Warehouse, cemetery, playground: Australia's biodiversity vault

CSIRO's National Research Collection in Canberra is where millions of dead things bring life to Australian science.

The specimens, collected over many decades, have just been very carefully moved into a new purpose-built facility named Diversity.

The What the Duck?! team had a "sticky beak" inside to find DNA extraction robots, extinct birds, predatory flies, and a few thousand slides containing insect genitalia.

This episode was recorded in September, before recent announcements were made about CSIRO funding.

Featuring:

• Dr Alicia Grealy, research projects officer, National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
• Dr Keith Bayless, research scientist, National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
• Andrea Wild, science communicator, CSIRO
• Dr Anna Kearns, research scientist, National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
• Dr Olivia Evangelista de Souza, curator and digital data manager, National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO

With thanks to Thea Williams and Ian Dewar at CSIRO

Production:

• Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer
• Rebecca McLaren, Producer
• Hamish Camilleri, Sound Engineer

This episode of What the Duck?!  was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and Taungurung people.

Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.