National Science Museum Research Articles

The Identification Potential of Atherosclerotic Calcifications in the Context of Forensic Anthropology.

Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease that, in its more developed stages, can lead to the calcification of fatty plaques on the walls of arteries, resulting in the appearance of new bone elements. It is a condition that has been studied and documented little in the context of paleopathology, especially in the framework of forensic anthropology. This article analyzed the skeletal remains of 71 individuals (35 females and 36 males) from the Luís Lopes Identified Collection of the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon, 31 of whom had an autopsy report. An attempt was made to ascertain whether these bone elements resulting from atherosclerotic calcification would resist cadaveric decomposition and whether they would be recoverable several years after burial, and a survey was carried out of their distribution according to sex and age, as well as their association with other pathologies, such as osteoporosis and cardiac and renal pathologies. An imaging analysis of an atherosclerotic plaque was also carried out to complement the macroscopic analysis and present other methods of identifying plaques. It was concluded that each atherosclerotic calcification has a unique profile, which can be useful for identification, especially in cases where the individual shows a severe condition. In terms of identification potential, the analysis of calcified atherosclerotic plaques can be useful, as they can corroborate or reject an identification. However, it always requires the existence of ante-mortem imaging exams and must always be used in addition to other identification methods. Regardless of the identification, these plaques are bone elements resulting from a pathology and should, therefore, be known and recognized by the scientific community.

Блинк-компаратор: герменевтика предмета в техническом музее

The article is devoted to the problem of interpretation of a museum object, its kind, when an unambiguous demonstration of the purpose of a thing in the environment of its primary existence is important. In the case when an exhibit does not reveal its essence by itself, it is necessary to decipher its purpose, application practice, history of occurrence and other similar aspects of its information potential. In practice, the depressurization of meanings, the deep deployment of an information flow densely saturated with facts and events, is a non-trivial task. This is all the truer regarding monuments of scientific and technical heritage in technical and natural science museums, since very often objects related to scientific instruments or various kinds of machines are not amenable to information disclosure without prior preparation on the part of the visitor. As an example, to demonstrate the hermeneutical isolation of an object and decode its functional and utilitarian essence, the blink-comparator, an astronomical device of the relatively recent historical past, which has lost its relevance today, was chosen. The author of the article proves that any explanations of the purpose of this thing as a museum object in the context of working with a visitor cannot be reduced to a linear chronological sequence of presentation of the material, but inevitably there will be a need for asynchronous transitions from period to period with the presence of parallel places and a branching structure of the story with multiple storylines.

Inclusion Despite Colonial Contexts?: Critical Reflections through a Participatory Research Project with Students in a Natural Science Museum

Inclusion Despite Colonial Contexts?: Critical Reflections through a Participatory Research Project with Students in a Natural Science Museum

First report of powdery mildew on Euonymus japonicus caused by Erysiphe euonymicola in Taiwan.

