All posts by Grace Costantino

Nestled within the Hang Dong district, Chiang Mai, Thailand, is a 10 acre botanical garden called Dokmai Garden. Run by the Thai family Seehamongkol, it boasts over 1,000 plant species, including orchids, laurels, banana plants, birds-of-paradise plants, and gingers. The Seehamongkol family, and the garden’s biologist and Director, Dr. Eric Danell, have the lucky fortune of not only working in this garden, but also of calling it home.

This Saturday, June 8, is World Oceans Day, the UN-designated day for the global community to celebrate and take action to protect Earth’s oceans. 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, and every living thing depends on water to survive. Sadly, according to the United Nations, with the world eating more seafood than ever before, approximately 2/3 of the ocean’s species are overfished.

The seventeenth century was a time of great advancement for science, but it also presented a curious juxtaposition between superstition and science. A part of Europe’s Early Modern period and the birth of the Baroque cultural movement, the 1600s also encompassed the early years of the Scientific Revolution, when superstition and religion gave way to scientific reasoning. Furthermore, the Enlightenment, which attempted to replace ideas based on faith or tradition with scientific method, began to take hold later in the century.

If you think all we do is digitize books, get ready to be surprised!

The realm of ontology concerns the nature of reality, determining what exists, how it fits within a hierarchy, and how various elements are organized according to similarities and differences. Traditionally a philosophical question within metaphysics, today ontology has a firm application within systems biology as well.Anatomy ontologies describe the structural and developmental relationships between the various parts of an organism. Defining anatomical ontologies reveals a complete list of distinguishing characteristics for that organism or group of organisms. The act of creating an anatomical ontology requires precise definitions of the terminology used to describe a variety of phenotypes.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of the Charles Robert Long Award of Extraordinary Merit from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL).The highest honor bestowed by CBHL, the Charles Robert Long Award for Extraordinary Merit was founded to honor outstanding contribution and meritorious service to CBHL or to the field of botanical and horticultural libraries or literature. Since 1988, only 14 people have received this award.

We are pleased to announce that the BHL Steering Committee has approved new vision, mission, and goal statements for the Biodiversity Heritage Library!