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
Volume #37
Monday 02 March 2015
EDITORIAL:
It’s that time of the week again and your weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette #37 is back bring you all the histories of science, technology and medicine that the Internet had on offer in the last even days.
This week saw a history of medicine story on the possible origins of the Black Death presented by the BBC thus:
BBC News: ‘Gerbils replace rats’ as main cause of Black Death
As was to be expected the popular science media fell into a feeding frenzy as to who could produce the most sensational and inaccurate headline for an equally inaccurate account of the research and its discovery. All the journalist had to do was to read the original paper or the popular account published on the Conversation by the reports authors,
The Conversation: Plague outbreaks that ravaged Europe for centuries were driven by climate changes in Asia
to get their facts right! Archaeologist and plague specialist Alison Atkin (@alisonatkin) has written two excellent posts analysing the whole sorry mess thus saving us the trouble.
Deathplanation: Avoid Gerbil Headlines like a cliche…
Deathplanation: Blame The Gerbils? Blame the Journalists?
As you can see above in our masthead there was a meeting of the editorial board this week.
Quotes of the week:
Sir Jonas Moore’s remedy for Sciatica, as reported by John Aubrey: “he cured it by boiling his buttock” – @borisjardine
Huizinga – “Task of history is to make past come to life. To do so it has to go beyond fact, create an image. History is not the sum of facts”. – @erik_kwakkel
“I had very good discourse with Mr. Ashmole, wherein he did assure me that frogs and many insects do often fall from the sky, ready formed.“ –Samuel Pepys
“They’re not anecdotes, that’s small batch artisanal data” – @pikelet
“The ‘scientific method’? Not a rigid sterile recipe to be taught, but an emotional and creative Art form to be nurtured.” – @Stelygs
“The finest historians will not be those who succumb to the dehumanizing methods of social sciences, whatever their uses and values, which I hasten to acknowledge. Nor will the historian worship at the shrine of that Bitch-goddess, QUANTIFICATION. History offers radically different values and methods.” -Carl Bridenbaugh, AHA presidential address, 1962 h/t @scott_bot
“History without the history of science…resembles a statue of Polyphemus without his eye.” I. Bernard Cohen h/t @embryoproject
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
AHF: Glen Seaborg
io9: The Complete History of Ceres, The Planet (?) Between Mars and Jupiter
Toledo Museum: Astronomical Compendium
Energy.gov: Turning the Manhattan Project into a National Park
AHF: Reincarnation of the K-25 Plant
Science News: Islamic Science paved the way for a millennial celebration of light
APS: History of Physics Newsletter
Data is nature: Laplacian Sigils – William George Armstrong’s Electrical Discharge Experiments [1899]
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Richard Malenfant’s Interview
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Freeman Dyson’s Interview
NYAM: The Private Lives of Galileo
AHF: Gregory Breit
The Renaissance Mathematicus: A Swiss Clockmaker
Bürgi Rock Crystal Clock
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Guardian: 25 years of the Hubble telescope – in pictures
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
The Public Domain Review: Journey from Venice to Palestine, Mount Sinai and Egypt (ca. 1467)
Bonhams: Mnemonic Globe
Board of Longitude Project: (Re)Displaying longitude
MEDICINE:
Hektoen International: Elizabeth Fleischman-Aschheim
Mosaic: The troubled history of the foreskin
First Things: An Anti-Vaxx Pope?
Recipes Project: Recipes and Experiment: A Poison Trial on Dogs
Yovisto: Giovanni Battista Morgagni and the Science of Anatomy
The IHR Blog: Witchcraft and Medicine in Modern France
A Nurse at the Front: Edith Elizabeth Appleton O.B.E. R.R.C.
Edith Appleton O.B.E. R.R.C.
Freakonometrics: John Snow and Openstreetmap
Brainpickings: Geometrical Psychology: Benjamin Betts’s 19th-Century Mathematical Illustrations of Consciousness
Panacea: From Orient to Occident Part I: Acupuncture in Victorian England
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Making science public: Basic science and climate politics: A flashback to 1989
The Conversation: Proposed 1920s orphanage study just one example in history of scientific racism
Embryo Project: “Viable Offspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cell” (1977), by Ian Wilmut et al.
The Independent: Dolly the sheep to be honoured with a blue plaque in Edinburgh
Soure: The Independent
Tetrapod Zoology: Spots, Stripes and Spreading Hooves in the Horse of the Ice Age
Yovisto: Andrea Cesalpino and the Classification of Plants
Dr Len Fisher: 42. Carl Djerassi on the acts of creation and procreation
Digital Stories: The curious gardener
Wonders & Marvels: Slaves Identify Elephant Fossils in America
Embryo Project: Robert Lanza (1956– )
BBC News: Sir Richard Owen: The man who invented the dinosaur
The New York Times: Eugenie Clark, Scholar of the Life Aquatic, Dies at 92
Eugenie Clark examines deep water sharks from Suruga Bay, Japan, in 1980.
