There's a very magical thing going on at Te Papa at the moment: they're thawing a colossal squid so they can examine it, and the general public are able to participate. For one thing, Te Papa are live blogging — melting ice:

The colossal squid specimen has been slowly thawing overnight. Shortly we will assess how far it has progressed and add another tonne of ice, as the temperature of the water has been creeping up and is above 8 degrees centigrade.

[Via Te Papa's Blog: melting ice.]

Just in the last 24 hours (28 and 29 April 2008) there have been about 23 blog posts with small and large updates, photos, squid information. Then there are the live cams, with some (erratic) audio:

• Wide angle camera
• Dissection table
• Thawing bath - fixed camera
• Thawing bath - scanning camera

See my blog post about how to view the video, if you're not sure: How to watch the colossal squid webcast.

The TV News crews have been there, radio interviews are available via podcast and a film crew is creating a documentary.

TV, radio and even documentary are all old-school, but the live webcams and the live blogging really allow the general public to engage and participate. It's all very exciting, especially in this era when science is somewhat overlooked.

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