american museum of natural history

Freezing genetic samples from plant and animal species is all the rage these days, with projects ranging from San Diego's Frozen Zoo to the UK's Frozen Ark. But New York's American Museum of Natural History recently scored a scientific coup when the U.S. National Park Service signed an agreement to store endangered species samples in the museum's underground lab, which will be one of the largest such repositories in the country.

Image by BZoltan

Remember that scary prediction from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a few months back about sea levels rising by as much as 23 inches in the next 100 years and flooding coastal regions and displacing billions of people? Well, that forecast just got a little bit scarier.

Ever wonder what a museum's nebulous "permanent collection" looks like when it's not hanging on the gallery walls? Especially a permanent collection as intensively taxadermied as the American Museum of Natural History's? Photographer Justine Cooper's "Saved by Science" series  shows us—one drawer full of dead Yellow Honeyeaters (Lichenostomus falvus) at a time. —John Mahoney

Link - Via Neatorama (and Dan)