Whewell’s Gazette
Your weekly digest of all the best of
Internet history of science, technology and medicine
Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell
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Volume #28
Monday 29 December 2014
EDITORIAL:
As 2014 winds to a halt, the Christmas excesses have settled on the hips and the first snows of winter have fallen on large parts of Europe causing traffic chaos and train delays, as if it were the first time that mankind has been confronted by this hexagonal form of frozen water, we bring you the final edition of your weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette for this year. But fear not gentle readers if there be histories of science, medicine and technology posted on the Internet in 2015 there will be a Whewell’s Gazette to collect, collate, conserve and present those posts for your delectation every seven days.
In Germany in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve people greet each other with ‘Guten Rutsch’, which means slide well into the New Year. I hope all of the readers of Whewell’s Gazette slide smoothly into 2015 and continue to hold the #histSTM high in the next twelve months.
Quotes of the Week:
« A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. » – David Hume
“I don’t know why people say writing is like pulling teeth.
Pulling teeth is way faster *and* no one judges you for using drugs.” @mulegirl
Uncertain Principles: Advent Calendar of Science Stories
#histSTM Christmas Special The Twelve Days of Taxonomy
American Museum of Natural History: Twelve Days of Taxonomy
Birthdays of the Week:
Isaac Newton born 25 December 1642 (os)
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Godfrey Kneller’s 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46).
Happy birthday to Sir Isaac Newton! Did everyone get a personal alchemy kit for Christmas in his honor? – @DrMRFrancis
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 1: Was he or wasn’t he and does it matter?
History of Geology: The Philosopher’s Stone
Ether Wave Propaganda: A Birthday Present for Newton
Royal Museums Greenwich: Collections: Isaac Newton
AMNH: Meet the Universe’s Main Attraction – Gravity
Charles Babbage born 27 December 1791
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The Illustrated London News (4 November 1871)
Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 2: Computing mathematical miracles
Science Museum: Babbage’s Analytical Engine, 1834–1871. (Trial model)
James Ungureanu: Vision of Science: Charles Babbage
Johannes Kepler born 27 December 1571
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Portraits of Kepler and his first wife in oval medallions
NASA: Ames Research Center: Johannes Kepler: His Life, His Laws and Times
Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 3: Choosing a wife
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
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First Astronomy Class at Vassar College 1866
Professor Maria Mitchell and fifteen female students wearing long dresses, seated or standing behind a telescope. Some are holding hats or an open book.
Kuriositas: The Einstein Tower
Graham Farmelo: A Dirac Returns to Caltech
Yovisto: John Michell and the Effect of Gravity on Light
Ptak Science Books: First Light to Good Night––Putting a Telescope to Sleep
AIP: Oral History Transcripts – Dr Maarten Schmidt
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
National Maritime Museum: Longitude Legends – Edmond Halley
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Halley compass variations 1702
MEDICINE:
Social History of Medicine: ‘They are called Imperfect men’: Male Infertility and Sexual Health in Early Modern England
Darrin Hayton: Two early pamphlets on the French Pox
NYAM: “FEAR Narcotic Drugs!” The Passage of the Harrison Act
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Ad published in American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, volume 36, number 6, March 25, 1900.
Ptak Science Books: A Little Version of the Big Giant Head
ABO Public: To make maccarons of valentia Almonds
Mayo Clinic News Network: Christmas Eve Discovery 100 Years Ago is Still Helping Millions
Museum of Health Care Blog: Christmas Seals and Advertising for Health
BetaBoston: 60 years ago today, a Brigham surgeon kickstarted the field of organ transplantation
Harvard Library Oasis: Murray, Joseph E., Papers, 1919-2011
Academia.edu: Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Germany
The Guardian: From the archive, 25 December 1824: typhus fever rages in Manchester
Science Chamber of Horrors: This Weird Side Effect Nearly Torpedoed the Practice of Anesthesia
The Sloane Letters Blog: On Asses’ Milk
Bëhance: The Hypodermic Syringe
CHEMISTRY:
The Recipes Project: A Perfumed Recipe on the Early Modern Stage (Part 1)
Rachel Laudan: Tiny Bubbles: Where Food Met Science, Medicine, and Religion
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Hales’ apparatus for pumping air into liquids. The bottom was placed in the liquid, then bellows were inserted inserted into the top right hole and pumped to blow the air through.