The Japanese spindle (Euonymus japonicus Thunb.) is commonly used as an ornamental hedge plant in Taiwan. In March 2020, a severe powdery mildew disease was observed on E. japonicus surrounding a city park spanning six hectares in Taichung city, Taiwan. Around 90% of the plants showed symptoms on the leaves and pedicels of young shoots. Similar symptoms were observed in other districts of Taichung city and Taipei city between March to June in subsequent years. Initial signs of infection manifest as circular chlorotic spots on the leaves, which are subsequently covered by white mycelia on either the upper or lower surfaces of the spots. In severe cases, both sides of the leaves become entirely covered by dense mycelia. Hyphal appressoria were solitary or in opposite paired, lobed to multilobed. Conidiophores grow erectly from the hyphae, consist of 2-3 cylindrical cells, 38.9 to 78.6 × 6.31 to 8.28 µm (n = 30). Foot cells are usually straight or slightly flexuous, 23.6 to 43.2 µm (n = 30), followed by 1 to 2 shorter cells. Ellipsoidal conidia are produced singly on the conidiophores, 24.1 to 36.3 × 10.6 to 14.97 µm (n = 30), without fibrosin bodies. Germ tubes are mostly subterminal, sometimes terminal, occasionally exhibiting a longitudinal pattern. Chasmothecia were not observed. These morphological characteristics correspond to the description of Erysiphe euonymicola U. Braun (Braun and Cook 2012), one of the Erysiphe species reported on E. japonicus. Genomic DNA was extracted from seven isolates obtained from different plants in the affected regions. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and 28S large subunit (LSU) of rDNA sequences (ITS accession nos.: OR073423-OR073429; LSU accession nos.: OR073448-OR073454) were amplified and sequenced using primer sets PMITS-1 / PMITS-2 (Cunnington et al. 2003) and NLP2 / PRM2 (Bradshaw and Tobin 2020), respectively. The resulting sequences exhibited identities ranging from 99.1 to 100% in ITS and 100% in LSU when compared to the corresponding sequences of E. euonymicola MUMH 133 (ITS: AB250228; LSU: AB250230) (Limkaisang et al. 2006). Phylogenetic analysis based on the concatenated sequences of ITS and LSU clustered the seven isolates within the same clade as three E. euonymicola isolates (MUMH 133, MUMH 6999 and MUMH 7012). Pathogenicity assays were conducted on one-meter tall E. japonicus plants by gently smearing infected leaves on all leaves of four healthy plants. Four uninoculated plants were used as control. All eight assayed plants were enclosed in plastic bags to maintain high humidity at 28 ± 2°C for 3 days. Chlorotic spots began to appear on leaves younger than one month old at 7 days post inoculation (dpi). By 28 dpi, all inoculated plants showed symptoms. Spots expanded or merged and formed a dense mycelial layer on leaves younger than three months, while mature dark green leaves were asymptomatic. No symptoms were observed on any leaves of the control plants. The morphological characteristics and sequences of ITS and LSU of the pathogen from the inoculated plants matched the above information. Based on these findings, E. euonymicola was identified as the causal agent of powdery mildew on E. japonicus, representing the first documented report of this disease in Taiwan. A voucher specimen TNM F0037001 (isolate EPM-1) was deposited in the National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan. The pathogen has been frequently reported in recent years and significantly impacts the ornamental value of Euonymus spp. (Abbasi and Braun 2020; Lee et al. 2015; Li et al. 2011; Pei et al. 2022). This report also provides an evidence of an ongoing outbreak of the pathogen.

Methodology of organizing astronomical observations of asteroids and comets within the extracurricular activities of students

In this article, the methodology of using a telescope and charge-coupled device camera for organizing astrometric observations of asteroids and comets, as well as photometric observations of asteroids, is presented. Since astronomy is not studied as a separate subject in schools in Romania and the Republic of Moldova (as well as in many other countries), this methodology can be used within extracurricular activities for students. The observations described in the article took place at the astronomical observatory within the ‘Răsvan Angheluță’ Natural Sciences Museum Complex in Galați, Romania.

Каталог слепков палеонтологических находок приматов Музея антропологии МГУ

Natural science museum collections are an important source of materials for scientific research. The Museum of Anthropology has a collection of casts from paleontological finds of primates. This catalog has never been published before. This work contains information about the composition and history of the formation of the collection. Materials and methods. Documents from the Archive of the Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University and articles in journals became the basis for writing this work. Analytical and chronological research methods were applied in the study. Results and discussion. The section "Brief information on the history of the formation of the collection" contains information about the sources of replenishment of the paleoprimatological collection, the names of the scientists who transferred the items, the geography of receipts are given. The items were combined into collections on the grounds that they came from the same source at the same time. The "Collection catalog" is represented by a table. The finds are divided by geological periods, listed in alphabetical order within the period. Conclusion. A catalog of casts of finds of representatives of the order Primates (excluding the genus Homo) is presented in the article. In the course of working with the documents, we discovered that not all the accompanying papers were preserved. Work on reconstructing the history of the receipt of paleontological casts of primates will continue. @ 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

The showcase of salt rocks from Cardona in the Barcelona Natural Sciences Museum: conservation and adaptation for passive climate control

The results of the conservation work carried out on an exhibition set-up dating from the early twentieth century are presented. The exhibition set-up consists of a wooden showcase containing about twenty evaporite rocks from the collection of the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona (Spain). The work involved the remedial conservation of the rock specimens and showcase, and the improvement of the original environmental control system using sustainability criteria. An interdisciplinary team worked on the different phases of the project, which included prior historical and environmental studies. The remedial conservation of all elements in the collection has improved its accessibility and the monitoring of the environmental conditions of the new installation has confirmed the efficiency of the proposed passive environmental control system.

