OpenUp! is a growing network of European institutions from the natural history domain, providing multimedia objects to the Europeana portal www.europeana.eu. This includes digitized specimens, natural history artwork, animal sounds, and videos. The OpenUp! Natural History Aggregator for Europeana is coordinated by the Botanic Garden und Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie Universität Berlin.
Collections provide standardised metadata via the BioCASe Provider Software (Biological Collection Access Service) or the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT). During the aggregation process that includes the harvest, transformation and transfer of scientific metadata, these items are enriched by i) literature references, ii) geo names, and iii) multilingual common names of plants and animals to increase the accessibility of objects by non-scientific users.
12 European countries take part in the OpenUp! network and contribute 3.2 million records by now. Data providers benefit from reaching new audiences, increasing web traffic to institutional websites and gaining better visibility towards research funding organizations and also within society.
Article on the BioCASe Monitor Service has been published in the first volume of the Biodiversity Data Journal earlier this month. You can access the article using this link or through the "Publications" section.
Last week the OpenUp! project successfully reached its second year and on that occasion we organized the 2nd Annual meeting in Prague.
The fourth OpenUp! Newsletter has recently been published at the project website.
The death cap is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the northern hemisphere. However, did you know that food prepared with a death cap is extremely tasty?
Look at one of the most poisonous plants in Europe - deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna). Did you know that in the early and middle ages, women of all ages rubbed belladonna juice into their eyes to make them large and beautiful, from which also comes the species name of the plant (bella donna = beautiful woman)?
The winter is slowly ending; snow is melting and we dedicate a short piece to one of the largest mammals from the last Ice Age – the woolly mammoth (Mamuthus primigenius).
Our new Content Highlight is about beautiful, but deadly beetle. Did you know that in the past powder from Spanish fly had been used by women to abort pregnancy?
Spanish fly is a 2 cm long metallic green beetle of Meloidae family (Blister Beetles). It can be found primarily in warm climates in Europe and Asia. This beetle feeds on leaves of ash, privet and others deciduous trees. Spanish fly has a very complicated development, going through several larval stages which parasitize on solitary bees.
Did you know that today (February 27) is The International Polar Bear Day?
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) grows up to 2.6 m and can be simply recognized by a thick white fur. Together with Kodiak bear, the polar bear is the largest land carnivore (order Carnivora). Polar bears are widespread in the whole Arctic region. They prefer floating pack ice which they use for traveling. Thus, their geographic range usually reaches the southern area of floating ice.
If you like Japanese food, be careful when you try fugu. Some organs of this fish are very poisonous. The chef, who wants to prepare the fugu, must go through a three-year training to recieve a special license.
Be aware that some plants in parks and gardens could be poisonous, especially for children. One of them is Common Laburnum. And did you know that during First World War, experiments were conducted aimed at using laburnum to replace tobacco, because the principal psychoactive chemical is cytosine, which has similar effects to nicotine?
