DINOSAURS

Dinosaurs..... I thought that would get your attention.... So dinosaurs everybody loves them young and Old, but what do they actually contribute to the world of science? This topic has come about due to a conversation I was having with colleagues a few days ago. As many of you reading this will know, the Natural History Museum has cut funding to its micropalaeontology department, and shut it down. For me, this is a great shame. We need micropalaeontologists, not just to look at the "pretty dead things" and catalogue them, but to study their life habitat so we may predict the future of our changing planet. So if microfossils are so important why didn't the NHM close the dinosaur gallery? Money and Tourism. And what can we do about it? Probably not a lot. We need to emphasis the importance of these little "bugs" and tell the public just how important they are for both practical and academic applications. I remember last year when word was first circulated about the funding cuts an online petition page was created. This did get several thousand signatures, but clearly not enough. If all the public new how important this department was the petition would have got many more signatures and maybe we would have saved the department.

GF