Interdisciplinary Questions Research Articles

Why We Eat Calories: A Plurality Metaphor of Energy in Scientific Disciplines

AbstractIn the Next Generation Science Standards, energy is considered a “crosscutting concept” that bridges disciplinary boundaries and unites scientific disciplines. I examine how energy is represented in physics, biology, and chemistry contexts, using the reaction of molecular oxygen with sugar as an exemplar, and argue that disciplines disagree in how they represent the origin of energy that drives this process. In particular, while biology tends to locate energy as initially in the sugar molecule, chemistry locates the energy in molecular oxygen, and physics models energy as in the field between the molecules. That is to say, biology describes us as eating calories, chemistry as inhaling calories, and physics invents an abstract object (the field) as the container for energy. I then show how the conceptualizations made in each discipline stem from core disciplinary commitments, models, and concepts that structure what “counts” as an explanation. This conceptual plurality, then, is essential to disciplinary meaning. While such a pluralistic conceptualization appears to be contrary to scientific epistemology that prioritizes coherence and cognitive models that rely on unitary structures for transfer, I draw on recent research to argue that neither concern is fully founded. Finally, I suggest that building bridges between these contrasting conceptualizations may come later, in response to interdisciplinary questions and frameworks.

Understanding author choices in the current conservation publishing landscape.

Conservation literature addresses a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary questions and benefits. Conservation science benefits most when a diverse range of authors are represented, particularly those from countries where much conservation work is focused. In other disciplines, it is well known that barriers and biases exist in the academic publishing sphere, which can affect research dissemination and an author's career development. We used a discrete choice experiment to determine how 7 journal attributes affect authors' choices of where to publish in conservation. We targeted authors directly by contacting authors published in 18 target journals and indirectly via communication channels for conservation organizations. We only included respondents who had previously published in a conservation-related journal. We used a multinomial logit model and a latent class model to investigate preferences for all respondents and distinct subpopulations. We identified 3 demographic groups across 1038 respondents (older authors from predominantly middle-income countries, younger authors from predominantly middle-income countries, and younger authors from high-income countries) who had published in conservation journals. Each group exhibited different publishing preferences. Only 2 attributes showed a consistent response across groups: cost to publish negatively affected journal choice, including authors in high-income countries, and authors had a consistent preference for double-blind review. Authors from middle-income countries were willing to pay more for society-owned journals, unlike authors from high-income countries. Journals with a broad geographical scope that were open access and that had relatively high impact factors were preferred by 2 of the 3 demographic groups. However, journal scope and open access were more important in dictating journal choice than impact factor. Overall, different demographics had different preferences for journals and were limited in their selection based on attributes such as open access policy. However, the scarcity of respondents from low-income countries (2% of respondents) highlights the pervasive barriers to representation in conservation research. We recommend journals offer double-blind review, reduce or remove open access fees, investigate options for free editorial support, and better acknowledge the value of local-scale single-species studies. Academic societies in particular must reflect on how their journals support conservation and conservation professionals.

Some modeling challenges in dynamic life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been a mainstream tool to evaluate the environmental impacts of products, services, and systems. Current LCAs inherently rely on the static basis and commonly fail to include temporal considerations. To better assist in the decision-making for sustainable development, dynamic LCA has been initiated to answer more complex and interdisciplinary questions. As in its initial phase, dynamic LCA faces many modeling challenges that at the same time are meaningful research opportunities. In modeling dynamic LCA, there are several key aspects that need more attention for contribution and close collaboration across the first three phases of the LCA framework.

The “Drake Equation” of Exomoons—A Cascade of Formation, Stability and Detection

After 25 years of the prediction of the possibility of observations, and despite the many hundreds of well-studied transiting exoplanet systems, we are still waiting for the announcement of the first confirmed exomoon. We follow the “cascade” structure of the Drake equation but apply it to the chain of events leading to a successful detection of an exomoon. The scope of this paper is to reveal the structure of the problem, rather than to give a quantitative solution. We identify three important steps that can lead us to discovery. The steps are the formation, the orbital dynamics and long-term stability, and the observability of a given exomoon in a given system. This way, the question will be closely related to questions of star formation, planet formation, five possible pathways of moon formation; long-term dynamics of evolved planet systems involving stellar and planetary rotation and internal structure; and the proper evaluation of the observed data, taking the correlated noise of stellar and instrumental origin and the sampling function also into account. We highlight how a successful exomoon observation and the interpretations of the expected further measurements prove to be among the most complex and interdisciplinary questions in astrophysics.

