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.
Today, NSC Alliance submitted testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. The testimony was in support of $3.5 million in new funding for the Department of the Interior’s Cultural and Scientific Collections program. The FY 2013 budget request would implement a multi-year action plan to address recommendations made by the […]
A new study published online 18 March 2012 in Nature Climate Change uses data from the Pliocene epoch to test how accurately climate models can predict future climate trends. The Pliocene epoch is the time period from 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago, and is believed to resemble most closely, in terms of “sustained global […]
Ten scientific organizations have joined together to sponsor a briefing for congressional policymakers on the economic returns associated with Federal government funding for scientific research. The briefing, “Research That Pays Off: The Economic Benefits of Federally Funded R&D†will be held on Friday, March 16, 2012. Two sessions have been planned. The first session is […]
On 5 March 2012, Dr. John Wingfield, head of the Biological Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation, responded to concerns raised by the collections community about the Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) program. NSC Alliance and several other scientific organizations wrote to Wingfield in late February regarding NSF’s proposal to change the […]
The National Park Service is seeking public comments regarding the collection of information from museums about Native American cultural items in their collections. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) requires museums to compile certain information regarding Native American cultural items in their possession or control, and provide that information to lineal descendants […]
iDigBio, the National Science Foundation funded National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections, is organizing a workshop on specimen digitization to be held on 12 July 2012. The workshop will occur the day after the Botany 2012 conference. The workshop is designed to introduce current and future biological and paleontological specimen collections staff to […]
Determining Cultural Affiliation Review the tools and best practices for determining cultural affiliation as part of the requirements of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Each Federal agency and museum with control over Native American human remains must identify cultural affiliation if it can do so on the basis of reasonable belief. […]
On Friday, 24 February 2012, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) Research Board announced the selection of Dr. Charles “Chuck” A. Wilson to serve as the GoMRI Chief Science Officer. The Chief Science Officer is a new position created by the Research Board to provide scientific and research advice and leadership to the GoMRI. […]
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is offering a $50,000 prize for the winner of the EOL Education Innovation Challenge. This international competition aims to foster development of educational software tools, services, or games using EOL content. The competition will award funding to the most scalable and innovative applications. Target audiences can include the general public, […]
On 13 February 2012, President Obama released his official budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2013. According to the White House, the spending plan would cut the nation’s deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade and would avoid the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts mandated by the debt limit deal reached last August. […]