All articles tagged with #museum conservation
Scientists used Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS) to analyze preservation liquids inside Charles Darwin’s sealed Beagle-era specimens without opening the jars, identifying fluids in about 78% of samples and revealing historical preservation methods for noninvasive museum conservation.
Scientists used portable spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) to peek inside Charles Darwin’s 200-year-old preserved specimen jars at the Natural History Museum without opening them. The technique identified preservation fluids in about 80% of jars (mammals/reptiles often in formalin then ethanol, invertebrates in formaldehyde-based mixtures), with 15% partially identifiable and 6.5% not confidently identified. The method helps conserve delicate collections while guiding storage practices across museums, and the study was published in ACS Omega (2026).