Kew Royal Botanic Gardens: Digitising Kew’s fungi collection. “We are currently digitising our large and varied collections, made up of over 8.5 million specimens. Amongst these are a collection of fungi, known collectively as a Fungarium. Kew is home to one of the largest and most historically important fungaria in the world, so digitisation will open up new avenues of research to global scholars.”
The Mainichi: Pollen image database at Japanese univ. offers unique microcosm of natural wonders . “An image database is now open for anyone wanting to marvel at electron microscopic images of a vast and visually eclectic range of pollens, that all appear as just tiny grains to the unassisted human eye. Dubbed ‘Kafun search’ (pollen search), the database was developed at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University to showcase the pollens of 118 plant families, 391 genera and 634 species as of Aug. 21, and the number is rising.”
PR Newswire: EarthSnap Launches Revolutionary App to Identify All Types of Earth’s Plants and Animal Species (PRESS RELEASE). “EarthSnap is citizen science in action: When users upload photos of plants or animals to EarthSnap, the app utilizes a custom-built, patent-pending AI machine learning solution to identify the subject and share details like habitat, global population distribution and known history on Earth. These uploaded photos also contribute to EarthSnap’s ever-growing database – applications of which include recording animal migration habits, shifting habitats and animal behavior.”
The Conversation: From watering via ice cubes to spritzing with hydrogen peroxide – 4 misguided plant health trends on social media. “The internet is full of advice on just about everything, including plant care. As the director of a plant diagnostic laboratory and expert on plant medicine, I help people manage their plants’ health. Here are four trends I’ve seen online recently that have stood out as being especially misleading or potentially damaging to plants.”
University of Georgia: Robocrops: Data science, technology and A.I. coalesce in the field of plant robotics. “A four-wheeled, phenotyping robot that operates autonomously or under human control, Watson is taking shape in Changying ‘Charlie’ Li’s lab at the Phenomics and Plant Robotics Center (PPRC) on the University of Georgia’s Athens campus in collaboration with researchers in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.”
University of Hawaii News: $148K project to digitize thousands of rare, native plant specimens . “The three-year, $148,882 grant will help School of Life Sciences Assistant Professor Karolina Heyduk and her team to digitize and catalog more than 55,000 plant specimens, many of which are extinct, to preserve and improve access worldwide to one of the oldest collections of Pacific plants.”
Phys .org: New online resource can help users ‘bee’ friendly when it comes to planting for pollinators. “An online database developed at the University of Sussex which documents pollinator-plant interactions, could help the public understand how to plant for pollinators and support biodiversity.”
New-to-me, from The Hindu: Indian Virtual Herbarium, biggest database of country’s flora, is a global hit. “Each record in the digital herbarium includes an image of the preserved plant specimen, scientific name, collection locality, and collection date, collector name, and barcode number. The digital herbarium also includes features to extract the data State-wise and users can search plants of their own States which will help them to identify regional plants and in building regional checklists.”
Phys .org: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria re-launches VicFlora database to help identify plants. “Today, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria re-launched its plant biodiversity website, VicFlora. The new portal features upgrades that allow users to identify Victoria’s plants more easily. It is based on a new, open-source core that allows Gardens botanists to easily add new usability and accessibility features to continually improve the user experience.”
ScienceDaily: New database to support conservation. “The database presents a valuable tool for planning conservation actions at any spatial scale and preventing species extinctions globally. This represents a large volume of literature that captures a wide variety of threats such as the collection of medicinal plants, hunting, pollution, and alien invasive species, that are particularly difficult to account for in global datasets.”
The Hindu: India adds 540 species to its faunal database, 315 taxa to its flora in 2021. “India added 540 species to its faunal database in 2021 taking the total number of animal species to 1,03,258. The country also added 315 taxa to the Indian flora during 2021, taking the number of floral taxa in the country to 55,048. Of the 540 faunal species, 406 are new discoveries and 134 new records to India. Thirteen new genera were also discovered in 2021. Among the new species discovered is one species from mammal, 35 reptiles and 19 species of pisces.”
Phys .org: A quest to digitize 1 million plant specimens. “The Australian National Herbarium in Canberra is imaging nearly a million plant specimens using an automated system developed by Netherlands company Picturae. CSIRO Group Leader for Digitization & Informatics, Pete Thrall, who oversees digital assets at the National Research Collections Australia, managed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, said the project would help inform bushfire recovery and biosecurity.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri Botanical Garden’s plant collection is going digital. “The Missouri Botanical Garden, in the middle of a multiyear effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of dried plant specimens, is now on the edge of further expanding its work. The Garden is hopeful it will soon land a grant from the National Science Foundation to digitally catalogue more than half a million specimens in its Africa collection to an online database for researchers around the world.”
Mashable: 7 best gardening apps, so you can stop killing all of your plants. “Whether you are starting a windowsill herb garden, buying some indoor plants, or planting a garden in your yard, these apps will help you figure out how to care for your plants and remind you to care for them.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison: Researchers aim X-rays at century-old plant secretions for insight into Aboriginal Australian cultural heritage. “…knowing the chemical composition of pigments and binders that Aboriginal Australian artists employ could allow archaeological scientists and art conservators to identify these materials in important cultural heritage objects. Now, researchers are turning to X-ray science to help reveal the composition of the materials used in Aboriginal Australian cultural heritage – starting with the analysis of century-old samples of plant secretions, or exudates.”
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