Headline Oct 27, 2015/ ''' D I G I T I Z I N G - LIFE "' : !WOW!

''' D I G I T I Z I N G - LIFE "' : !WOW!

FROM STUDENTS TO GREAT HEROES :  Mariam, Rabo, Haleema, Dee, Sarah, Malala/ Nobel Prize, Hussain, Shahzaib Khan/US, Salar Khan/ US, Bilal Malik/US.

Saima, Vishnu/India, Toby/China, Jordan/US, Danyial-Rahym/UK, Aqsa, Haider, Reza/Canada, Eman- Sanan,Mustafa,Ehsan/Armeen[LUMS], Faizan, Hamza, Ibrahim.

Ghazi Naqvi, Tooba,  Hannyia/Meriam Singapore, Zaeem, Hazeem, Asim, Nayab/ Saudi Arabia, Fahad /Bahria, Ajmal Shah, Ahmed Iqbal, Lahraib, Nahil/Saudi Arabia- and the all the students of the world:  

In a brightly lit room on the third floor of the Museum of Natural History, stacks of wooden drawers are covered in glass-

Some panes so dusty that it is difficult to discern exactly what's inside. When the glass is removed, rows of carefully pinned insects are revealed, gleaming in brilliant colours like precious jewels.

The biologist Alexander Kroupa plucks an amethyst-colored beetle from the drawers with metal pincers. ''Amazing, right? he said. ''As beautiful as the day they were collected.''

Scientist Kroupa and 14 colleagues are in the midst of a large undertaking: digitizing and publishing online the museum's collection of insects, including high-definition three-dimensional images of thousands of particularly important specimens.

Museums around the globe are trying to harness the power of digital technology to make available collections that have long lay dormant on shelves and in dusty cabinets.    

For years, scientific institutions have scanned images of specimen drawers or individuals in their collections. But technology advances provide new opportunities to create digital images and data that may be critical to answering some of the biggest questions in conservation biology, experts say.

By looking at the historical distribution of a species as revealed in the collections. for example, scientists can determine how the ecology of a region has changed because of industrialization, human settlement or climate change.

The old collections provide deep insight into changes in genetic diversity, crucial for saving a species, informing urban planning or protecting vital food resources in the future.

''To really understand biodiversity, you have to look in the museums.'' said Brent Mishler, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The digitization efforts also are helping scientists create a permanent record of the natural world in a period of rapid extinctions.

''This is one way of documenting what we are about to lose,'' said Quentin Wheeler. an entomologist and president of College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York.

Digitizing museums specimens will reveal  ''irreplaceable clues needed to reconstruct evolutionary history, to understand where we and all other species came from."

In Berlin, the natural history museum's collection consists of more than 35,000 drawer holding about  50 million individual specimens. So far, the team has scanned about  10,000  drawers.

Some specimens are selected for high definition scanning, which will allow scientists from anywhere in the world to examine these colourful creatures in remarkable detail, even to maneuver them on screen for close scrutiny.

''We want everyone to see them, the public and researchers, to see what's in the collection.'' said Bernhard Schurian, an imaging specialist at the museum who is overseeing the technical aspects of the project.

It is slow painstaking work.

Each specimen drawer must be carefully removed from one hundreds of alder cabinets filling six floors of the museum. The drawers are dusted off, and a small brush sometimes used to tidy each delicate specimen.  

The Honour and Serving of the '' Technology Operational Research'' continues. Thank you for reading and I hope sharing forward.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers in the field of research. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

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