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 #13
Monday 15 September 2014
EDITORIAL:
If our editorial staff suffered from triskaidekaphobia we might have followed the example of some American architects and simply gone from our twelfth edition to the fourteenth one but we are not inclined to superstition and the number thirteen holds no fear for us and so you are now reading the thirteenth edition of the weekly history of science, technology and medicine (#histSTM) link list Whewell’s Gazette.
By far and away the biggest history of science related story was the purported discovery of one of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition 1845-48. This has stirred up much reaction and comment throughout the Internet so we have decided to make our thirteenth edition The Franklin Expedition edition.
Next weeks fourteenth edition will perforce be a very truncated edition as our editorial staff will be actively involved all of next weekend in two conferences to celebrate the achievements of the Franconian astronomer Simon Marius. Normal service will be assumed for the fifteenth edition.
ON THE WEB BLOGS AND WEBSITES:
The Franklin Expedition:
CBC News: Lost Franklin expedition ship found in the Arctic
Rice Education: Inuit Testimony About Franklin
Sir John Franklin and his crew were captured in this 1847 painting by W Turner Smith called The End In Sight
BBC: Sir John Franklin: Fabled Arctic ship found
Royal Museums Greenwich: Sir John Franklin and Lady Franklin
Royal Museums Greenwich: Marine Chronometer from Franklin’s expedition
Guardian: Horologists ponder mystery of how 19th-century chronometer survived fatal Arctic expedition
The Globe and Mail: The Franklin discovery’s not about what, but where
Guardian: Sir John Franklin: From the archive
JSTOR – Global Plants: Digitized letters from John Richardson who accompanied Franklin on 2 Arctic expeditions
Ottawa Citizen: Adriana Craciun: Franklin’s sobering true legacy
Geopolitics & Security: Missing, Submerged and Floating Objects: Franklin’s ship and the Northwest Passage
British Library – American Studies Blog: Finding Franklin
The Globe and Mail: Why is the Franklin expedition such a Canadian story?
Active History.ca: History Matters: Why Should We Care About the Erebus (or Terror)?
Birthdays of the Week:
Ulisse Aldrovandi 11 September 1522
Ulisse Aldrovandi Augostino Carracci
Letters from Gonwanda: The Legacy of Ulisse Aldrovandi
Letters from Gonwanda: The Early History of Ammonite Studies in Italy
History of Geology: In the beginning was the word
History of Geology: On the track of Ichnology
Harvey Fletcher 11 September 1884
Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981) American physicist and audio technology pioneer
Science Notes: Today In Science History – September 11 – Harvey Fletcher
Yovisto: Harvey Fletcher – the Father of Stereophonic Sound
Alexander von Humboldt 14 September 1769
Alexander von Humboldt Drawn by Rudolf Lehmann
History of Geology: Alexander von Humboldt and the Hand-Beast
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: General Grove’s secret history
The Renaissance Mathematicus: I expected better of Tim Radford
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Another one bites the dust
Science Notes: Today In Science History – September 12 – Moon
Atomic Heritage Foundation: Leo Szilard
American Institute of Physics: Nobel Worlds in Physics, 1901-1965
Leaping Robot A 17th Century Space Race
Cover of Godwin’s book
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Ashley Kupferschmidt: Fragments of Paper found in Medical Kit: “Expedition”
CONTEXT 2: HATTERSLEY-SMITH: ARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1953
Board of Longitude Project: Navigation vacation
The Renaissance Mathematicus: The naming of America – Redux
MEDICINE:
The H-Word: Ashya King: An odd form of celebrity
The Cat’s Meat Shop: Sanitising History
From the Hands of Quacks: A Chamber of the Stillness of Death: Phyllis M.T. Kerridge’s Experiments in the Silence Room
Perceptions of Pregnancy: From Medieval to Modern: ‘Hopes of being with Child’: An Early Modern Guide to Knowing You Are Pregnant
History News Network: The Sad Reason We Don’t Know More About Ebola
Neurophilosophy Mo Costandi: A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry
Diseases of Modern Life: The Gent and the Ballet-Girl
NYAM: Aseptic Surgery: Innovation circa 1900
Houghton Library: Choice Receipts for the Prevention and Cure of the Plague
Medical Press: The history of medical studies of male infertility
Circulating Now: Rare Footage of FDR at NIH
http://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/09/10/rare-footage-of-fdr-at-nih/
Shannon Selin: Félix Formento and medicine in 19th century New Orleans
Advertisement for Dr. de Laferrière’s sulphurous steam-baths, Louisiana Courier, May 1821
University of Glasgow Library: Syphilis – what’s in a name?
Dittrick Museum Blog: Blood Rises – Tension and Truth in The Knick
ChoM News: Staff Finds: IPPNW Anti-War Efforts Recognized by World Leaders
NYAM: Jonas Salk, The Polio Vaccine, and The Shot Felt ‘Round the World
Science Friday: Podcast: The Science of ‘Sameness’: Developing Generic Medication
Cleveland.com: Shaker Historical Museum features herbal medicines of 19th century
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Gruesome Tale of Self-Surgery
Yovisto: William Budd and the Infectious Diseases
Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog: Walter J. freeman II and Lobotomy: Probing for Answers
CHEMISTRY:
Science Notes: Today In Science History – September 8 – Willard Frank Libby
Trowel Blazers: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Dorothy Hodgkin (then Crowfoot) ca. 1920s, as she was when she excavated at Jerash in her late teens (with thanks to the Crowfoot family for providing this image – All Rights Reserved)
Concocting History: Dragons live forever but not so little boys and girls
Conciatore: Neri’s Cabinet #5: Sulfur of Saturn
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Unmaking Things: The wonder of man – the wonder of nature: a seventeenth-century Nautilus cup
Nautilus cup, unknown maker, ca. 1620, Dutch. Engraved nautilus shell set in a silver gilt mount enamelled in white and blue, Museum no. M.179:1, 2-1978, Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
History of Geology: Happy Birthday Plate Tectonics!
