Science
A New Dinosaur Museum Rises From a Hole in the Ground in New Jersey
Ten years ago, this was just a big hole in the ground behind a Lowe’s home improvement store in southern New Jersey, an unlikely place to find what might be one of the world’s most important fossil sites.
But 66 million years ago, tantalizingly close in time to when the dinosaurs went extinct, a multitude of sea creatures died here — a “mass death assemblage” — and sank to the bottom of what was then a shallow sea.
Because of its prehistoric past as a possible mass extinction gravesite, the hole that was once a quarry has become the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum.
Built in Mantua, N.J., about 20 miles from Philadelphia, the museum welcomed its first paying customers this past weekend. For Kenneth Lacovara, a professor of paleontology and geology at nearby Rowan University and the museum’s executive director, it is the culmination of a decade of work.
“We’re doing so much here that I think has never been done in any museum,” said Dr. Lacovara, best known in paleontology for the discovery of Dreadnoughtus, one of the largest dinosaurs ever.
The fossils come with a hard-to-miss message from Dr. Lacovara, one that makes direct connections between the mass extinction 66 million years ago and today’s rapidly changing climate, which is putting many species in danger of dying out.
The museum’s motto is “Discover the past, protect the future.”
“That’s really the thrust of this place,” Dr. Lacovara said. “We need to act, and we need to act now, and every day of inaction or worse, every day that we go backwards, is a burden that we are placing on future generations.”
For decades, the Inversand Company had scooped from the quarry a dark greenish sand called marl, used for the treatment of water and soil. Tightened environmental regulations turned the site into a money loser, and Inversand looked to close it.
Mantua had hoped that a developer would turn the pit into more suburban homes and shopping. But the Great Recession stalled those plans, and the quarry remained a hole in the ground.
The mining of marl had exposed prehistoric sediments that extend throughout this part of South Jersey, but are typically inconveniently buried more than 40 feet underground.
Dr. Lacovara, then at Drexel University in Philadelphia, had started visiting the site, which included a fossil-laden layer that appeared to coincide with the mass extinction 66 million years ago. Fossils of anything that died that day are scant within the extinction layer, because the conditions needed to preserve bones are rare.
“This is something that I personally and lots of other paleontologists have been looking for all around the world,” said Dr. Lacovara, adding that he had sought such a layer in southern Patagonia, the foothills of the Himalayas and elsewhere.
“And I found it behind the Lowe’s in New Jersey,” he said.
More than 100,000 fossils representing 100 species have been carefully excavated from the quarry and cataloged.
Until the pandemic, the site opened once a year to the public for a community fossil dig, allowing people to collect fossils from sediments above the mass extinction layer.
Rowan University bought the site in 2015 for just under $2 million and lured Dr. Lacovara, who had graduated from the school when it was known as Glassboro State College, to join its faculty as the dean of the new School of Earth and Environment. Rowan also bought into Dr. Lacovara’s vision of building a museum.
“This is going to be a place to motivate young minds to become scientists,” Ali Houshmand, the president of Rowan, said in remarks at the start of the media tour.
Jean and Ric Edelman, founders of a financial advisory firm and also graduates of Glassboro State, contributed $25 million of the $75 million Rowan needed to build it.
“We immediately recognized that this had the potential to be a world-class destination,” Mr. Edelman said.
There is plenty of what one would expect to find in a dinosaur museum, which overlooks the fossil site in the former quarry. Near the ticket kiosks are skeletons of creatures that lived along the east coast of North America during the Cretaceous period. A mosasaur, a ferocious marine reptile, hangs from the ceiling, and a Dryptosaurus, a relative of T. rex, poses menacingly.
The museum highlights how some of the earliest dinosaur discoveries were made in New Jersey. The first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton — a duck-billed hadrosaur — was dug up in a quarry in Haddonfield in 1858. Dryptosaurus was the first tyrannosaur to be discovered, in 1866, just a mile from the museum.
Visitors walk a winding path through three galleries in the museum.
In the first gallery, an introductory movie provides perspective on just how mind-bogglingly old our planet is.
If the 4.5-billion-year history of Earth were a 1,000-page book, the entire 10,000 years of human civilization would be covered by just the last word on the last page. That sense of “deep time” is meant to set up visitors for an understanding of how unnaturally quickly Earth’s climate is changing now.
Life-size re-creations of dinosaurs, big and not so big, fill the gallery. In the warmth of the late Cretaceous, sea levels were much higher and North America was a series of islands. In one, a big, angry plant-eater known as Astrodon stomps a juvenile meat-eater, Acrocanthosaurus, to death.
“We want to show the gritty underbelly of the dinosaur world,” Dr. Lacovara said.
