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.
Committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate with jurisdiction over science have announced the leadership for their subcommittees. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, announced the new structure and leadership of its subcommittees last month. Freshman Senator John […]
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora or CITES is an international treaty aimed at ensuring that international trade in listed animal and plant species does not threaten their survival. Currently there are 183 Parties to CITES, 182 countries, including the United States, and one regional economic integration organization, […]
On March 1, 2021, NSC Alliance joined forces with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) in highlighting to lawmakers the value of mobilizing biodiversity specimens and data in spurring new scientific discoveries. In the letter to House Science Committee Leadership, the groups bring attention […]
Lawmakers are now working to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package the blueprint for which was adopted by both chambers of Congress on February 5, 2021 in the form of a budget resolution. A budget resolution does not require the President’s signature and serves as a guide to the House and Senate on […]
A new report, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, offers a comprehensive economic framework for biodiversity. It contends that the ongoing biodiversity loss is undermining the productivity, resilience, and adaptability of nature and poses significant risks to the global economy and human well-being. The independent review was commissioned by the UK government and led […]
A new paper published in Nature shows how collections have been used to understand the impacts of recent wildfires on Australian vegetation. The publication, Implications of the 2019-2020 megafires for the biogeography and conservation of Australian vegetation (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21266-5), reports on the biogeographic and taxonomic impact of Australia’s 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires. The authors quantified the […]
Over the past year there have been several exciting conversations about the possibilities of digital representations of the billions of specimens currently held in the world’s natural history collections. Two concepts the Digital Specimen proposed by the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) in Europe and the Extended Specimen emerging from the Biological Collections Network […]
The Florida Museum of Natural History in collaboration with iDigBio and the Natural Science Collections Alliance are hosting the fifth annual Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference virtually on June 7-9, 2021. The conference, Digital Data’s Grand Challenge: Expanding Discovery Across Multiple Domains, will provide an important opportunity to explore digital data tools, techniques, research […]
President-elect Joe Biden has announced that he will nominate Dr. Eric Lander, a geneticist, molecular biologist, and mathematician to serve as the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and his science adviser. According to the announcement, Biden will be elevating the role of science within the White House, including […]
Details about who will serve on and lead key congressional committees with jurisdiction over scientific research and education are emerging. The House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for allocating federal funding, including to federal science agencies and programs, will have new leadership and several new faces. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will succeed Chairwoman Nita […]