Lasers Reveal What Keeps Darwin’s 200-Year-Old Jars Preserved
Scientists used portable spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) to peek inside Charles Darwin’s 200-year-old preserved specimen jars at the Natural History Museum without opening them. The technique identified preservation fluids in about 80% of jars (mammals/reptiles often in formalin then ethanol, invertebrates in formaldehyde-based mixtures), with 15% partially identifiable and 6.5% not confidently identified. The method helps conserve delicate collections while guiding storage practices across museums, and the study was published in ACS Omega (2026).