Why rational choice? Reconciling Kornai with rational choice theory

AbstractJános Kornai was an early and influential critic of rational choice theory, who opposed its application to interdisciplinary questions. In this paper, we attempt to show that certain contemporary uses of rational choice theory are perfectly compatible with Kornai's critique of general equilibrium theory, as well as his broader vision of economics as a mode of understanding. To do so, we leverage the insights of several “ordinary language” philosophers to demonstrate that the utility of rational choice theory derives from its grammatical properties rather than the truth values of its axioms.

Dr. Jeffrey A. Nystuen—A PAL to acoustical oceanography

Dr. Jeffrey A. Nystuen was a visionary, innovator, proud student of life-long science learning, and friend. Jeff pioneered the development of the Passive Aquatic Listener (PAL), which was initially the Acoustic Rain Gauge (ARG). The PAL is a low-noise, broadband (100 kHz sampling rate), low-duty cycle, underwater recorder that operates according to an onboard, adaptive sampling protocol. The PAL was one of the first autonomous passive acoustic recorders that could sample for a full year with a frequency range capable of recording dolphin echolocation signals. While originally designed to detect rainfall and estimate the rate of ocean precipitation, the PAL has been used to better understand marine mammal patterns and trends, wind and storms, anthropogenic activity, and sea ice dynamics. The versatility of the PAL has evolved throughout its use from a standalone, archival autonomous recorder to a compact system integrated into Argo floats. PALs have been deployed in the Arctic, Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans in addition to many regional seas, coastal waters, freshwater lakes, and springs! The vast number of interdisciplinary questions and collaborations centered around the PAL technology highlights Jeff’s creative thinking, which has left a strong legacy in the field of acoustic oceanography.

The Parable of the Peanut Butter Sandwich: An Exercise in Artificial Intelligence and (Pseudo-) Bible Translation

The public release of artificial intelligence tools such as Microsoft’s Bing Chat built on OpenAI’s generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) continues to spark extensive interest—attracting headlines, prompting important interdisciplinary questions, and posing dilemmas both ethical and methodological. The aim of this paper is to provide a sampling and temporal snapshot of AI-powered Bing’s abilities through the creation, translation, and adaptation of pseudo-biblical content. We adopt as our source text an AI-generated parable in the style of the King James Bible—here entitled “The Parable of the Peanut Butter Sandwich”—originally prompted by software developer Thomas Ptacek. For the purposes of this paper, Bing adapted the original parable into multiple versions (Nida, poem, acrostic, and French), supplied it with paratext (introduction, illustrations, and glossary), and analyzed it from the perspectives of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and the Documentary Hypothesis. Lastly, Bing generated a sermon outline in the style of renowned orator St. John Chrysostom. We hope that subsequent studies at the nexus of artificial intelligence and Bible translation will continue to build on the Parable of the Peanut Butter Sandwich to explore both the potential and the implications of emergent technology.

Underwater cultural heritage is integral to marine ecosystems

Underwater cultural heritage (UCH) supports marine biodiversity and influences connectivity. UCH structure, colonizing organisms, and anthropogenic stressors interact to shape sites over time, but these interactions are poorly understood. Here, we express the urgent need for biology-archeology collaborations to address interdisciplinary questions. We also codify the emerging field of Maritime Heritage Ecology.

How can pedology and soil classification contribute towards sustainable development as a data source and information carrier?