Analysis of the value preferences of university students in the framework of their axiological education

Introduction. The axiological education of university students (including technical ones) is becoming relevant in the modern world. There is a need to educate an independent and responsible person who is aware of his hierarchy of values and correlates it with the values of modern society. The purpose of the study was to analyze the value preferences of students of a technical university based on the results of participation in the «Pushkin Card» program. Materials and methods. The materials for the study were the works of scientists, student`s reviews, who took part in the project "Pushkin Card – Culture Education (Axiological Aspect)" (154 people) and the results of a survey in which 126 students from the MIREA – Russian Technological University took part. Theoretical (analysis of research literature, analysis of student feedback after attending cultural events and their speeches at summarizing online seminars) and experimental (questionnaire) research methods were used. Methods of personal interest of students, a personal approach were used (students independently chose an event that can be paid for by the "Pushkin Card"), an activity approach (students were required to attend the event they chose), the method of axiological analysis (students in their reviews evaluated the event in terms of the values formed by it). Research results. The result of the study is the conclusion that, in general, students of the MIREA – Russian Technological University actively use the "Pushkin Card" program, are aimed at axiological education and are able to independently analyze the value characteristics of the cultural events they choose. 30% of students chose contemporary art to visit, 20% – classical art, historical museums were chosen by 17.5% of students, natural science museums – 12.3%. In terms of attendance, museums and exhibitions ranked first, cinemas ranked second, theaters ranked third, and folk music concerts ranked last. In the first place for students were cognitive and aesthetic values. 1/3 of the respondents attend cultural events 1-2 times every six months and 1/3 of the students – 1-2 times a year. Conclusion. The initial finding of young people in a situation of value pluralism and their ability to think critically allows us to make an assumption that it is possible for them to create a harmonious value worldview, which will be a synthesis of the positive features of different axiological discourses of modern culture.

Tinkering with nature: craft, domesticity and female labour in F Percy Smith’s ‘Data’ notebooks (1925–1944)

This article examines two notebooks belonging to the scientific filmmaker F Percy Smith, labelled ‘Data A’ and ‘Data B’, which are held at the National Science and Media Museum (NSMM) in Bradford. These notebooks offer valuable insights into Smith’s working process in the last two decades of his life – between 1925 and 1945 – and they detail the wide array of materials, tools and equipment that he used to produce his films. The article suggests some of Smith’s uses for the notebooks, such as noting down locations for collecting specimens or describing how to construct tanks and troughs for filming individual organisms. Using a wide range of supplementary sources, including images, videos and an interactive map, I argue that Smith’s work amounted to a form of scientific ‘craft’, which blended across his experimentation with photographic media and scientific observation. Dismantling the long-held belief that F Percy Smith worked entirely alone, the article uses the notebooks as an opportunity to highlight for the first time the role that two women played in Smith’s studio-laboratory: his wife, Kate Smith, and his assistant, Phyllis Bolté. The notebooks are a key source for understanding the production of natural history films of the interwar period, including the popular Secrets of Nature (1922–1933) series. The article reflects on what media scholars can learn from taking a closer look at the materials and methods used for making films of this kind.

디자인 씽킹을 활용한 비형식 환경교육프로그램 개발 및 효과성 연구

Objectives The purposes of this study were to develop and apply an informal environmental education program based on the design thinking process to improve creative problem-solving skills of out-of-school youth.
 Methods In order to achieve the research objectives, an environmental education program using design thinking process was developed. The developed informal environmental education program was applied to 13 out-of-school teenagers belonging to the G-gun Youth Counseling Support Center. Afterwards, the skills for creative problem solving were investigated by pre- and post-tests accompanying open surveys, and in-depth interviews to judge the achievements of the objectives.
 Results As represented on previous research and literature analyses, three informal environmental education ex-perts designed a draft of education program. For the completion, the program was evaluated as well as validated by other five experts. Afterwards, the program was applied to the 12th educational program of the Busan National Science Museum <Learning Science 2.0> from May to June 2021, and its effectiveness was validated.
 Conclusions In this study, an informal environmental education program using the design thinking process was developed and applied to out-of-school youth. The effectiveness of the program was validated in that creative problem-solving skills and a core competency necessary for out-of-school youth were enhanced.

