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.
Daniel Le, the Botany Collection’s Digital Media Specialist at The Field Museum, won Second Place in the Faces of Biology Photo Contest. His photo depicts Allie Stone working with tropical butterflies from the museum’s vast collections. Stone and Le collaborated on a project to digitally image natural history specimens. The Faces of Biology Photo Contest […]
The America Museum of Natural History (AMNH) has created a new video series that will explore the museum’s scientific collections. The first episode of “Shelf Life” highlights the diversity of the 33 million items in the collection. New episodes will premiere monthly at http://www.amnh.org/shelf-life.
The Smithsonian Institution has launched a new initiative to better understand biodiversity genomics. “Our goal is to pioneer novel genomic approaches, integrate them into biological endeavors throughout the Smithsonian and serve as a resource for genomics research around the world,” said Pierre Comizzoli, research biologist and Director of the Grand Challenges Consortia for Science at […]
Three new board members and two incumbent board members have been elected to the NSC Alliance Board of Directors. Dr. Robert J. Baker was re-elected to the Board of Directors. Dr. Baker is Director and Curator of Mammals and Genetic Resources in the Natural Sciences Research Laboratory at the Museum of Texas Tech University. His […]
With only days left before a stopgap funding measure expires, Congress finally found agreement on federal funding levels for fiscal year (FY) 2015. The deal was reached more than two months after the fiscal year began. The lead negotiators on the deal released a joint statement about the legislation: “As we close in on our […]
An article in the December 2014 issue of BioScience considers the benefits of natural history collections and offers advice for the financial support of such collections. “Assessing the Value of Natural History Collections and Addressing Issues Regarding Long-Term Growth and Care†was written by several research staff at the Natural Science Research Laboratory at the […]
The National Park Service is proposing changes to the regulations regarding curation of federally-owned and administered archeological collections. The rule, if adopted, would establish definitions, standards, and procedures to dispose of particular material remains that are determined to be of insufficient archaeological interest. There is not currently a defined process for disposition of such materials. […]
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) have launched the Beyond the Box National Digitization Innovation Competition. The initiative will award $1 million to the individual or team who develops a novel way to accurately and efficiently capture digital images of insect specimens and their associated data from […]
A new paper in ZooKeys looks at the future of Italian natural history collections. According to the paper’s authors, “Italian natural history museums are facing a critical situation, due to the progressive loss of scientific relevance, decreasing economic investments, and scarcity of personnel.” The proposed solution is to create a network of museums that function […]
An article in the New York Times highlights the role of entomological collections in understanding the decline of bee species. Although the plight of honeybee species has garnered much attention in recent years, many species of wild bees are also in trouble. To understand why, a group of researchers looked at bee specimens from the […]