Digitizing Microscope Slides Can Uncover Billions of Fossils for Natural History

Digitizing microscope slides can uncover billions of fossils for natural history

Approximately 145 million: That's the number of specimens—including plants, animals, minerals, and human artifacts—curators estimate are held in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. However, these estimates do not reflect the billions of tiny individual specimens contained on microscope slides—thin pieces of glass that fix objects in place for observation—each representing a record of a species at a specific place and time.

Galaxies of life are collecting dust in museums – digitizing microscope slides can uncover billions of fossils for natural history

This screenshot juxtaposes a fossil of stem from the plant _Archaeopitys eastmanii_ (bottom) and a close-up of its vascular system (top). The specimen was found in Kentucky and is over 350 million years old. Ingrid C. Romero, CC BY-SAApproximately 145 million: That’s the number of specimens – including plants, animals, minerals and human artifacts – curators estimate are held in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. However, these …