Chemical Heritage Foundation: The DDT Collector
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Culture 24: Parchment dating and sheep gene could allow archaeologists to trace centuries of agricultural history
Yovisto: Jean-Henri Fabre – The Virgil of Insects
The Conversation: The rabbits of Christmas past: a present that backfired for Australia
Notches: Three Wise Men in a Bed: Bedsharing and Sexuality in Medieval Europe
Letters From Gondwana: A Christmas Carol: Dickens and the Little Ice Age
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Scrooge’s third visitor, by John Leech, 1843. (From Wikimedia Commons)
The Embryo Project: Paul Kammerer (1880–1926)
The Guardian: Charles Darwin’s voyage on Beagle unfolds online in works by ship’s artist
Nautilus: T. Rex Might be the Thing with Feathers
Yovisto: Gorillas in the Mist
Yovisto: William H. Masters – Master of Sex
TECHNOLOGY:
Conciatore: Glass Salt Reprise
Conciatore: Fall from Grace
Conciatore: Readers Choice
The H-Word: The many inventions of photography
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An early photograph, possibly of Talbot’s daughter. Reproduced courtesy of the Bodleian Library. Photograph: William Henry Fox Talbot Archive/Bodleian Library.
History of Art at Oxford University: William Fox Talbot and the Variety of the Photographic Archive: Exploring Oxford’s Photography Collections
Ptak Science Books: A Peek Behind the Curtain at the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (1945)
Wonders & Marvels: From Papyrus to Parchment
Science Museum: Online Science: Section of a CB1 manual telephone exchange switchboard, 1925–1960
Ether Wave Propaganda: The 1941 “Butt Report” (on RAF bombing accuracy). Transcription
The New York Times: Miles of Steam Pipes Snake Beneath New York
Yovisto: John von Neumann – Game Theory and the Digital Computer
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
Jefferson Bailey: Speak to the Eyes: The History and Practice of Information Visualisation
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Figure 3. Charles Joseph Minard, Tableaux Graphiques et Cartes Figuratives de M. Minard, 1845–1869. 1869. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons, via Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20140301150547/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png.
The Royal Institution: Henry Perigal, the Respected Crank
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences: Virtual Special Issue: Mendel, Mendelism, and the Mendelian
Historiens de la santé: Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Vol. 70 Issue 1 Jan 2015
The New England Journal of Medicine: Rethinking the Social History
The Royal Society: The Repository: Chimes at midnight
Correspondences: Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism Issue 2.2 (2014) Released
British Library: Medieval manuscript blog: Between Manuscript and Print: Greek Manuscripts from the Circle of Aldus Manutius
Yovisto: The Nuremberg Chronicle and the History of the World
Faith and Wisdom in Science: Medieval Lessons for the Modern Science/Religion Debate
Compass Wallah: Research Notes: India, Scientific Revolution Etc.
Blink: The square root of evil
NYAM: The Christmas Lectures
American Science: What is the Regional History of American Science?
