Photo courtesy Robert C. Lautman

© Larry Kirkland
Keck Center Lobby (north wall)

(click here to return to Larry Kirkland Keck Center Lobby page)

The theme of our relation to the environment continues in the third wall. The Golden Gate Bridge celebrates both a feat of engineering, as well as the human will to shape the environment.

The internal combustion engine benefits society, but raises myriad problems by burning fossil fuels. The graph shows the continuing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as measured by Charles Keeling, who began taking measurements in the 1950s. One half century later, these clearly show how the burning of oil, coal, and natural gas is altering the earth's atmosphere. A chemical model of octane, a major component of gasoline, casts a shadow on the graph. Other images celebrate our evolving knowledge of the storage and replication of hereditary information, through recognition of Mendel, Darwin, and twentieth century research on DNA.

The finches from the Galápagos Islands are an illustration from the published edition of the diary kept by Charles Darwin during his five-year expedition on the HMS Beagle. From observing the beaks of these birds on neighboring islands, Darwin concluded that the species had evolved to accommodate the varieties of available food.

Among the images inscribed on the double helix of DNA are a chimpanzee (whose DNA is closest to humans), a gingko leaf and a fruit fly. The cast pea-pod commemorates the experiments by the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-84), which led to the conclusion that inherited traits are determined by a combination of genes.

The metal plate on the far right is an x-ray photograph of crystalline DNA obtained by Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958), whose research was crucial in helping James Watson and Francis Crick to discover double-helical structure of DNA in 1953.

(click here to return to Larry Kirkland Keck Center Lobby page)

LOCATION:
Keck Center of the National Academies
500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC
Open to the Public: M – F, 8:30 – 6.