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.
A collection of over 10 million shells housed at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences is being used by scientists to better understand historical levels of environmental contamination in the Gulf of Mexico. The collection, dating back to 1812, includes more than 100 oyster shells collected from the Gulf between 1887 and 1960. Shells can serve […]
Botanic Gardens Conservation International — US, United States Botanic Garden, and Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum are conducting an important survey to document all living plant collections in North America as part of a regional and global assessment. Survey organizers thank those who have already contributed their collection’s taxa list to the PlantSearch database, and encourage […]
Two recent publications on pollution in National Parks utilized natural history collections to establish baselines of environmental contamination. Published in the June 15 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, the studies found that pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were prevalent throughout National Parks in the western United States. “I think what continues to surprise […]
On June 23, 2010, the NSC Alliance sent a letter to Senate committee staff working to develop the chamber’s version of the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act. In short, the NSC Alliance requested that the Senate clarify and expand the provisions of Section 121 in the House-passed version of the legislation. The letter references […]
President Obama wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on June 18 to request a number of changes to his administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2011. Among the amendments was a request to increase the FY 2011 budget for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to $265,869,000, an increase of $313,000 over […]
On June 18, 2010, the NSC Alliance wrote to Representative Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) to thank her for recognizing the importance of scientific collections to our capacity to understand how the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will influence the biological systems of the Gulf of Mexico. Bordallo is Chair of the House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans […]
The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife held a hearing on June 15 to consider the state of environmental science in the Gulf of Mexico. The Subcommittee heard testimony about scientific needs related to the BP oil spill response from representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United […]
Delegates to the United Nations have given a green light to a plan to establish a new international panel to review the science underpinning policy decisions on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will be charged with “bridg[ing] the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge […]
The biological collections community has finalized a strategic plan to digitize and mobilize images and data associated with biological research collections. The ten year, national effort is the product of two workshops held at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in 2010, as well as surveys of 291 federal and approximately 600 federally supported collections. The […]
On 28 May 2010, the House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act. The legislation aims to stimulate innovation and improve science education by increasing funding authorizations for federal agencies that support basic research. The bill was passed by a vote of 262 to 150, which marked the end of a long and politically […]