspects of nature that we might not always consider. The exhibition has also been published in Spanish as “De lupas a telescopios: Explorando el microcosmos y el macrocosmos en los laboratorios bioculturales de Chile.”
Chile is a land drawn with the rhythm of nature itself. It is a natural laboratory that invites us to look up into the macrocosm and down into the microcosm. At both extremes of this long and narrow country, science activities have a major global impact. Today, over 50 percent of the world’s astronomical observations use the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other institutions installed in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Complementarily, at its southern end Chile established the Cape Horn International Center for Global Change Studies and Biocultural Conservation (CHIC) to investigate the microcosms, from the largest organism, planet Earth, to the smallest ones. CHIC explores diverse forms of knowledge and values to understand and protect the biosphere in the context of global socio-environmental change. This virtual exhibition enhances the integration of the sciences, arts, and humanities through a novel partnership with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, inviting visitors to be enchanted across the multiple scales of the cosmos.