Library of Congress: Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the Library of Congress
Leaping Robot Blog: Art at the Speed of Light
Wallifaction: it’s a great beautiful tomorrow: the vision of science and progress at walt disney world
Ether Wave Propaganda: The Tale of Two Syllabi: The Grad School Origins of Ether Wave Propaganda
Tulsa World: Michael Gerson: Room for nonconformity
James Ungureanu: Visions of Science: John Herschel
Sententias: Word of the Week Wednesday: Interrogatio
International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group: Recent Newsletters
ESOTERIC:
News at Princeton: Decoding alchemy: Freshman seminar offers recipe for new perspectives
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Jennifer Rampling, an assistant professor of history, highlights elements and compounds that were known to alchemists during a class session in Frick Chemistry Laboratory. One of the challenges in studying alchemy is deciphering recipes left by early practitioners. (Photo by Denise Applewhite, Office of Communications)
France Culture: De la bosse des maths à la théorie du criminel né: l’histoire de la phrénologie
BOOK REVIEWS:
Some Beans: Maskelyne – Astronomer Royal edited by Rebekah Higgitt
NEW BOOKS:
Science for the People: The Amazons
Historiens de la santé: Muslim Midwives. The Craft of Birthing in the Premodern Middle East
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Pickering & Chatto: New series: Pickering Studies in the History of Philosophy
Historiens de la santé: The Tools of Asclepius: Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times
OUP: The History of Emotions: An Introduction
The Dispersal of Darwin: Huxley’s Church & Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science
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Historiens de la santé: The ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus: Content and Context
The Dispersal of Darwin: Darwin the Writer
THEATRE:
FILM:
TELEVISION:
The Guardian: The problem of Professor Branestawm
SLIDE SHARE:
VIDEOS:
Youtube: 1890 Coin Operated Polyphon Music Box – ‘O Come All Ye Faithful”
Open Culture: Everything I Know: 42 hours of Buckminster Fuller’s Visionary Lectures Free Online (1975)
RADIO:
BBC: Cells and Celluloid: A Science and Cinema Special
PODCASTS:
News Works: Happy 500th birthday, Vesalius! Celebrating the founder of modern anatomy, Mutter style
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Historiens de la santé: Histoire de la théorie cellulaire et du concept de cellule Journées d’étude Organisées par Marion Thomas et Laurent Loison dans le cadre du projet POLCELL. les 7 et 8 janvier 2015 Université de Strasbourg
University of Manchester: CfP: Medicine, Translations, and Histories 11-12 June 2015
Cultivating Innovation: CfP: A one-day interdisciplinary conference 14 April 2015 John Innes Centre Norwich
Swansea University: CfP: Technologies of Daily Life (TODL) in Ancient Greece 2-3 July 2015
The British Society for the History of Science: Event: Syon Abbey Herbal – Reception at Society of Antiquaries, London 13 January 2015
Historiens de la santé: CfP: Hygiene, Medicine, and Wellbeing 1-3 May 2015 University of Arizona
University of Helsinki: CfP: Investigating Interdisciplinary Practice: Methodological Challenges 15-17 June 2015
Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) CfP: Fifth Biennial Conference 24-26 June 2015 University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
Historiens de la santé: CfP: Health History in Action University of Strathclyde 26-28 August 2015
http://histoiresante.blogspot.ca/2014/12/lhistoire-de-la-sante-en-action.html
Historiens de la santé: Appel à communications: Littérature et médecine : le cas de Proust Centre de Recherches Proustiennes de la Sorbonne 3-5 Juillet 2015
H-MedAnthro: CfP: ‘Social Sciences and Medical Innovations: Doing Things Together’ 21-23 May Tomsk
University of Notre Dame: CfP: Biennial History of Astronomy Workshops 24-28 June 2015
TORCH: University of Oxford: Faith and Wisdom in Science 11 February 2015
Cambridge University: Lecture: One-seed, two-seed, three-seed? Reassessing ancient theories of generation Rebecca Flemming: 15 January 2015 4:30pm
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Roman votives displayed in the Naples Museum. Photo: Rachel Aucott.
LOOKING FOR WORK:
Leeds Humanities Research Institute: Short-term Post-doctoral Fellowships 2015
PhD Positions in Philosophy at Durham University (Deadline: January 12, 2015)
The British Society for the History of Science: Call for Applications: Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University in the City of New York
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven: 4 year Postdoc: Darwinizing culture: the status of cultural evolution as a science
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven: PhD studentship in philosophy (project see above)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