The collection of type specimens belonging to the families Archeocrypticidae, Pythidae and Tenebrionidae III (Coleoptera) deposited in the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Spain

The type collection of the families Archeocrypticidae, Pythidae and Tenebrionidae III (Coleoptera) deposited in the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Spain, was organised, revised and documented. The collection contains 1,216 type specimens representing 238 different taxa. Of note, is a considerable number of species belonging to families described by Francesc Español, Maurice Antoine, Pierre Ardoin, Carlo Koch and Zoltán Kaszab. In this paper we provide all the available information relating to these type specimens. For all taxa (species or subspecies) we give the following information: original and current taxonomic status, original citation of type material, the exact transcription of the original label, and the preservation condition of the specimen. We also discuss the differences between the original descriptions and labels. If a taxonomic change has occurred, the references describing those changes are included at the end of the description.

Из архива профессора Д. П. Григорьева: к 250-летию Горного музея

The article continues the series on the history of geology and is devoted to the Natural Science Museum of the St. Petersburg Mining University, namely its mineral collection. From the letters found by the author in the archive of Professor D. P. Grigoriev’s
 archive, kept in the Russian Mineralogical Society we can learn, interesting information about the circumstances of the acquisition of certain collections and exhibits, and about people worthy to remain in the history of mineralogy. At the same time, wide connections of D. P. Grigoriev with industrial and academic organisations and his active work on the creation and dissemination of the doctrine of mineral ontogeny, which eventually became a section of the university course of mineralogy, were revealed. The letters were accompanied by photographs from the same archive. The aim of the article was to cover the history of Russian mineralogy as fully as possible, including the role of organisations and individuals, and to reconstruct details of their biographies. Some of the problems discussed in the letters are still relevant today. The reader's attention should be attracted by the names of statesmen Prince G. Orbeliani, Prime Minister of India J. Nehru, Emperor of Ethiopia H. Selassie, mineralogists A. E. Fersman, G. N. Vertushkov, Yu. S. Kobya­shev, name of the Ural historical deposits Gumeshevka and Vatikha, enterprise «Russian precious stones» mentioned in one context. The article is timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Mining Museum.

Applying Smart Glasses in Situated Exploration for Learning English in a National Science Museum

Research on the use of augmented reality technology in museums is mostly limited to scientific knowledge. The use of wearable device technology learning materials to benefit students in the process of English learning has been somewhat explored, along with differences in students' learning styles and their influence on students' learning motivation, but there remains much to be done in this field. This study explored the learning effect of smart glasses integration into the English language dinosaur exhibition at the Museum of Natural Science and investigated their impact on motivation. The experimental group used smart glasses learning strategy to facilitate their learning experience, while the control group used tablets learning strategy. The research results show that: (1) Learning effectiveness and motivation were significantly superior when using smart glasses learning strategy, as compared to using tablet learning strategy when learning through the English language situated exploration game. (2) The interaction between different learning strategies and learning styles had a significant impact on learning effectiveness. In the smart glasses learning strategy group and the tablet learning strategy group, the learning effectiveness of the kinesthetic students was significantly higher than those of the auditory students. The learning effectiveness of the visual students using the tablet learning strategy was higher than auditory students. (3) The interaction between different learning strategies and learning styles had no significant effect on learning motivation. In terms of learning motivation, visual students were more affected than auditory and kinesthetic students.

