Can ancient dinosaur and giant salamander bones be sexier than Las Vegas gambling? A new learning lab hopes so

Tourists come to Las Vegas to get married, party, gamble — and sometimes all of the above. So how can a bunch of bones that are millions of years old compete? One Las Vegas museum hopes to bring the thrill factors to natural history with a new, hands-on laboratory.

Guests who witness Dr. Josh Bonde at work may not feel like they’ve arrived in Jurassic Park, but the paleontologist hopes they’ll be awed by a visit to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum.

The museum’s new learning lab, which opened in early October, doesn’t just have a bunch of bones and fossils resting in glass cases. The relics are on workbenches, where guests can touch them and learn about studies being done by grad students from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where Bonde is an assistant professor of geoscience.

“[The lab] makes the museum an active participant in natural science,” Bonde says. “I don’t think you can adequately tell the story of science unless you’re doing it.”

While previous finds unearthed in Nevada have mostly left the state for study elsewhere, the natural history museum is now the state’s official repository of ancient artifacts. Many of the remains from the Las Vegas area are real eye-openers.

“We currently have a number of projects we’re working on,” Bonde explains. “We’re working on 100-million-year-old dinosaurs from Valley of Fire State Park. We’re working on 230-million-old giant salamander-like animals from Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. We’re working on fossils from the new Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument.”

Bonde said he and his students are making a serious effort to explain in lay terms what the museum is all about. He strives to be engaging, not boring.

“Sadly, there is that stigma … that you’re looking at a bunch of dioramas of taxidermy and things like that. But I think natural history museums in general are making steps to be more interactive,” Bonde says.

The museum is located at 900 Las Vegas Blvd. North, Las Vegas, Nev. (702-384-3466). It’s open daily 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission costs $10 for adults, $8 for students and seniors, and $5 for children 3-11.

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