Episode 9: How Non-invasive Micro Computed Tomography Enhances a Museum’s Collection​

The Natural History Museum in London has over 80 million specimens/objects in its zoology, botany, entomology, palaeontology, and minerology collections. The micro-CT lab at the Natural History Museum generates over 2400 scans a year across all the collections and XRM is a crucial part of non- invasive imaging. The talk will focus on 3 examples of palaeontological projects that used XRM to investigate internal structures and how these compare to modern relatives found in other collections. Our micro-CT imaging data base allows us to see what collections are frequently studied using XRM and those that are not. Examples being discussed will be drawn from the collections that have some of the lowest scanningrequests: botany, entomology, and marine invertebrates.​

​This presentation was recorded during the BioXRM symposium at the Museum of Natural History in London, October 2023.​

Key Learnings:

• The lecture provides insights into the operation and capabilities of an imaging facility at a Natural History Museum​.
• The autoloader at the X-ray Microscopy (XRM) facility allows for the screening of numerous specimens, achieving up to 40 scans in a single day under optimal conditions.​
• XRM is utilized within the Natural History Museum for research in taxonomy and morphometrics.​
• Various experimental setups are demonstrated for a range of specimens, including jellyfish, plants, amber, and others.