Soil classification is based on both the properties of the soil material and the pedogenetic pathways responsible for those properties. Because soil properties are linked to soil function and potential, information on soil classification has formed the basis for empirical interpretations of mapping units in terms of limitations or suitabilities for a wide range of land uses. In this way, a soil type acts as an accessible “carrier of information” presenting “the story of..”. Though valuable for broad land-use assessments, these empirical interpretations of soil functionality are inadequate to answer modern interdisciplinary questions focused on sustainable development. Four case studies are presented showing various quantitative approaches focusing on soil functions contributing to ecosystem services in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Green Deal, demonstrating that: (i) the use of soil surveys and associated databases feeding soil–water-atmosphere-plant simulation models can contribute to defining soil functions and ecosystem services; (ii) hydropedological characterization of soil types can allow a strong reduction in the number of landscape units to be considered, improving practical applicability; (iii) pedotransfer functions can successfully link soil data to modeling parameters; (iv) functionality requires expression of soil management effects on properties of a given soil type, to be expressed by phenoforms; (v) only models can be applied to explore important future effects of climate change by running IPCC scenarios; and (vi) the most effective level of soil classification—acting as carriers of information when defining soil functionality—will differ depending on the spatial scale being considered, whether local, regional or higher.

ПРИРОДОПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ В ГОРНЫХ СТРАНАХ: ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЙ И РЕГИОНАЛЬНЫЙ АСПЕКТ

Mountains and man form an important global geo-economic system, on which the sustainable development of the entire world civilization depends and it brings the problem into the category of extremely urgent. Scientific and management events devoted to various issues of the state and development of mountain territories began to be held in Russia since the 1990s: the issue “Rational use of vulnerable ecosystems: sustainable mountain de- velopment”was discussed at the UN Conference on Environment and Development of Agenda for the XXI century. A significant reserve in this regard has been formed since that time in our country, in a region where mountains occupy about half of the territory. The object of the research are mountainous areas. The subject of the research are principles of nature management organization in mountains. The purpose of the research is to reveal specificity of nature management in the mountain countries for development of systems of nature management. In mountain areas, along with fundamental scientific research, the results of the work are being implemented into practice and management with varying success. The article indicates the need for further increasing scientific research on the problems of sustainable development of mountain territories and their special type of natural and economic environment-intermountain basins. This requires long-term and multifactorial research; scientists should be ready to cooperate in interdisciplinary questions; managers of different levels should be able to rationally apply scientific results. As applied aspects, the paper considers approaches to nature management on the example of Altai, Transbaikalia and the Caucasus. The experience of similar studies of mountain countries in Europe and the CIS is considered. Here the mountains occupy a significant territory and the problems of the relationship between man and the environment are connected with them. The task is to continue the research of the natural and economic specifics of the depressions of the region in the experience of the basin concept in nature management, their zoning, structural and functional modeling

Collective scientific assessment as a relevant tool to inform public debate and policymaking: an illustration about the effects of plant protection products on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Several sustainable development goals cannot be achieved without implementing a new generation of environmental measures to better preserve or restore biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, understanding and addressing biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation is a challenging problem that is not solvable without integrating the best and latest science. It is crucial to enhance the legibility of this knowledge for decision-makers and policymakers following good-practice standards of scientific assessment. This is the main objective of collective scientific assessments (CSAs), as carried out by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) since the early 2000s following a documented procedure to inform public policy and foster public debate on complex interdisciplinary issues. This article describes the main steps of the CSA procedure designed by INRAE's Directorate for Collective Scientific Assessment, Foresight and Advanced Studies, from formulation of the initial question asked by public or para-public bodies (typically ministry divisions or environmental agencies) to wider dissemination of the results and conclusions. This process description is then illustrated through the example of a CSA recently commissioned by three French Ministries (for Ecology, for Research, and for Agriculture) regarding (i) contamination of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems by plant protection products (PPPs); (ii) the resulting effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services; and (iii) possible prevention and mitigation strategies. The capacity of this kind of CSA to inform public debate and policymaking is then exemplified through a description of the main outcomes generated by the latest CSA dealing with the adverse effects of PPPs. We also provide a short overview of some key expectations from the current CSA, with a focus on the recent development of the ecosystem service approach in ecological risk assessments of PPPs in the European Union. This illustration demonstrates that CSAs, which are applicable to a wide variety of complex interdisciplinary questions that are not limited to environmental issues, are a relevant tool to inform public debate and policymaking.

