51�Թ�

As thick clouds of smoke rolled across Los Angeles in early January, Allison Shultz opened a freezer and took out a stash of pristine white pigeon feathers.

“It’s really weird to be a scientist who studies wildfire smoke,” Shultz said.

At the Natural History Museum, Shultz is well-positioned to compare birds from this era to those exposed to pollutants past.

Shultz gently lifted it from the tray.

Shultz and her colleagues were in the process of developing these methods well before January’s fires broke out.