The next gallery highlights the marine creatures that lived in the seas here, including sea turtles, sharks and saber-toothed salmon. This part of New Jersey was about 70 feet underwater and 15 to 30 miles offshore. “In this gallery, everything you see here is something that was found on the property,” Dr. Lacovara said.
That includes the fearsome mosasaurs.
“I would say it’s a statistical near certainty that at some point in time, a mosasaur of this size was at that exact location,” Dr. Lacovara said, pointing to a re-creation of the creature.
Visitors then enter the Hall of Extinction and Hope. It shows the devastation that enveloped Earth after an asteroid struck the Gulf of Mexico off the Yucatán Peninsula, the fifth mass extinction in the planet’s history.
Then it turns to the present, which many other scientists describe as the sixth extinction as species struggle to adapt to the changes humans have made to the planet, including the destruction of habitats and global warming spurred by the rise in greenhouse gases released from the burning of fossil fuels.
One interactive exhibit shows the sharp rise in global temperatures over the past few centuries and allows a visitor to compare that curve with possible natural causes like sunspots, volcanic eruptions and cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit.
“None of those things explain the temperature variation,” Dr. Lacovara said.
But the simultaneous rise of temperature and greenhouse gases are “almost an exact correlation,” he said. “So at that point, you can draw your own conclusions.”
He said he wanted people to learn by examining the data themselves. “Not everybody is going to connect the dots,” Dr. Lacovara said, “but if they’re inclined to, our job is to help.”
At the last station, kiosks offer visitors information about how they can take action to offset climate change. “Because hope without action is really despair,” Dr. Lacovara said. “You’re all set up to make a positive change in the world before you walk out the doors of the museum.”
How might this message play in a time when President Trump calls climate change a hoax and his administration is dismantling projects and research aiming to move away from fossil fuels?
“I guess we’ll see when the museum opens,” said Kelly Stoetzel, the managing director who oversees the day-to-day running of the museum. It expects to draw 200,000 visitors a year.
She said she was interested in hearing the reactions of visitors who are skeptical that the planet is undergoing rapid changes.
“When they come in and they learn the science, can they be convinced to consider something different?” Ms. Stoetzel said. “Maybe.”
For Dr. Lacovara, the message is simple. “You can’t love what you don’t know,” he said. “And we’re hoping to make people fall in love with this amazing planet that we have so that they take action to protect it.”
The museum’s learn-by-doing ethos will allow visitors to become paleontologists for a day. For an extra fee, from May through October, visitors will be able to dig through the quarry sands for fossils that they can take home.
The museum also includes fun flourishes. Take the elevator between its two floors, and you’ll hear a snippet of popular singers of the 1950s and 1960s like Dean Martin, whose given name was Dino. Thus, “dino lounge” music.
At the entrance is the pronouncement, “This facility is smoke-free, weapons-free and asteroid free (for the last 66 million years).”
Dr. Lacovara is also proud of the glass used for the exterior windows, because it keeps modern-day dinosaurs — birds — from fatally flying into them.
“What I really love about it is, it relies on evolutionary principles,” Dr. Lacovara said.
The eyes of the first vertebrate animals, predating both mammals and dinosaurs, possessed four color receptors — for red, blue, green and ultraviolet light.
Birds, which are dinosaurs that survived the mass extinction, still have ultraviolet receptors in their eyes. They see images of spider webs that are imprinted on the museum’s glass, and they safely fly away.
“If you come up and you catch just the right angle, you can kind of see it,” Dr. Lacovara said.
Mammals, however, lost the ability to see ultraviolet light, because when they arose more than 200 million years ago, they were small creatures that scurried about at night — better not to be seen and eaten by the dinosaurs. There is not a lot of ultraviolet light at night, and in mammals, the gene that encodes that receptor in the eye was co-opted by the olfactory system.
As a result, mammals tend to have a good sense of taste and smell but cannot see ultraviolet light.
“To us mammals, this looks like clear glass,” Dr. Lacovara said. “And I know this because the forklift truck driver who drove through one of these panes was a mammal.”
With the museum now open, Dr. Lacovara hopes to turn his attention toward proving that the mass death assemblage in the quarry pit indeed consists of animals killed in the planet-wide cataclysm that followed the asteroid strike.
That has been hard to settle, however, because creatures burrowing in the sea bottom churned up the sediments. As a result, the marker of the extinction — a layer containing substantial amounts of iridium, an element concentrated in asteroids and comets — is fuzzy.
“It’s almost like looking through a shower door at something,” Dr. Lacovara said.
He said he had all the data he needed, but work on the museum had not left him time to finish writing the papers.
“This has been all-consuming,” Dr. Lacovara said.