Transient disease dynamics across ecological scales

Analyses of transient dynamics are critical to understanding infectious disease transmission and persistence. Identifying and predicting transients across scales, from within-host to community-level patterns, plays an important role in combating ongoing epidemics and mitigating the risk of future outbreaks. Moreover, greater emphases on non-asymptotic processes will enable timely evaluations of wildlife and human diseases and lead to improved surveillance efforts, preventive responses, and intervention strategies. Here, we explore the contributions of transient analyses in recent models spanning the fields of epidemiology, movement ecology, and parasitology. In addition to their roles in predicting epidemic patterns and endemic outbreaks, we explore transients in the contexts of pathogen transmission, resistance, and avoidance at various scales of the ecological hierarchy. Examples illustrate how (i) transient movement dynamics at the individual host level can modify opportunities for transmission events over time; (ii) within-host energetic processes often lead to transient dynamics in immunity, pathogen load, and transmission potential; (iii) transient connectivity between discrete populations in response to environmental factors and outbreak dynamics can affect disease spread across spatial networks; and (iv) increasing species richness in a community can provide transient protection to individuals against infection. Ultimately, we suggest that transient analyses offer deeper insights and raise new, interdisciplinary questions for disease research, consequently broadening the applications of dynamical models for outbreak preparedness and management.

The results of applied research for solutions to environmental problems, expected!

With this issue, the Indonesia Journal of Applied Environmental Studies (InJAST) enters its second year, having been first published in April 2020 just as the Covid-19 pandemic was spreading globally. In the first two issues, InJAST published 13 articles, which were the results of research and ideas from academia, researchers from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and members of conservation NGOs. Within its first year, the InJAST website has been visited by around 1,500 visitors from 50+ countries. Although the majority were from Indonesia, 30% were from across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, and included the USA, UK, Australia, and India.One of InJAST's missions is to provide a vehicle for academia (students and lecturers), members of environmental NGOs, and young researchers, particularly from Indonesia, who are just starting to publish their ideas, literature reviews and research findings or articles in scientific journals. InJAST was also developed to accommodate scientific papers related to broader environmental topics, but as yet, most articles have focused on plant/wildlife ecology, nature conservation, and forest restoration (61%). Others were the result of the studies on environmental education (8%) and on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other environmental issues (31%).As we start the third decade of the 21st century, the environmental challenges we face are ever more complex and demanding. The UN’s global action plan for the next 10 years set out in the "UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development", puts forward special measures to achieve a world that is fairer, more prosperous, and more respectful of the environment. The main global environmental challenges that, according to the UN, must be resolved in this decade, are climate change mitigation and adaptation, pollution problems and their effects on health, protecting oceans, the energy transitions and renewables, a sustainable food model, protecting biodiversity, sustainable urban development and mobility, hydric stress and water scarcity, extreme meteorological phenomena, and overpopulation and waste management. As academics, environmental researchers, and members of environmental NGOs, we can and should support the UN agenda by seeking the solutions to these major global environmental problems that affect all of us. We do this by carrying out relevant research and, just as importantly, publishing them in scientific journals so that we can disseminate our findings as widely as possible and suggested interventions can be trialed and then implemented on the ground.This new issue of InJAST contains several papers focusing on plant ecology, endangered species conservation, and forest restoration, all of which are closely related to one of the main global problems identified by the UN, namely protecting biodiversity. Another paper analyses determinants and typology of hydrometeorological disasters that may relate to the problem of extreme meteorological phenomena. Strong pro-environmental legislation and government regulations are very important in implementing existing environmental policies, and environmental awareness and responsibility are also important to assess whether people are willing to participate in addressing global environmental problems at the local level. This is explored in two other papers in this issue of InJAST.We reflect further that we are in a hugely different place from where we were at the start of 2020. The Covid pandemic, obviously a global tragedy, has changed many people’s behavioral patterns and our subsequent impact of nature and the environment. It seems to have in many ways heightened people's awareness of nature and environmental issues, and the relationships between unsustainable production and consumption and the nature and climate change crises. A plethora of new research is emerging on these interdisciplinary questions and we look forward to submissions tackling these questions in future editions of InJAST.Finally, as Editors-in-Chief, we have been working hard to improve and expand our peer review community, as well as the processes of online submission, reviewing and publishing. We are delighted to be presenting Volume 2 No 1 of InJAST and we encourage our colleagues from all sectors to submit their papers for the next issue.

Designing trials of Universal Basic Income for health impact: identifying interdisciplinary questions to address.

