Blogs from the Natural History Museum
Inspiring a love of the natural world
12th February 1832: There has been a little swell on the sea to day, & I have been very uncomfortable Charles Darwin’s diary entry on his birthday 190 years ago.
While on board the voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin recorded the journey and mentions notable days like Christmas day and New Year’s day, but although he records each year what he did on the 12th February, he never mentions that it was his birthday.
Continue reading “Celebrating new discoveries on Darwin Day 2022”
The UK holds hundreds of millions of natural history specimens of scientific importance. Exactly how many specimens and what those specimens are, is currently unknown. Unveiling the contents of the UK’s collections will open the door to further digitisation and unlock the full scientific potential of UK natural science collections.
Digitising, the process of converting physical information into a digital form, the UK’s natural science collection, opens up a unique and valuable national resource to the world and enable the UK to be part of current and future scientific collaborations to find solutions to the biggest challenges of our time.
Continue reading “What’s in our UK natural science collections and why does this matter? | Digital Collections Programme”
Laura Sivess, Research Assistant for the Darwin Tree of Life project, shares the experience of being on a Museum field trip.
The Natural History Museum (NHM) Darwin Tree of Life (DTOL) team recently returned from Millport, Scotland, where in just over four days we encountered over 150 species and took 266 tissue samples for whole genome sequencing!
Continue reading “The Museum at sea | Darwin Tree of Life”
In this post, masters student Sophie Jane Tudge details her research into biofuels.
Carbon-neutral energy sounds like it is exactly what the world needs right now. With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) almost upon us, more people than ever are asking how we can halt climate change to protect our planet and, ultimately, ourselves. The greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels have led to many countries, including the UK, to make commitments to shift over to renewable energy sources. But renewable energy does not always mean that it is good for the environment. Let’s take a look at one growing form of renewable energy: biofuels.
Continue reading “Can biofuels solve the planetary emergency we are facing? | PREDICTS biodiversity team”
There is an incredible amount of specimen data providing critical information on the natural world, but with less than 10% of the estimated 1.5 billion specimens digitally accessible, who is using this information? Continue reading “Who uses collection data? | Digital Collections Programme”
Coordinating Lead Author, IPBES Global Assessment and Life Sciences Research Leader at The Natural History Museum, London
@AndyPurvisNHM
The IPBES Global Assessment estimated that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. It also documents how human actions have changed many aspects of nature and its contributions to people; but species threatened with extinction resonate with the media and the public in ways that degradation of habitats and alteration of rates of ecosystem processes perhaps don’t, so the figure was widely reported.
IPBES is the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, an independent intergovernmental body that was established in 2012 to strenthen links between science and policy to support conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development
Because only the Summary for Policymakers has so far been made available, it wasn’t clear where the figure of 1 million threatened species came from. Some journalists and researchers asked me, so I explained it to them, and will explain it again here. Some other writers, often with a long history of commenting critically on reports highlighting environmental concerns, instead railed against the Global Assessment in general and the figure of 1 million threatened species in particular. Given that these writers often advance empty or bogus arguments, I thought it would be also be useful to explain why these arguments are wrong.
I have therefore written this blog post in the form of thirteen questions and answers.
Continue reading “A million threatened species? Thirteen questions and answers”
European Natural Science collections contain around 1.5 billion specimens representing an estimated 55% of global collections and 80% of the worlds bio- and geo-diversity. Data derived from these collections underpin countless innovations, including tens of thousands of scholarly publications, products critical to our bio-economy, databases, maps and descriptions of scientific observations. Continue reading “Uniting Europe’s 1.5 billion specimens | Digital Collection Programme”
The Arctic is warming at rates more than twice the global average, and much larger changes are projected for high northern latitudes by the end of this century. In our project we study freshwater microbiology to identify sentinel microbiome properties of northern freshwater environments that can be used to improve surveillance of Arctic ecosystem health in the face of these increasing climate perturbations. The project is funded by funded by a UK-Canadian partnership bursary and in collaboration with researchers from Laval University and Centre for Northern Studies (CEN) – and is part of Sentinel North.
Of particular importance are cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, as they are keystone primary producers, contributors of bioavailable nitrogen, drivers of food webs and carbon cycling in Arctic freshwater ecosystems. However, little is known about their biodiversity in the Canadian Arctic. I therefore, visited Canada this August to carry out field work and collect samples from freshwater environments such as lakes, ponds and streams to carry out DNA sequencing analysis of the freshwater microbiology.
On 13 July 2017 the Museum unveiled Hope the blue whale, a spectacular 25-metre-long specimen suspended from the ceiling of the Museum’s central space, Hintze Hall.
Just after the BBC broadcast their Horizon documentary about the new installation, Dippy and the Whale, Richard Sabin, Principal Curator of Mammals, and Lorraine Cornish, Head of Conservation, joined host David Urry for a special #NHM_Live talking about the history, conservation and story behind Hope, direct from our new Whales: Beneath the surface exhibition.
If you are a resident of the UK and you missed Horizon: Dippy and the Whale, see it on BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08y3s55 until mid-August. If you are enjoying this #NHM_Live series please don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes.
Fly expert Duncan Sivell and forensic entomologist Martin Hall were with host Camilla Tham discussing the many ways in which flies (and their maggots!) are important. From helping the police to identify time of death at a crime scene to pollinating many key crops – and even producing a Sardinian cheese – we’re more dependent on flies than you might imagine.
If you are enjoying this series, please leave us a review in iTunes as it really helps others find the feed. We will be back with more studio-based shows in August 2017 but over the next three weeks we’ll be bringing you a series of special events to celebrate the reopening of the Museum’s main space with its new displays, Hintze Hall. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more details.