After years of heated debates among fire officials, scientists and local advocates, California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection released new proposed landscaping rules for fire-prone areas Friday that outline what residents can and can’t do within the first 5 feet of their homes.
Many of these proposed rules — designed to reduce the risk of a home burning down amid a wildfire — have wide support (or at least acceptance); however, the most contentious by far has been whether the state would allow healthy plants in the zone.
Many fire officials and safety advocates have essentially argued anything that can burn, will burn and have supported removing virtually anything capable of combustion from this zone within 5 feet of houses, dubbed “Zone Zero.” They point to the string of devastating urban wildfires in recent years as reason to move quickly.
Yet, researchers who study the array of benefits shade and extra foliage can bring to neighborhoods — and local advocates who are worried about the money and labor needed to comply with the regulations — have argued that this approach goes beyond what current science shows is effective. They have, instead, generally been in favor of allowing green, healthy plants within the zone.
The new draft regulations attempt to bridge the gap. They outline more stringent requirements to remove all plants in a new “Safety Zone” within a foot of the house and within a bigger buffer around potential vulnerabilities in a home’s wildfire armor, including windows that can shatter in extreme heat and wooden decks that can easily burst into flames. Everywhere else, the rules would allow residents to maintain some plants, although still with significant restrictions.
The rules generally do not require the removal of healthy trees — instead, they require giving these trees routine haircuts.
Once the state adopts a final version of the rules, homeowners would have three years to get their landscaping in order and up to five years for the bigger asks, including removing all vegetation from the Safety Zone and updating combustible fencing and sheds within 5 feet of the home. New constructions would have to comply immediately.
The rules only apply to areas with notable fire hazard, including urban areas that Cal Fire has determined have “very high” fire hazard and rural wildlands.
Officials with the Board will meet in Calabasas on Thursday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. to discuss the new proposal and hear from residents.
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Some L.A. residents are championing a proposed fire-safety rule, referred to as “Zone Zero,” requiring the clearance of flammable material within the first five feet of homes. Others are skeptical of its value.
Where is the Safety Zone?
The proposed Safety Zone with stricter requirements to remove all vegetation would extend 1 foot from the exterior walls of a house.
In a few areas with heightened vulnerabilities to wildfires, it extends further.
The Safety Zone covers any land under the overhang of roofs. If the overhang extends 3 feet, so does the Safety Zone in that area. It also extends 2 feet out from any windows, doors and vents, as well as 5 feet out from attached decks.
What plants would be allowed in the Safety Zone?
Generally, nothing that can burn can sit in the Safety Zone. This includes mulch, green grass, bushes and flowers.
What plants would be allowed in the rest of Zone Zero?
Homeowners can keep grasses (and other ground-covers, like moss) in this area, as long as it’s trimmed down to no taller than 3 inches.
The rules also allow small plants — from begonias to succulents — up to 18 inches tall as long as they are spaced out in groups. Residents can also keep spaced-out potted plants under this height, as long as they’re easily movable.
What about fences, trees and gates?
Any sheds or other outbuildings would need noncombustible exterior walls and roofs in Zone Zero — Safety Zone or not.
Residents would have to replace the first five feet of any combustible fencing or gates attached to their house with something made out of a noncombustible material, such as metal.
Trees generally would be allowed in Zone Zero. Homeowners would need to keep any branches one foot away from the walls, five feet above the roof and 10 feet from chimneys.
Residents would also have to remove any branches from the lower third of the tree (or up to 6 feet, whichever is shorter) to prevent fires on the ground from climbing into the canopy.
Some trees with trunks directly up against a house in this 1-foot buffer or under the roof’s overhang might need to go — since keeping branches away from the home could prove difficult (or impossible).
However, the board stressed it wants to avoid the removal of trees whenever feasible and encouraged homeowners to work with their local fire department’s inspectors to find case-by-case solutions.
What’s new and what’s not
Some of the rules discussed in Zone Zero are not new — they’ve been on the books for years, classified as requirements for Zone One, extending 30 feet from the home with generally less strict rules, and Zone Two, extending 100 feet from the house with the least strict rules.
For example, homeowners are already required to remove any dead or dying grasses, plants and trees. They also have to remove leaves, twigs and needles from gutters, and they already cannot keep exposed firewood in piles next to their house.
Residents are also already required to keep grasses shorter than 4 inches; Zone Zero lowers this by an inch.
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By Jorge Mitssunaga
April 17, 2026
Science
1,200% jump in kratom-related calls to poison control centers in last decade, analysis shows
Over the last decade, poison control centers around the country have received tens of thousands of calls from consumers of kratom products reporting adverse and life-threatening health effects, with researchers saying reports in 2025 reached a new level. California’s poison center is reporting similar findings.
