Welcome to the weekly digest of posts from around the web with relevance to natural science collections. We hope you find this useful and if you have any articles that you feel would be of interest, please contact us at blog@natsca.org
1. Blog: Eton College, Natural History Museum
George Fussey, Curator, and colleagues
Synopsis
Rather than drawing your attention to a specific article on this blog, I am rather pointing out that this blog exists in case you hadn’t yet come across it. Having been to the Natural History Museum at Eton College myself, I can tell you that it is well worth the visit. I had the great pleasure of being shown around the Museum by Curator George Fussey, and there are certainly treasures to be seen there. I encourage you to have a look at this blog, it may be one of great interest to many people in our sector.
Eton College, Natural History Museum Blog

If you think the Grant Museum’s platy is a fatty (above), you should see the one at Eton! Specimen LDUCZ-Z20 (C) UCL / Grant Museum
2. Conference: Radiation and Extinction: Investigating Clade Dynamics in Deep Time
The Linnean Society of London, 10-11th November 2014
Synopsis
To address the issues in the modern day caused by global warming, this conference aims to look at the past. It will focus on:
“Determining the causes and drivers of evolutionary dynamics is central to our understanding of life on Earth. What factors shaped the modern biota? Why did some groups go extinct, whilst others survived and radiated? Why are some groups so much more diverse than others? What will happen to organisms as the Earth continues to warm up?”
Radiation and Extinction: Investigating Clade Dynamics in Deep Time

A representative of extinction- the dodo head cast at the Grant Museum of Zoology. Specimen LDUCZ-Y86 (C) UCL / Grant Museum
3. Training: Documentation Training Course
Museum of London, Docklands, 25th April 2014
Synopsis
Museum volunteers are invited to attend this course run as part of the Regional Museums Development programme. The course is designed to look at how to deal with issues of documentation, as well as the theory behind collections management.
Contact kwebbgreen@museumoflondon.org.uk to book.
Compiled by Emma-Louise Nicholls, NatSCA Blog Editor