İklim Değişikliği Odağındaki Çevresel Sorunlarla Mücadelede Türkiye’de Bulunan Doğa Tarihi ve Bilim Müzelerinin Uygulamaları

In this article, environmental and climate practices in science and natural history museums in Türkiye are presented and discussed. While environmental and climate problems are global issues, they have local roots. As environmental issues are related to human activities and museums play a societal role, it is important to examine practices and approaches of museums in relation to the environment. Operations and practices of natural history and science museums in Türkiye, including educational activities, are important elements in communicating the risks of vulnerable environmental issue. This study outlines the environmental practices of the science and natural history museums of Türkiye which are commonly accepted as reliable providers of information to engage with audiences for action towards environmental challenges. Documentary research was conducted for the study. When the environmental practices and approaches are reviewed, it is seen that natural history museums function basically as research areas. Still, they have public education roles and organize educational activities about natural history, biodiversity and environment. While public education is one of the roles of natural history museums besides their conventional functions like collecting, conserving, researching and exhibiting, science centers are institutions dedicated to public education. Since science centers are mostly supported by municipalities, it can be said that they operate in a more sustainable and holistic way. Also, it is seen that their environmental reach-out programs offer a wider range. Based on data, we claim that collaboration with municipalities has an effect on the environmental activities and perspectives of museums. Also, climate-context works encourage museum community to make interdisciplinary works across the world. By presenting the current environmental and climate practices in natural history and science museums in Türkiye, it is aimed that the article can provide collaboration among institutions and advance the discussions among museums in the context of environment and climate.

Connecting the Dots: Aligning human capacity through networks toward a globally interoperable Digital Extended Specimen (DES) infrastructure

Thanks to substantial support for biodiversity data mobilization in recent decades, billions of occurrence records are openly available, documenting life on Earth and enabling timely research, awareness raising, and policy-making. Initiatives across local to global scales have been separately funded to serve different, yet often overlapping audiences of data users, and have developed a variety of platforms and infrastructures to meet the needs of these audiences. The independent progress of biodiversity data providers has led to innovations as well as challenges for the community at large as we move towards connecting and linking a diversity of information from disparate sources as Digital Extended Specimens (DES). Recognizing a need for deeper and more frequent opportunities for communication and collaboration across the globe, an ad-hoc group of representatives of various international, national, and regional organizations have been meeting virtually since 2020 to provide a forum for updates, announcements, and shared progress. This group is provisionally named International Partners for the Digital Extended Specimen (IPDES), and is guided by these four concepts: Biodiversity, Connection, Knowledge and Agency. Participants in IPDES include representatives of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA), Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo), Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC), National Specimen Information Infrastructure of China (NSII), and South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), as well as individuals involved with biodiversity informatics initiatives, natural science collections, museums, herbaria, and universities. Our global partners group strives to increase representation from around the globe as we aim to enable research that contributes to novel discoveries and addresses the societal challenges leading to the biodiversity crisis. Our overarching mission is to expand on the community-driven successes to connect biodiversity data and knowledge through coordination of a globally integrated network of stakeholders to enable an extensible technical and social infrastructure of data, tools, and working practices in support of our vision. The main work of our group thus far includes publishing a paper on the Digital Extended Specimen (Hardisty et al. 2022), organizing and hosting an array of activities at conferences, and asynchronous online work and forum-based exchanges. We aim to advance discussion on topics of broad interest to our community such as social and technical capacity building, broadening participation, expanding social and data networks, improving data models and building a backbone for the DES, and identifying international funding solutions. This presentation will highlight some of these activities and detail progress towards a roadmap for the development of the human network and technical infrastructure necessary to support the DES. It provides an opportunity for feedback from and engagement by stakeholder communities such as TDWG and other initiatives with a focus on data standards and biodiversity informatics, as we solidify our plans for the future in support of integrated and interconnected biodiversity data and credit for those doing the work.

В.И. Вернадский: вклад в развитие музейного дела

The article acquaints with the distribution of the outstanding scientist Vladimir Vernadsky to the formation and development of the largest Russian academy of sciences natural science museums. The museums of the new type appeared as a result of Vladimir Vernadsky multiyear work. Two closely related directions of activity: the museum itself and scientific research institute are the base of such museums.

Разработка базы данных фондов Геологического музея им. А. А. Чернова

In modern museums, information and analytical systems complete many tasks related to museum activities. The application of generally accepted software systems, developed for subordinate museums of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, is limited in natural science museums. Often, natural science museums develop their own databases and information systems.
 This article describes the development of a database of collections of the Geological Museum named after A. A. Chernov. We present main results of study — the design of a datalogical model.

