American Museum for genetics

Genetic information of species on National Park Service land that is threatened with extinction will now be frozen and stored for future research at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Ambrose Monell Collection for Molecular and Microbial Research in the basement of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City houses eight liquid nitrogen-cooled containers to genetic material of animals to save. Researchers can access the free samples. Samples were placed in small bottles, which in this slide numbered boxes. Each sample has a known location and is followed by a unique bar code.Lab manager Julie Feinstein calls the laboratory has a low-tech storage technology. Boxes of DNA samples in the racks slide on the bottom shelf of each tank shelf.The spins "as a lazy Susan," said Feinstein, so technicians are not too far out in the vessels are cooled to - 256 degrees Fahrenheit (-160 degrees Celsius). Samples are located above eight inches (20 cm) of liquid nitrogen, so it is the vapor, rather than the liquid itself, that cools and maintains the genetic information.Darrel Frost, associate dean of science for the American Museum of Natural History collections and Bert Frost, associate director of natural resource stewardship and science for the National Park Service, signed the agreement to the house of DNA from endangered species on the land at the park facilities at the museum.