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'Digital museum' brings millions of fossils out of the dark

JacksinPA

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https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46497406

The bid to create a "global digital museum" has been welcomed by scientists, who say it will enable them to study valuable specimens that are currently "hidden" in museum drawers.

Museums including London's Natural History Museum and the Smithsonian in Washington DC are involved.
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CT scanning & uploading the digital files for many millions of specimens is expected to take 50 years. But this project will give access to specimens currently hidden in museum archives to scientists world wide.
 
The availability of these files will allow the reproduction of interesting fossils using 3-D printers.
 
Cool! This is a great use of the Internet.

Can you imagine how large those 3D wire-frame files are?
Good thing that storage and compute capabilities and capacities have become as inexpensive as they have.
 
That's a great idea... every museum I've ever been in always seems to have the coolest stuff in the back.

Years ago I was in London & visited the Natural History Museum. I was especially interested in seeing the mount of the famous small ornithopod Hypsilophodon foxii. Unfortunately it was being cleaned or repaired & was not on display. So I knocked on the door of the vertebrate Paleontology office. I was greeted by an absolutely gorgeous young woman who gladly took me down into the work area. There it was on a work bench. I hit her up for a date but unfortunately got turned down.

Here are pix & info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypsilophodon
 
Years ago I was in London & visited the Natural History Museum. I was especially interested in seeing the mount of the famous small ornithopod Hypsilophodon foxii. Unfortunately it was being cleaned or repaired & was not on display. So I knocked on the door of the vertebrate Paleontology office. I was greeted by an absolutely gorgeous young woman who gladly took me down into the work area. There it was on a work bench. I hit her up for a date but unfortunately got turned down.

Here are pix & info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypsilophodon

See what I mean? Now if you had shown up with your own Hypsilophodon, you might have gotten a date out of it. ;)
 
See what I mean? Now if you had shown up with your own Hypsilophodon, you might have gotten a date out of it. ;)

Her name was Mandy & she had more than ample pectoral development...and no bra. The fact that she worked with dinosaur fossils became secondary when I looked at her.
 
Her name was Mandy & she had more than ample pectoral development...and no bra. The fact that she worked with dinosaur fossils became secondary when I looked at her.

Hypsilophodon Foxii

There once was a man named Jack,
Who sought a fossil out back,
Instead what he saw,
Was a curator with no bra,

When he asked young Mandy out for a date,
On thin ice did he skate,
Seems Jack forgot,
The thing he should have brought....

Now everyone knows,
How the old rule goes,
For when in back of museums on tours,
It's always I'll show you mine if you show me your's.
 
Its still no substitute to actually visiting a museum...
 
Its still no substitute to actually visiting a museum...

Like it or not, the world of science has become digital. For example, the pdf has replaced the hard (paper) copy of scientific journals. The ability to visualize & manipulate fossils in museums thousands of miles away is becoming the state of the art in paleontology. And to make copies using 3-D printers was science fiction not that many years ago.
 
Cool. I like poking around at online galleries of various sorts. In-person is better but plane tickets and hotels aren't free....
 
Cool. I like poking around at online galleries of various sorts. In-person is better but plane tickets and hotels aren't free....

A bloodsucking lawyer like you can afford flights and hotels... ;)
 
A bloodsucking lawyer like you can afford flights and hotels... ;)

Let's just say that representing the indigent doesn't pay all that much...
 
Years ago I was in London & visited the Natural History Museum. I was especially interested in seeing the mount of the famous small ornithopod Hypsilophodon foxii. Unfortunately it was being cleaned or repaired & was not on display. So I knocked on the door of the vertebrate Paleontology office. I was greeted by an absolutely gorgeous young woman who gladly took me down into the work area. There it was on a work bench. I hit her up for a date but unfortunately got turned down.

Here are pix & info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypsilophodon

A cute note about the London NHM Vertebrate Paleontology office: the receptionist recited who might be available to escort me into the catacombs & settled on Mandy, who she called 'Miss Dinosaur.' Very British, what eh?
 
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