Behind the Scenes at the AMNH

Once in a while, the American Museum of Natural History stays open late, giving people the opportunity to see if Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson really do hang out there after hours. Being there after dark --- and being led through doors that say "No Access" --- produces an unhemlich feeling, kind of like visiting your elementary school as an adult.

Only 1% of the museum's collection is actually on display --- the rest  is buried in back, being worked on by dedicated souls in white  coats. In the so-called Big Bone Room, we got to see hundreds of tons of specimens, including 24 oviraptor eggs and a 70 million-year-old impression of dinosaur skin. "You can touch it," the curator said. "Just don't molest it." In the lab where fossils are prepared, we were shown the jaw of a newly discovered species, so newly discovered, in fact, that we weren't allowed to take pictures, just in case one of us decided to scoop the curators and sell images to Nature. And we held a 90 million-year-old tooth, dark brown, serrated, and heart-poundingly shaped like a blade.
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