We need your help to set our collections data free! |Digital Collections Programme

We are asking for help to transcribe data from our Foraminifera slides in Miniature Fossils Magnified
We need your help to transcribe data about our foraminifera slides

On the 19-22 October, the Museum will be running a digital volunteering event in collaboration with the third annual WeDigBio event. WeDigBio is a four day event that engages global participants online and on-site in digitising natural history collections. Continue reading “We need your help to set our collections data free! |Digital Collections Programme”

Butterflies and their sensational parasitoids | Digital Collections Programme

The Museum’s Sensational Butterflies exhibition is host to over 500 butterflies each year. Each morning, work in the Museum’s butterfly house starts two hours before the exhibition opens because it takes constant attention to maintain the ideal environment for these butterflies to flourish. One of the aspects that needs to be attended to is pest control.

an image of the sensational butterfly exhibition
Pest-free foliage in the Sensational Butterflies exhibition

One of the most significant pests that needs to be kept under control in the butterfly house are Aphids.

Continue reading “Butterflies and their sensational parasitoids | Digital Collections Programme”

Take part in ocean science – on the beach or from your computer! | Citizen Science

With good weather forecast for most of the UK this coming weekend, and local schools breaking for half-term, many of you will be making a bee-line for the coasts… where you could be rock-pooling for science!

The Big Seaweed Search

Our Big Seaweed Search invites you to take photos of seaweeds and submit your observations online to help Museum researcher Juliet Brodie better understand how rising sea temperatures and other changes are affecting our beautiful seas.

Photo showing a member of the Museum staff standing behind a table with trays of different seaweeds on top of it, leaning forward to talk with a child and their family stood in front of the table.
Jules Agate from the Marine Conservation Society and staff from the Museum showcase the Big Seaweed Search at the 2017 Lyme Regis Fossil Festival

You can request a free Big Seaweed Search guide by emailing your name and postal address to seaweeds@nhm.ac.uk, or download and print your own to find out how to take part. In fact, the Museum is celebrating the oceans this year, and there are many ways to get involved in our year-long exploration of the marine world! Continue reading “Take part in ocean science – on the beach or from your computer! | Citizen Science”

Digitising lice and uncovering the Meinertzhagen mystery | Digital Collections Programme

We are in the process of digitising the Museum’s parasitic louse (Phthiraptera) collection, which consists of around 73,000 microscope slides. The collection is one of the largest – and the most taxonomically comprehensive – in the world.

A high resolution image showing two human lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) in detail.
Human lice specimens (Pediculus humanus capitis)

Lice are permanent ectoparasites, meaning they live on the outside of their bird and mammal hosts. They are highly host specific, with the majority of the ~5,000 louse species being unique to a particular host species of mammals and birds.

Continue reading “Digitising lice and uncovering the Meinertzhagen mystery | Digital Collections Programme”

Our butterfly and moth data takes flight! | Digital Collections Programme

Our previous blog post looked at preparing the Lepidoptera for digitisation. In this post, we will look at the second part of the digitisation process; the imaging and transcription that allows data to be set free and accessed by the global science audience on the Museum’s Data Portal.

Photo showing a DSLR camera on a mount, with a tray containing a pinned butterfly speciment beneath the lens. The butterfly and accompanying scale bar and labels is visible on a computer screen to the right.
The imaging equipment set up to digitise the Lepidoptera collection

Let’s find out what’s involved and why it’s leading to new ways of accessing and using the information in our collections. Continue reading “Our butterfly and moth data takes flight! | Digital Collections Programme”

Visiteering with WeDigBio and the Department for Transport | Digital Collections Programme

Visiteering offers one day volunteering opportunities to the public, linking our Museum narratives to a series of set ‘challenges’ relating to our collections. On 20 October we completed our first collaborative Visiteering session to coincide with a worldwide transcription event run by WeDigBio.

Photo showing Margaret standing on the right hand side speaking to a group of people sitting in a semi-circle around her.
Margaret explains the importance of digitising our collections to the Dangerous Goods Group from the Department of Transport

WeDigBio, is a four day event that engages global participants online and onsite in digitising natural history collections. Although our main focus was our Visiteers in the lab for a day, we also encouraged other visitors to the museum to engage in the project via posters with QR codes and promoted a worldwide audience to get involved with blogposts and social media promotion prior, during and post event.

Continue reading “Visiteering with WeDigBio and the Department for Transport | Digital Collections Programme”

Magnifying the miniature at Science Uncovered 2016 | Miniature Lives Magnified

On Friday 30 September the Miniature Lives Magnified team joined our colleagues in the halls of the Museum in South Kensington for our annual festival, Science Uncovered.

The theme for this year’s event for European Researchers’ Night was Hidden Worlds – a perfect opportunity to invite folks to give our online The Killer Within Expedition a go, and to show off our chalcid wasps!

Photo showing a box of tiny chalcid wasp specimens under a microscope with the screen of the computer behind (out of focus) showing the magnified specimens.
Miniature Lives Magnified at the Museum’s Science Uncovered event

It was wonderful to meet with such a wide range of visitors, from children coming straight from school with their families, to young adults enjoying a date night with a beer in hand, and of course the full range of ages as Museum-goers enjoyed the chance to chat with all our scientists and learn more about their work.

Continue reading “Magnifying the miniature at Science Uncovered 2016 | Miniature Lives Magnified”