David Doubilet
National Geographic News: ‘Shark Lady’ Eugenie Clark, Famed Marine Biologist, Has Died
Storify: Malthus, West, Torrens, Ricardo –– February 1815
Fossil History: The Weird History of Oviraptors
Reuters: Stone Age Britons imported wheat in shock sign of sophistication
The New York Times: Libraries of Life
National Geographic: The Plate: Selling Spring Dreams: The Evolution of Seed Catalogs
History of Geology: A History of the Use Of Illustrations in the Geosciences I: Seeing is Believing…
Natural History Apostilles: If Darwin plagiarized Matthew, by Whiggish standards, then Matthew plagiarized Loudon
Nautilus: The Seeds That Sowed a Revolution
Scrol.in: Two decades after his death, Gerald Durrell is still making the world a better place
academia.edu: Hope Johnson LLD (1916–2010): An extraordinary Albertan amateur vertebrate palaeontologist
CHEMISTRY:
C&EN: Timeline: Chemical Weapons Then and Now
600 BC The Athenians besiege the city of Kirrha. They poison the besieged city’s water supply with heart-toxic extracts of hellebore plants.
TECHNOLOGY:
Conciatore: Gold Ruby Redux
Cranberry glass or Gold Ruby
treasury chamber of the Wittelsbacher , Munich Residenz.
Conciatore: Alberico Barbini
Daytonian in Manhattan: Forensic History – No. 35 West 10th Street
My medieval foundry: Being a blog, I can ask questions that professionals won’t go near due to lack of evidence
Inside the Science Museum: Robert Watson-Watt and The Triumph of Radar
BBC Future: Why the fax machine isn’t quite dead yet
O Say Can You See?: Finding modern meaning in 130-year old sound
ORAU.org: Chang and Eng Neutron Detector (1940s)
Tycho’s Nose: Academics won’t be typecast no more
AnOther: The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
Frances Glessner Lee © Glessner House Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA
IWM: How Alan Turing Cracked the Enigma Code
National Geographic: A History of Skis
Ptak Science Books: Graphic Display of U.S. Patents, 1836–1915
The Public Domain Review: Catalogue of the 68 competetive designs for the great tower for London (1890)
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
THE: Is philosophy dead?
Imperial & Global Forum: What is Global Intellectual History – If It Should Exist At All?
The many-headed monster: Who were ‘the people’ in early modern England? Part I
EMLO: The Correspondence of Joseph Justus Scaliger (1669 letters)
Josephus Justus Scaliger, painted by Paullus Merula, 3rd librarian of Leiden University, 1597 Source: Wikimedia Commons
Hostelworld.com: Reiseblog: London für Fortgeschrittene: 3 weniger bekannte Museen und ihre großartigen Blogs
The Royal Society: Notes & Records: March 2015: Vol. 69 Issue 1 “Women and Science” Table of Contents
George Campbell Gosling: Flattening History
Science: AAAS: The Science Hall of Fame
NYAM: Recommended Resources
Wellcome Library: Announce several new collections on the theme of genomics
Double Refraction: Why historians shouldn’t write off scientists: on Steven Shapin’s review of Steven Weinberg’s Explain the World
The Royal Society: Your students past the Royal Society door
Discover Magazine: Infinity is a Beautiful Concept – And It’s Ruining Physics
CHoSTaM: News and Notes: Engineers as Servant-Leaders of the Old South
Society for the Social History of Medicine: New Website
The Boston Globe: Russian science is amazing. So why hasn’t it taken over the world?
In The Dark: What is the Scientific Method?
ANZSECS: The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies New website
Motherboard: Saving Human Knowledge at 800 Pages an Hour
The Point: The Soviet Science System
Nautilus: The Thrill of Defeat
Blink: The Compass Chronicles: Infinity versus Ramchundra
Compass Wallah: The War on History
Inside the Science Museum: Photography and the Science Museum Group
Somerville Historian: Research & Anthropology
Report on a Boston University Conference December 7-8, 2012 on ‘How Can the History and Philosophy of Science Contribute to Contemporary U.S. Science Teaching?