A large body of evidence indicates the importance of upstream determinants to health. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been suggested as an upstream intervention capable of promoting health by affecting material, biopsychosocial and behavioural determinants. Calls are emerging across the political spectrum to introduce an emergency UBI to address socioeconomic insecurity. However, although existing studies indicate effects on health through cash transfers, UBI schemes have not previously been designed specifically to promote health. In this article, we scope the existing literature to set out a set of interdisciplinary research challenges to address in designing a trial of the effectiveness of UBI as a population health measure. We present a theoretical model of impact that identifies three pathways to health impact, before identifying open questions related to regularity, size of payment, needs-based supplements, personality and behaviour, conditionality and duration. These results set, for the first time, a set of research activities required in order to maximize health impact in UBI programmes.

In the Spotlight-Early Career Researcher.

Nicolas Rohner is an Edward Mallinckrodt Foundation Grantee Nicolas is a Guest Co-Editor of this special issue on Cavefish Website: https://research.stowers.org/rohnerlab/ With whom and where did you study? After studying genetics in Erlangen, Germany, I moved to the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. I worked on zebrafish developmental genetics as a graduate student in the laboratory of Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. After graduating, I moved to the US to work with Cliff Tabin as postdoc on evolutionary genetics. This is where I got introduced to the cavefish system, the system that I am working now in my laboratory at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City. What got you interested in Biology? When did you know EvoDevo was for you? Since a young age, my parents took me hiking and mushroom hunting. I quickly became fascinated by the diversity I encountered. I learned everything about the fauna and flora in the forests near my little town in Germany. Maybe because of this, biology classes in school felt naturally to me and I decided to major in biology in college, even though career prospects were limited at that time (this was before the word biotech became popular). But I knew that I wanted to stay in academia. It felt like the best place for understanding nature's mysteries. Naturally, I became interested in the field of EvoDevo as it seemed to provide the best approach for my lifelong dream to find the molecular mechanisms underlying the diversity I admired as a child. What is your experience with setting up and running an EvoDevo lab? Obviously working with organisms that are less established for laboratory use does provide enormous challenges. There are fewer protocols for breeding and maintenance, institutional animal care committees need more time to adapt to the new systems, and the critical mass of researchers needed to push forward new techniques and initiatives is often lacking. Luckily, the Stowers Institute was extremely supportive and helped immensely to push my agenda forward. But there is also a huge advantage on working with something new, one that always gave me immense satisfaction: everything you discover is new and no one else may be working on it. This has been very fulfilling and motivating to the people in my laboratory. Who was your most influential mentor? I was fortunate to train with two of my scientific heroes and have been strongly influenced by both of them: Christiane “Janni” Nüsslein-Volhard and Cliff Tabin. Janni has taught me the rigorous side of science, questioning results and making the science as solid and exact as possible without wasting time on useless experiments. From a personal perspective she taught me humility and sincerity, while scientifically I learned all about the fascinating field of developmental genetics in fish and flies. When I joined Cliffs lab, my research thrived from the different influences of developmental and evolutionary studies there. His lab was buzzling with intimidatingly smart and creative people working on all sorts of different animals. We had cavefish, zebrafish, axolotl, snails, seahorses, emu eggs, quails, and many other populating the lab. This was an incredibly intellectually stimulating and inspiring atmosphere. The sky was the limit. I will never forget this amazing experience. What do you see as the future of EvoDevo? This are obviously exciting times for EvoDevo. Increased access to sequencing has allowed for the emergence of many genomes of different animals but also other large data sets coming from RNA-Seq or other genome wide approaches. In addition, CRISPR allows for the first time to do some functional validation. But I feel the biggest strength of the EvoDevo field is its focus on interdisciplinary questions, which broadens one's perspective significantly. I am not going to repeat Dobzhansky here, but I personally wished for an even stronger focus on the Evo in EvoDevo and a stronger bridging of the two communities. For example, while almost every developmental biology meeting has a symposium dedicated to EvoDevo, this is not common for evolutionary meetings. I feel this can be improved and the EvoDevo community is best equipped for doing so. I also would recommend young researchers to not only fixate on the Devo in EvoDevo, there are many interesting aspects of EvoDevo that are worth exploring and that are often understudied. EvoNeuro, EvoPhysio, EcoEvoDevo, all these are important subdisciplines of EvoDevo that have immense potential.

