When: Oct. 4–5

Where: Various museums in Los Angeles

What: This year’s free-for-all features 23 Los Angeles museums granting free admission to all visitors. Some museums are free on both days, while others are free on either one or the other.

Scoop: For museum lovers, it doesn’t get much better than seeing the masterworks of Van Gogh, Goya, Lichtenstein and Warhol — except if it’s free. It’s a chance to catch favorites such as the Natural History Museum or the Hammer Museum without opening your wallet. For a complete list, visit www.museumsla.org.

Philadelphia- First Lady Laura Bush will award The Franklin Institute the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor for museums and libraries, at a White House ceremony on October 7. Each year, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in coordination with the White House, presents the National Medal to five museums and five libraries that have helped make their communities better places to live. In addition to the National Medal, each winning institution receives a $10,000 award. IMLS awards the National Medal to 10 institutions annually for outstanding community outreach programs. The Franklin Institute  received the award for its Community Nights program, which invites people to stay in the museum after hours and attend special activities and educational programs; its Science Leadership Academy (SLA), an innovative magnet high school created in partnership with the City of Philadelphia; and its Partnerships for Achieving Careers in Technology and Science (PACTS) program that enrolls underserved grade-school students from the Philadelphia area in after-school and summer-based science education programming.   Through these and other initiatives, The Franklin Institute is able to fulfill its mission of instilling a passion for learning about science and technology in its visitors.

“This medal award is a wonderful recognition of The Franklin Institute’s success in the service to our community.  We are thrilled to create a passion for learning about science and technology in a myriad of ways, and it is truly gratifying to receive such an honor,” said Dr. Dennis Wint, President and CEO of The Franklin Institute.

“The Franklin Institute remains one of Philadelphia’s most-beloved cultural treasures and a paramount educational resource to the area and the country,” said Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania).  “As Pennsylvania’s most visited museum, a top-ten science center in the nation, and a national leader in community education, I congratulate the Franklin Institute on this momentous achievement.”

 “By its example, the Franklin Institute shows us the kind of influence and impact that museums can have on community life. Through its innovative programs and active partnerships, the Institute addresses the urgent and changing needs of the community it serves,” said Anne-Imelda M. Radice, IMLS Director.

An archaeological site in Donje Mostre, in the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramid, has unveiled a Neolithic artefact that has been dated to 6000-3000 BC.

The discovery was made by students of the German University of Kiel on September 23, and was announced by Zilke Kujundžic, who is actually one of the main opponents to the pyramid project, having filed numerous petitions for the work to be stopped, claiming the entire project is a hoax. We need to specify she actually labelled the object a pyramid.

The small ceramic pyramid – in some reports also referred to as a benben stone, because of apparent visual similarities with such stones in Egypt – is a major discovery, showing that local people, millennia ago, created ceramic objects in the shape of a pyramid. One can only wonder why, noting that Donje Mostre is also the location where giant rectangular stone blocks have been found, some of which are definitely manmade.

Nevertheless, being the extreme (one might argue irrational) critic she is, Kujundžic has refused to admit she might be wrong, stating that the find is not related to the nearby pyramids. Meanwhile, Kujundžic was also accused of not having shared the discovery with the local Visoko museum.

It is no doubt divine irony that some of the best archaeological evidence for the reality of the pyramids, has been unearthed by one of its fiercest opponents.