Key facts
- AI and robots are being used to create a digital museum of millions of UK specimens.
- The project aims to make 70 million animals, plants, fossils, and rocks viewable online.
- Digitisation of specimens, including handwritten labels, is being accelerated from centuries to a decade.
- The digital museum will help researchers understand past environmental changes and predict future climate impacts, food supply, and species loss.
- The resource will be accessible to the public.
- Over 35 million pinned insect specimens at the Natural History Museum alone will be digitized.
Researchers are leveraging artificial intelligence and robotics to construct a comprehensive digital museum encompassing millions of specimens from collections across the United Kingdom. This initiative, funded by the UK Research and Innovation Agency through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), aims to "supercharge" the understanding of the natural world and its history.
Upon completion, the digital resource will allow public and researcher access to approximately 70 million animals, plants, fossils, and rocks via phones and computers. The use of AI and robots significantly accelerates the digitisation process, reducing it from potentially hundreds of years to a single decade. This will enable scientists to analyze changes in the UK over the planet's history, forecast future climate shifts, food supply impacts, and species loss.
Dr. Joanna Dunster, an associate director at the AHRC, highlighted the project's accessibility, expressing anticipation for exploring the resource with her young son. While some specimens are already searchable, the new funding will unlock millions more from institutions nationwide, moving collections from rarely accessed storage to open digital platforms.
The digitisation effort will initially focus on smaller specimens like beetles, butterflies, moths, flies, pressed flowers, and ferns, which are considered sensitive indicators of environmental health. In Cardiff, around half a million insect and plant specimens will be scanned. Scotland's Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums Scotland, holding the UK's second-largest natural science collection, will contribute 13 million specimens, alongside 50 smaller collections, to document two centuries of change in Scottish landscapes.
Dr. Vincent Smith, a research leader at the Natural History Museum, stated that the digital museum will accelerate research by providing access to collections that chart fundamental periods of change, such as the Industrial Revolution, allowing for better prediction of future environmental trends. The project also aims to refine computer models for predicting the impact of climate change on species loss and will include fossils and rock material to aid research into minerals for green technology.