Red Bull Rampage: Using Pop Culture to Promote Curiosity and a Research Mindset

This article foregrounds curiosity as a key academic skill and presents a strategy to help students enter academic discourse through exposure to pop culture texts that prompt development of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research questions.

Orthodontic treatment of periodontally damaged teeth – An interdisciplinary approach

Recently, a continuing trend cannot be overlooked: the number of orthodontically treated adult patients, with a particular interest in the correction of aesthetic imbalances, is increasing continuously. Because the mouth and teeth play a significant role in the attractiveness of the human face and the teeth are viewed as a prominent feature of personal identity, the correction of dentofacial anomalies must be realized with the appropriate emphasis on the objective goal-setting in orthodontics. Adult treatment itself confronts the orthodontist with interdisciplinary questions that, for example, concern orthodontic tooth movements in periodontally damaged section of the jaw.The high success rates of newer periodontal treatment techniques - such as guided tissue or bone regeneration— raised the questions of how these could reasonably be employed in combined periodontal- orthodontic therapy. Keywords: Guided tissue regeneration (GTR); pathologic tooth migration; advanced periodontitis

Implementing Pathology Peer Teaching Program in a Medical School

PurposePathology intimidates many first‐year medical students because it requires interdisciplinary critical thinking required to diagnose and to treat disease, and often, students are uninterested in the subject. These two factors cause students to disengage in the educational setting. To combat this problem, a mutually‐beneficial pilot teaching assistant (TA) program was developed in a General Pathology course to facilitate first‐year medical students’ abilities to apply General Pathology to integrative, interdisciplinary questions early in undergraduate medical education. TAs were second‐year medical students who cognitively benefited from the experience of teaching first years through the educational principle “To teach is to learn something twice,” thus aiding in their preparations for licensure examinations.MethodsThirteen (13) medical students from the second‐year Systemic Pathology class at an urban osteophathic medical school volunteered to serve as TA’s for the first‐year General Pathology class. The first‐year General Pathology class consisted of 135 medical students, divided into 23 small groups composed of between two to eight students per group. The 23 groups were then divided into two lecture halls. At least one pathology faculty member was also present in each lecture hall. First‐year students were presented with an integrative pathology case, provided to second‐year students in advance, and given guiding questions with the support of their assigned second‐year TA to develop critical thinking.ResultsResults consisted of positive preliminary feedback in the program’s initial implementation in the Spring 2019 semester from both first‐year students interested in exposure to board‐relevant questions early in their education and second‐year medical students actively preparing for their board examinations and interested in reviewing first‐year material.ConclusionPathology requires the integration of foundational concepts from anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, and immunology to understand the various aspects of the disease process. Training developed in digesting complex material is of utmost importance for success on national licensure examinations, such as the United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) and Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examinations of the United States of America (COMLEX‐USA), for board certification. The pilot teaching assisting program in the General Pathology course exposed first‐year medical students to challenging, integrative questions early in undergraduate medical education and re‐exposed second‐year medical students who were actively preparing for licensure examinations, benefiting both sets of students. Further studies will evaluate the effectiveness of the pathology teaching assistant program on academic performance and on licensure examinations.

In defence of the hearing? Emerging geographies of publicness, materiality, access and communication in court hearings

AbstractThe shift towards dispute resolution taking place outside traditional legal arenas is fundamentally changing the relationship between space and law, presenting legal geography with pressing new research opportunities. This paper explores how the emerging geographies of publicness, materiality, access to justice and communication shed light on the consequences of alternative and online dispute resolution. Crucially, these consequences raise urgent interdisciplinary questions for geography and law. We set out these questions and suggest that legal geography will be best placed to address them by working through some of the practical, applied ramifications of its concepts and perspectives.

The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary science and public education.

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they can provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science, such as in biomimetic design, and by contributing to solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they have long been incubators for cutting-edge research in biology while simultaneously providing core infrastructure for research on present and future societal needs. Here we explore how the intersection between pressing issues in environmental and human health and rapid technological innovation have reinforced the relevance of museum collections. We do this by providing examples as food for thought for both the broader academic community and museum scientists on the evolving role of museums. We also identify challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and the Global Museum to science and society and discuss the critical need to grow these collections. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this growth. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.