Wallifaction: reflections on teaching the history of science and religion: part 1
ESOTERIC:
Forbidden Histories: Temple Medicine, Oracles and the Making of Modernity: The Ancient Greek Occult in Anthropology and Psychology
Verso: Newton’s Lost Copy of Mead, Revealed
Detail showing the future Millennium from the apocalyptic time chart found in Newton’s copy of Mede’s Works (1672). Mede’s chart likely helped inspire Newton’s own apocalyptic beliefs. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Distillatio: Mountains and alchemy
Yovisto: Camille Flammarion and his Balancing Act between Popular Science and Science Fiction
BOOK REVIEWS:
Science Book a Day: The Lunar Men: The Friends who made the Future
From the Hands of Quacks: Institutionalizing the Insane in Nineteenth-Century England
Science Book a Day: 10 Great Books on Life Sciences
The Renaissance Mathematicus: From astronomy to literature – Bridging the gap
Thinking Like a Mountain: Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe
Science Book a Day: Maria Sibylla Merian: The New Book of Flowers
News Works: A look at the development of vitamins and our unabated obsession with them
Reciprocal Space: Being mortal and being Crick
NEW BOOKS:
Catherine Price: Vitamania
SCQ: Advanced Quantum Thermodynamics (is a subject I know very little about)
Ashgate: Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain
THEATRE:
Theatre Rhinoceros: Breaking the Code 4-21 March 2015
FILM:
The Science and Entertainment Laboratory: The Playing God Film Series: Science & Religion on Screen
Scientific American: Observations: Best Actor Eddie Redmayne on Portraying Stephen Hawking
Medium.com The Devastating Stereotype of the Artless Scientist
Slate.com: How Accurate Is The Imitation Game?
TELEVISION:
SLIDE SHARE:
VIDEOS:
Bloomberg: Alan Turing’s Hidden Manuscript Set to Reap Millions
Youtube: Castle Bravo Nuclear Test
RADIO:
BBC: A History of Ideas: The Antikythera Mechanism
LFR 24: God’s Philosophers
PODCASTS:
ODNB: Lunar Society
BookLab 005: The Human Age; The Moral Landscape; Eureka!
AHF: Health and Safety Monitoring
CHF: Distillations Podcast: Episode 196: Innovation & Obsolescence: The Life, Death, and Occasional Rebirth of Technologies
NPR: Episode 606: Spreadsheets!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Making Waves: Lecture: Why Did Scientists Come to Write Autobiographies? 6 March 2015 Leeds Art Gallery
The British Library: The Eccles Centre for American Studies: Alaska, The Artic and the US Imagination 16 March 2015
CRASSH: CfP: Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition Cambridge University 18-20 June 2015
The Edwin Worth Library Dublin: CfP: Food as Medicine: Historical perspectives 9-10 October 2015
AAHM: New Haven 2015: Program, Registration, etc.
University of Durham: 10th Integrated History and Philosophy of Science Workshop 16-17 April 2015
UCL: STS Haldane Lecture 12 March 2015
York Minster: Faith and Wisdom in Science 8, 15 & 22 July 2015
Ischia Summer School: Fourteenth Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences Call for applications — Ischia 2015: Geographies of Life 27 June – 3 July 2015
Rijks Museum: CfP: Arts and Science in Early Modern Low Countries Amsterdam 17-18 September 2015
Wellcome Collection: Exhibition: Forensics: The anatomy of crime 26February–21 June 2015
CRASSH: What’s on at CRASSH 17-February–6 March
Resilience: Special Issue: CfP: Global Environmental Histories From Below
Committee on the Study of the Reformation: CfP. The Tree of Knowledge 28–29 May 2015 University of Warsaw
The Grolier Club: Exhibition: Aldus Manutius A Legacy More Lasting Than Bronze 25 February–25 April 2015
The New York Times: A Tribute to the Printer Aldus Manutius, and the Roots of the Paperback
CRASSH: The Places of Early Modern Criticism 23-24 March 2015
HSS: CfP: HSS 2015 Annual Meeting 19-22 November 2015
LOOKING FOR WORK:
Kings College London: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards: Rethinking technical change in modern British agriculture, c1920–1970
University of Leicester: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships: 3 new fully-funded PhD studentships
Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellowship
University of Bristol: Postdoctoral Research Assistant. History of Medicine (Life of Breath)
NMBU: Two Postdoctoral Fellowships in philosophy – Causation, Complexity and Evidence in Health Science
University of Leiden: Call for Proposals: Van de Sande fellowship 2015, Brill fellowships 2015, Elsevier fellowship 2015
University of Edinburgh: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
CRASSH: Two Research Associates: Limits of the Numerical
University of Cambridge: Isaac Newton – Ann Johnston Research Fellowship in The Humanities 2015
University of Cambridge: Research Associate (HoS) (Fixed Term)
UCL: 340 £10,000 bursaries available for Master’s study at UCL
Johns Hopkins University: Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Medicine
