Natural Science Collections Alliance
Our members are part of an international community of museums, botanical gardens, herbariums, universities and other institutions that house natural science collections and utilize them in research, exhibitions, academic and informal science education, and outreach activities.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has announced the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) plan to reorganize its bureaus into 12 unified regions. The proposed management re-design establishes new regional divisions based on the boundaries of states and watersheds, including a California-Great Basin Region, a Lower Colorado Basin Region, an Upper Colorado Basin Region, and Mississippi Basin […]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Board on Life Sciences (BLS) is seeking experts to serve on a committee that will review the contributions of biological collections in research and education. The expert panel will examine both living organisms and preserved biodiversity specimens that are supported by the National Science Foundation. The […]
The NSC Alliance Board of Directors recognizes that there are a growing number of policy issues confronting the natural science collections community. To more effectively engage in these issues and to support more coordinated community action related to matters of funding, regulation, research and training, among other issues, the NSC Alliance is convening a meeting […]
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) will offer its Communications Training Boot Camp for Scientists this October 15-16, 2018. Students and staff affiliated with NSC Alliance member institutions are eligible to receive a significant discount off of the regular program registration rate. The AIBS Communications Training Boot Camp for Scientists was designed to enhance […]
A new article entitled, Digitizing Specimens-Legal Issues Abound, will appear in the September issue of the journal BioScience. The article is currently available as an Advance Access publication. The article examines legal issues arising from the digitization of museum specimens and making them publicly available, including ownership of images and data and the ability to […]
According to a report from WESA, Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History will begin digitizing its collection of plant specimens. About one third of the herbarium’s over 500,000 specimens will be scanned to high-resolution photographs and made available through a search engine, which contains data and images of plants from hundreds […]
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released a joint proposal to make significant revisions to regulations that implement the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and are inviting comments from the public for a period of 60 days. ESA was enacted in 1973 with the goal of […]
The Senate has passed a second appropriations package for fiscal year (FY) 2019, including the funding for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies; Financial Services and General Government; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies; and Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. This marked the first time since FY 2010 that […]
President Trump has nominated Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, a meteorologist and Vice President for Research at the University of Oklahoma, to be the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Droegemeier will serve as the President’s chief science adviser. The Director of OSTP advises the […]
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) have introduced bicameral legislation, the Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act of 2018, that would give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) greater authority to regulate nonnative species and prohibit them from being imported or sold in the United States. Presently, more than 200 species […]