Medievalist.net: Ten Strange Medieval Ideas about Animals
Inside the Science Museum: 30th Anniversary of DNA Fingerprinting
Science Notes: Today In Science History – September 13 – Hans Christian Joachim Gram
The Public Domain Review: Tractatus de Herbis (ca. 1440)
The Irish Times: Writing that inspired a generation of scientists (Schrödinger, “What is Life?”)
TECHNOLOGY:
Retronaut: 1950s: The Perhapsatron
Patch of Puddles: Visiting Bletchley Park
Londonist: A Brief History of London Poo
Conciatore: Art and Science Reprise
Ptak Science Books: The Sky Above & Mud Below Department, 1890
Ptak Science Books: “Spirit Writing”: Electric, Script-Writing Telegraph, 1879 (!!)
New Scientist: Myth and reality of the Nazi space rocket
Airspace Blog: “Vengeance Weapon 2”: 70th Anniversary of the V-2 Campaign
VOX: We live in the future AT&T imagined in 1994
Thick Objects: An “Incomplete” Artefact: Part 2 – Knowing an object’s past
META:- HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
CRUX: Photos from inside the Vatican Secret Archives
Diseases of Modern Life: File it Under C…
Sideways Look at Science: 4S / ESOCITE JOINT MEETING: “SCIENCE IN CONTEXT(S): SOUTHS AND NORTHS”
Free Virtual Issue of Social History of Medicine
The Mod Squad: Steve Daniel’s Early Modern Philosophy Calendar
Science – AAAS: Public Science 2.0 – Back to the Future
Smithsonian.com: Lunar Bat-men, the Planet Vulcan and Martian Canals: Five of science history’s most bizarre cosmic delusions
Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (1950-1951)
Wonders & Marvels: How I write History…with Chet van Duzer
ESOTERIC:
Conciatore: The Art of Preparing Plants
Antonio Neri, Tesoro del Mondo, f. 9r.
“Arts Preparatio frugu vel Piantar.”
100 Years New Republic: Albert Einstein Endorsed a Popular Psychic in 1932. This Is the Controversy that Ensued
Forbidden Histories: One Year of ‘Forbidden Histories’
BOOK REVIEWS:
NEW BOOKS:
Aptowicz.com: Dr Mütter’s Marvels
Bloomsbury Publishing: Dorothy Hodgkin A Life
Georgina Ferry: Dorothy Hodgkin and me
Historiens de la santé: Recycling the Disabled: Army, Medicine and Modernity in WWI Germany
Brown Walker Press: Idolatry & Infinity: Of Art, Math, & God
THEATRE:
FILM:
Aperiodical: An Alan Turing expert watches the “The Imitation Game” trailer
CP24: Filming at Bletchley Park ‘ghostly’ for stars of Turing biopic ‘Imitation Game’
TELEVISION:
Mental Floss: 5 Things We Learned from The Knick’s Medical Advisor
VIDEOS:
Youtube: Reflections of Einstein
Vimeo: Alan Turing, le code de la vie
RADIO:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Call for participation: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2015 Conference, Los Angeles: Round table discussion: How do we study Eighteenth-Century science?
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2015 Conference, Los Angeles Call for Papers
Gravity Fields Festival: Lecture: Newton and the Apothecary 25 Sept 2014
Institute of Historical Research: Seminars: History of Gardens and Landscapes (includes #histsci)
Medical Heritage Society: Call for guest bloggers
25 Chicago Humanities Festival; Baskes Lecture in History: Peter Galison: From Einstein’s Clocks to the Refusal of Time
Royal Museums Greenwich: Science, Voyaging, Art, Empire: Study Day 18 October 2014
York University: STS Seminar Series Schedule 2014-2015
ChoM News: Lecture: Sept 16: 500 Years of Human Dissection
ChoM News: Lecture: Sept 18: Colonial Governance and Medical Ethics in British India 1870-1910
8TH EUROPEAN SPRING SCHOOL ON HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND POPULARIZATION: CfP: LIVING IN A TOXIC WORLD (1800-2000): EXPERTS, ACTIVISM, INDUSTRY AND REGULATION
Oxford Sceptics in the Pub: Alice Bell Lecture: The Scientific Revolution that Wasn’t – Wednesday 5 Nov 7:30 pm
Swarthmore College: Exhibition Opening: Joseph Leidy and the foundation of Philadelphia biology 2 Oct 2014
Science Museum: Collider Exhibition Embarks on International Tour
CfP: 5th Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) Aarhus 2015
Canadian Society for the History of Medicine: Hannah Summer Studentship
University of Oxford: St Cross College: One-Day Conference “Wittgenstein and Physics”
CBC News: Canada Science and Technology Museum remains closed due to mould
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science: Research Project: Networks and Knowledge of Glass in the Dutch Republic, 1650-1795
Holland Museum: Lecture: Dr Lindsey Fitzharris & Adrian Teal: Skeletons in the Basement
The Jenks Society: CfP: Lost Museums Colloquium
LOOKING FOR WORK?
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: Call for Early Career International Research Fellowships
Royal Society: Research Grants for Early Career Scientist (includes history of science)
University of Strathclyde Glasgow: Lecturer in History of Health and Medicine
Histories de la santé: Call for Applications: Fellowship in the History of American Obstetrics and Gynecology
Harvard University: History of Technology Tenure Track
Historiens de la santé: Call for Applications: Molina Fellowship in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Historiens de la santé: University of Lewisburg: Call for Applications: Tenure-track assistant professor in history of Science, Medicine or Technology.
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