Freezing genetic samples from plant and animal species is all
the rage these days, with projects ranging from San Diego's
Frozen Zoo to the UK's Frozen Ark. But New York's American
Museum of Natural History recently scored a scientific coup when
the U.S. National Park Service signed an agreement to store
endangered species samples in the museum's underground lab,
which will be one of the largest such repositories in the
country. Remember that scary prediction from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a few months back
about sea levels rising by as much as 23 inches in the next 100
years and flooding coastal regions and displacing billions of
people? Well, that forecast just got a little bit scarier. Ever
wonder what a museum's nebulous "permanent collection" looks
like when it's not hanging on the gallery walls? Especially a
permanent collection as intensively taxadermied as the American
Museum of Natural History's? Photographer Justine Cooper's
"Saved by Science" series shows us—one drawer full of d