Last month, researchers analyzed information from the National Poison Data System and found that between 2015 and 2025, poison control centers across the nation received 14,449 calls related to kratom. More than 23% of those calls, or 3,434, were made last year, according to a published report in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That represents a more than 1,200% increase from 2015, when only 258 calls were reported.
Officers gather illegally grown kratom plants in 2019 in Phang Nha province, Thailand. The country decriminalized the possession and sale of kratom in 2021.
(Associated Press)
Kratom is derived from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a tree native to Southeast Asia. It has a long history of being used for chronic pain or to boost energy and in the U.S., research points to Americans also using it to alleviate anxiety. In low doses, kratom appears to act as a stimulant but in high doses, it can have effects more like opioids.
But in the last few years, a synthetic form of kratom refined for its psychoactive compound, 7-hydroxymitragynine or 7-OH, has entered the market that is highly concentrated and not clearly labeled, leading to confusion and problems for consumers. The synthetic form gaining momentum in the market is sparking concern among public health officials because of its ability to bind to opioid receptors in the body, causing it to have a higher potential for abuse.
Los Angeles County leaders, meanwhile, have grappled with differentiating the two and regulating the products that come in the form of powder, capsules and drinks and have been linked to six county deaths. Sales of kratom and 7-OH products were banned in the county in November.
In reviewing the data, which did not differentiate whether callers had consumed natural or synthetic kratom, researchers set out to understand the effect of what they believe is a “rapidly evolving kratom market,” and highlight the role poison centers can play as an early warning surveillance system to detect new trends.
National Poison Data System findings
The data showed that over the last 10 years, 62% of the kratom-related calls to poison control centers were from people who said they consumed the drug by itself, and the other 38% were from people who combined it with another substance or substances.
Those who consumed kratom with another substance combined it most frequently with one or a combination of the following: alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines (like Xanax or Valium), cannabis and cannabinoids, stimulants and antidepressants.
The data also broke down hospitalizations related to kratom — adults who took it alone or in combination and experienced “adverse” health effects; and adults who took it alone or in combination and experienced more serious “moderate” or “major” health effects, including death.
Kratom powder products are displayed in a smoke shop in Los Angeles in 2024.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
Hospitalizations for adults who had consumed kratom alone and experienced adverse effects increased from 43 in 2015 to 538 in 2025. For those who took it in combination and were hospitalized with an adverse health effect, the total jumped from 40 in 2015 to 549 last year.
The numbers were even higher for hospitalizations where the health effects were more serious or fatal.
In 2015, there were 76 reports of people being hospitalized after taking kratom alone and experiencing a serious health effect or dying. By last year, that number had climbed to 919. The reports of serious health effects, including death, for those who took kratom in combination with another substance grew from 51 in 2015 to 725 last year.
The research does not break down kratom-related deaths by year but states that there were 233 deaths over the 10-year study period, or just over 3% of all 7,287 serious medical outcomes. Of the total number of kratom-related deaths, 184 cases involved the consumption of multiple substances.
What California’s poison control system found in its state data
The California Poison Control System is currently reviewing its data concerning kratom-related calls but an initial analysis shows parallels to the national report, said Rais Vohra, medical director of the state poison control system.
“We have about 10% of the national population and about 10% of the national call volume with poison control,” Vohra said. “And so, not surprisingly, we were able to identify over 900 cases of calls related to kratom in that same period.”
Local researchers are still deciphering the state data but they too have found that kratom-related calls are climbing.
“It’s accelerating, which I think is one of the main points of the [published] report,” Vohra said.
A majority of calls received by poison control come from healthcare facilities where “presumably someone has a problem … severe enough to warrant calling 911 or going to the emergency room, and that’s when our agency gets involved,” Vohra said.
Kait Brown, clinical managing director for America’s Poison Control Centers, said the fact that kratom and 7-OH are federally unregulated products sold online, in gas stations and smoke shops gives people across the country easy access.
And while kratom enthusiasts maintain that it has been used in its natural form for hundreds of years, “there are new formulations that are a little bit different than how people have used it, at least historically,” said William Eggleston, a pharmacist and the assistant clinical director of the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse.
People are no longer consuming kratom only as a powder or capsule but also in the form of an energy shot or extract; it’s similar for synthetic, more concentrated 7-OH products.
When regional poison centers compare their findings and experiences with the analysis of calls in the National Poison Data System, Eggleston said, “undeniably there is an increase in calls related to kratom.”
“But when you put it in the bigger perspective of all the calls … this is still a very small percentage of what we’re dealing with on a day to day basis,” he said.
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