James Ashworth, Contents of jars collected by Charles Darwin revealed in new scans, Natural History Museum,
In natural history museums around the world, more than 100 million specimens are preserved in all kinds of fluids – but it’s often a mystery what they are.
A new technique allows curators to reveal what’s in the jars without opening them, helping to protect scientists and the specimens themselves.
Almost two centuries after Charles Darwin’s pioneering voyage on the HMS Beagle, his specimens are still inspiring groundbreaking new science.
Many of the specimens collected on the voyage are now looked after by us, from the finches and mockingbirds that helped inspire Darwin’s thoughts on evolution to the fossils of an extinct giant ground sloth.