Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Address   1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028

Hours     Sunday-Tuesday and Thursday: 10 am-5 pm

Friday and Saturday: 10 am-9 pm

Wednesday: Closed

General Admission Prices

$25 for adults; $17 for seniors; $12 for students.

Free for members and children under 12.

Three Membership Possibilities

*$110 per year: membership for one adult and free admission for one guest per visit.

*$210 per year: membership for two adults and free admission for two guests per visit.

*$600 per year: membership for two adults and free admission for four guests per visit.

Join today and take a free guest or free guests on every visit, and enjoy special access to new exhibitions, discounts on shopping, and so on.

Group Visits

Advance reservations are required for all adult and student groups of 10 or more, and for any third- party guided tour, regardless of size.

In addition, we ask that all groups visiting the museum follow the guidelines below:

*Membership and other discounts do not apply to group admission.

*All individuals lecturing in the galleries must make a request for a lecture badge (徽章). A lecture badge is only available to groups that have made a reservation in advance.

*The staff of the museum lecturing in the galleries have the right to be given attention first.

Please give way to tours and programs led by the museum.

*Lecturing is not allowed in special exhibitions.

If you have questions, please contact us at mettours@metmuseum.org.

Chinese scientists say they have developed a robotic fish that can remove microplastic particles from water environments. Researchers working on the project say the robots could help to clean up plastic pollution in oceans around the world.

The robotic swimmers are about 1.3 centimeters long. They are made of a soft chemical Compound. The robots are designed to absorb microplastics while moving through the water. The project was launched by a team at Sichuan University in southwestern China. The researchers said the robots have already performed well in shallow water and they plan to carry out more tests in deeper waters. The scientists reported their findings in a new study in Nano Letters. The publication comes from the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit organization supported by the U.S. Congress. The robotic fish were built to target microplastic particles, which are smaller than five millimeters. Studies have confirmed that microplastic pollution has been discovered in many natural environments. The material comes from the breakdown of manufactured plastic products and industrial waste.

The team said the robots can be controlled by light. Turning “a near-infrared light laser” on and off causes the fish’s tail to move back and forth, the American Chemical Society said. The robotic fish can swim up to 2.76 body lengths per second. The researchers said this is faster than most similar soft robots. Wang Yuyan was a member of Sichuan University’s research team. She told Reuters news agency that the small, lightweight robot is currently being used to collect microplastics for research purposes. But Wang added that the team plans to expand that use so the robot fish can remove larger amounts of microplastic waste from deep ocean areas. The fish can take in different kinds of microplastics and even repair itself when damaged, the researchers said. And if a robot fish is accidentally eaten by a real fish, it could safely digest the material, the team added. Wang said similar robots could be developed to be placed inside the human body to remove unwanted materials or disease.

A strong hit to the head will normally give you a concussion (脑震荡). Woodpeckers (啄木鸟), however, strike their beaks into trees thousands of times a day and are perfectly fine.

We used to think that a woodpecker’s skull worked as a kind of safety helmet which absorbed the shocks. A new study by Sam Van Wassenbergh, a researcher at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, proved that this “common sense” was in fact false.

Van Wassenbergh and his colleagues argued that, if a woodpecker’s head absorbed the force, it would not be able to strike the tree with enough force.

“If the beak absorbed much of its own impact, the unfortunate bird would have to pound even harder,” they said in their paper. In other words, if the theory were true, the woodpecker would have to peck even harder to compensate for both the shock-absorbing qualities of the sponge-like bone inside its skull as well as the density of the wood.

The scientists recorded four different kinds of woodpeckers in zoos as they were pecking. The team used data from their high-speed recordings to build digital models of the woodpeckers. Van Wassenbergh described the woodpeckers’ motion as “a hammer hitting wood” since their movement appeared rigid and focused.

The research suggested that woodpeckers don’t have any shock-absorbing device or the ability to reduce the amount of force. Although they are without “helmets”, the team claimed that the woodpeckers’ tiny size and weight protect them.

A woodpecker’s brain is about 700 times smaller than that of a human. “Smaller animals can withstand higher decelerations (减速). Think about a fly that hits a window and then just flies back again,” Van Wassenbergh said. “So that is why even the hardest hits we observed are not expected to cause any concussion.”