A 3D REPOSITORY OF DINOSAUR TEETH: THE GENERATION OF OPEN RESOURCES FOR THE CLASSIFICATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF SPECIMENS

Abstract. Among the many valuable uses of the artificial intelligence in the field of museums, it may assist the classification of out-of-context items. This paper deals with the problem of the identification of dinosaur teeth (a type of fossil that is usually found scattered), which can be tackled by means of multivariate algorithms (such as the principal components, discriminant or cluster analyses) taking as a starting point a series of morphometric values (i.e., distances between specific points of the fossil tooth). A good interpretation requires some comprehension regarding the mathematical algorithms that are used, as well as the specific knowledge in palaeontology that permits appreciating the actual reach of the results. However, based on metric values as the computations are, there must also be some control over their precision and the possibility of checking the old measurements or complete the list of morphometric variables. This is an aspect that may be solved if the three-dimensional models of the teeth are made publicly available.The text describes the 3D documentation of a set of twelve fossil teeth of the museum of Natural Sciences of Álava (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain) —approximately from 1 to 6 cm in size— using a structured light scanner and close-up photographs for recording some features smaller than the resolution of the scanner. The information about each tooth was then packed and uploaded to the university repository, from where it is also accessible via cultural and scientific aggregators (such as Europeana); likewise, reduced resolution copies are also accessible in the commercial platform Sketchfab®.

Sustainable Development Evaluation of Cultural and Creative Industries Using a Neutrosophic-Based Dematel–Topsis Approach

Nowadays, national governments and international organizations are increasingly interested in the sustainable development of the cultural and creative industries through the integration of culture, art, science, and education and their influence on local economic and cultural development and promotion. However, to the best of our knowledge, only few studies have proposed a comprehensive framework based on the multi-criteria decision-making concept for evaluating the sustainable development of such industries. The main purpose of this paper is to determine which criteria are important for sustainable development, how these criteria interact, and how the sustainability performance of the evaluated subjects can be measured. Four sustainability perspectives are incorporated into the framework, economic, social, environmental, and governmental institutional, and 17 evaluation criteria. In the methodology, the neutrosophic decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (N-DEMATEL) method is first used to identify the influential relationships between the sustainability criteria. Then, a modified technique for order priority by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is used to calculate the performance of the sustainable cultural and creative industries. Neutrosophic fuzzy logic is applied to reflect the ambiguity of the expert evaluations, with the three parameters of truth, falsity, and indeterminacy incorporated to obtain more potential uncertainty information for neutrosophic decision support. The validity and practicality of the proposed model are demonstrated through a real-world example for the National Museum of Natural Science located in Central Taiwan. The results show that local government involvement, policy promotion and marketing, and the promotion of concept of sustainability are the most influential criteria for sustainability in the cultural and creative industries. The research findings can be used to guide the long-term development of the cultural and creative industries for industry and government and the method can be adapted for other performance evaluation issues. Government agencies can use the model to encourage the development of the cultural and creative industries through financial support, promotion, and partnerships with other agencies using its resources and allocation capabilities.

Mollusks from Arctic Region at the National Museum of Natural Sciences Collections (MNCN-CSIC, Madrid, Spain)

The Mollusca Collection of the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN, CSIC, Madrid) contains some specimens from the Arctic Circle, exactly thirty-eight lots including historical collections, which may provide insights to climate change research. Some of these collections refer to those of the Head of the Scientific Commission of the Pacific, the mariner and naturalist Patricio Paz y Membiela (accessioned in 1873), and the malacologists Joaquín González Hidalgo and Florentino Azpeitia (accessioned in 1913 and 1934 respectively). Recently there has been a donation from the collector and diplomat Javier Conde de Saro which was accessioned in the MNCN in 2011 and a collection of the curator of the Mollusca Collection, Rafael Araujo, of 2010. These specimens belong to twenty-six species (fifteen marine and three freshwater gastropods; six marine and one freshwater bivalves; and one polyplacophoran) from places such as Kola Peninsula, Greenland, and Novaya Zembla; and Russian Arctic waters. All of these specimens have been databased and are an important contribution to global research as mollusk are heavily affected by temperature changes and ocean acidification.