Compiled by Milo Phillips, Assistant Curator of Entomology for National Museums Scotland.
Welcome to the July edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.
A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.
Sector News
HOGG Conference & Field Meeting
There’s still time to register for the upcoming The History of Geology Group (HOGG) conference & Field Meeting. The event will be hosted at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and will take place between Tuesday 15th and Friday 18th August 2023 on ‘Aspects of the history and progress of geology in Ireland’.
The programme includes the one-day conference and three days of field and archive visits, including a visit to the birthplace of modern seismology, and opportunity to look at material not often open to view.
Registration is €17 (£15) and can be completed through Eventbrite by clicking here. For more information, visit the event page or email duncan.hawley.hogg@gmail.com
Care and Management of Natural History Collections
Registration is still open for the online edition of this 2-week course. Online live sessions will take place on the 28th and 30th of August, and 1st, 4th, 6th and 8th of September, from 16:00 to 18.00 and from 18:30 to 20:30 (Madrid time zone) with the rest of the sessions taught via pre-recorded lectures.
The sessions will teach participants how to better care for and manage all natural history collections (including botany, geosciences, and zoology). The importance of the collections storage environment is emphasized, as well as the identification and selection of inert materials, testing locally available materials, adapting collections care standards to environmental conditions, and good management through sound policies and collection planning.
Registration and a detailed course overview can be found here.
SPPC and SVPCA 2023 Symposium registration
The 69th Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA) and the 28th meeting of the Symposium of Palaeontological Preparation and Conservation (SPPC) will be held on 6th to 9th September 2023 at the University of Lincoln. The conference will include workshops, presentations, poster sessions and, for those attending in person, a field trip on the Saturday.
Online and in-person registration is available here. The registration deadline is August 21st.
NatSCA Lunchtime Chats
The new lunchtime chats are for members only and run on the last Thursday of every month.
This series is supposed to be informal; no fancy equipment is needed; it will be put out over the NatSCA Zoom platform and there is no fixed format. For those who want to take part please email training@natsca.org to put forward your idea. Bring your sandwiches and a cuppa and we hope to see you on the day! All members will have received a link to join via Zoom (the same link works for all sessions) – if you haven’t, get in touch with membership@natsca.org
Where to Visit
Ocean at the End of the Lane: Discovering Portsmouth’s coastline
A new multidisciplinary exhibition is opening at Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery on July 15th, featuring over 200 natural history objects from the collections.
This family friendly exhibition exploring Portsmouth’s coastline will shed light on the plants and animals that live there and look at the human impact of our use of the coast and sea.
The exhibition draws on both our natural history collections and local history collections to tell the story of our coast. Check out some amazing crustaceans, gorgeous sea birds and fabulous fish to find out more about what lives on the edges of Portsea Island and under the sea. Soak up the fairground atmosphere with their roller coaster car, find out about the port and learn more about defending our coastlines.
The exhibition will run from July this year until September 2024.
Geiriau Diflanedig – The Lost Words
Heading over to Wales at all this summer? A unique partnership between Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales and two National Park Authorities in Wales will see the best-selling book Geiriau Diflanedig – The Lost Words brought to life at Oriel y Parc Gallery in St Davids and Yr Ysgwrn in Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park.
Geiriau Diflanedig – The Lost Words explores the relationship between language and the living world, and of nature’s power to spark the imagination. The touring exhibition will bring together, for the first time the original artwork by Jackie Morris alongside the English language poems by Robert Macfarlane and Welsh language poems written by Mererid Hopwood. At Oriel y Parc, specimens from the natural history collections of Amgueddfa Cymru will also be used to highlight the level of biodiversity loss and explain the work being done to try and arrest this decline. Both exhibitions will run until Spring 2024.
What to Read
Rights-based Environmental Action: A key element of Sustainable Development
Henry McGhie, Curating Tomorrow follows up on a previous post, this time discussing the importance of expanding and integrating the way museums practice sustainability into the bigger picture of global sustainable development, along with information on how to take part in the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
People and Plants Workshop Three: Sharing Knowledge in the Amazon
An update on the third and final workshop of the AHRC funded, collaborative project from National Museums Scotland, the Powell-Cotton Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Fiona Roberts (Collaborative ESRC PhD student, Cardiff University & Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales) and Violet Nicholls (Assistant Curator in Herbarium, Portsmouth Museums) tell us more about the importance and successes of knowledge sharing, digital co-curation practices and their hopes for future projects that can follow in the footsteps of this one and build on what has been learned.
Underwater volcano triggered the most intense lightning ever recorded
Research by Alexa Van Eaton at the US Geological Survey in Vancouver, Washington looks at how the huge eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcano last year generated more than 2,600 lightning flashes per minute.
How the tongue shaped life on Earth
This slightly longer read delves into an unexpected driver of diversity; the tongue in all its myriad forms, from cows to chameleons.
Where to Work
Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira are looking for a new Curator of Entomology (Full-time, Permanent). The deadline for applications is July 28th 2023 and you can read more about the position here.
Before You Go…
If you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest please drop an email to blog@natsca.org. Similarly, if you have something to say about a current topic, or perhaps you want to tell us what you’ve been working on, we welcome new blog articles so please drop Jen an email if you have anything you would like to submit.
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