history of science
clock | October 28, 2007The Triangle Malaria Symposium will be on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 1-7 pm at the Duke University Searle Center. At first I thought it was this week, but now I see it is the week after, so perhaps I can make it to it. Even if I don't, Anton is going for sure and intends to liveblog it. So far, the speakers include Peter Agre, Margaret Humphreys and Steve Meshnick so the symposium looks VERY promising.
clock | October 27, 2007You have seen the button for the Beagle Project on my sidebar - it will stay there forever! But now, I see, they have opened a CafePress store where you can get yourself t-shirts, coffee-mugs and buttons and the proceeds go towards the rebuilding of the ship and its science/education maiden voyage:
laelaps | October 23, 2007Creationists have been strangely quiet today, their silence all the more odd because it's Bishop Ussher Day! According to Young Earth Creationist dogma the world just celebrated it's 6,011th 6,010th birthday (or a formless, empty Earth just celebrated it's birthday, the job not being finished until a few days later, of course), the creation week beginning the night prior to October 23, 4004 B.C. We know this is preposterous now, of course, but in Ussher's time figuring out the date of the Genesis narrative was big business, many theologians using various sorts of numerology in an attempt to…
clock | October 15, 2007Just watching someone give a talk is often not enough to remember it later. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And certainly, seeing is believing. But, this presentation is impossible to forget, even if one would rather not remember it so vividly. Oh, and it was absolutely NSFW!
Obligatory Reading of the Day.
retrospectacle | August 28, 2007The German composer Beethoven, considered one of the most gifted composers of all time, died inexplicably at the age of 57 in 1827. He had been quite sick in the months leading up to his death, and in the past few years, research has determined that Beethoven likely died of lead poisoning. Studies detected toxic levels of lead in his hair and then, two years ago, in Beethoven's bone fragments. Now, Viennese forensic pathologist Christian Reiter has published a paper in the Beethoven Journal claiming that Beethoven's doctor likely inadvertently poisoned the composer with lead-containing balm…
clock | August 24, 2007James Randerson asks this question, but actually leaving only four slots open as "...If anyone plans not to include Darwin I'm going to have to ask them to step outside." a sentiment with which Peter McGrath agrees. So - your Top 5?
clock | August 15, 2007John Wilkins just published a paper (..."a review of the centenary festschrift for Mayr...") and got a book accepted for publication (the book grew out of series of excellent blog posts about species definitions - who says that blogging is bad for your health?)
Congratulations!
clock | August 13, 2007I may be a little late to this, but better late than never. Laelaps has penned one of those rarities - an exceptionally detailed historical summary of the way people's understanding of human origins changed over time. Bookmark and read when you have time to really focus.
clock | July 26, 2007Mo is really spoiling us with exciting, well-researched posts from the history of science and medicine (remember the trepination post from a month ago?). And here he does it again: The rise & fall of the prefrontal lobotomy, the most gripping post on science blogs this week. And a Wicked Stepmother is one of the main characters!
clock | July 18, 2007Ruchira comments on the article in the Discover Magazine and their choice of seven most magical eureka moments in the history of science.
They are:
* Otto Lowei: discovering the chemical transmission of nerve impulses
* Rene Descartes: developing the Cartesian co-ordinate system of perpendicular lines and planes
* Nikola Tesla: designing the alternate current motor
* Edwin Hubble: discovering the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way
* Robert Hooke: discovery of the cell as the building block of all living organisms
* Henry Becquerel: discovery of…
clock | July 10, 2007
Menaker Awarded Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine:
Michael Menaker, professor of biology and an international leader in the field of circadian rhythm research, received the Peter C. Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine from the Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine during an event there on June 6.
The prize was awarded "in celebration of the life and work of Michael Menaker, trailblazer in circadian biology and prescient illuminator of how Light and Dark, the alternating ancient heritages of our planet, come to govern and synchronize living clocks."
Menaker was cited as a "ground-…
clock | June 17, 2007Here is an example of perfect science blogging. It starts seemingly innocuously, with a quiz: Monday's Molecule #30, where you are supposed to figure out what the compound is.
Then, after a couple of days, there is a post that you may not even realize at first is related to the first one: Bacteria Have Cell Walls
Another day or two, and A and B get connected: How Penicillin Works to Kill Bacteria
But how do we know this? Well, some people figured it out: Nobel Laureates: Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Howard Walter Florey - and now you know how we know.
Finally, putting…
clock | June 12, 2007The history of trepanation. An utterly amazing post!
And, Bioephemera posted an appropriate illustration to go with it....
clock | June 11, 2007Darwin did not just sail on the Beagle and then settle down in his armchair and think for the rest of his life. He performed an amazing number of very creative experiments. Afarensis has been writing about them for a while now and I hope you are following his series every week.
clock | June 7, 2007A paper in press in Current Biology (press release here) looks at mitochondrial DNA of mammoths and advances a primarily environmental cause for the mammoth extinction. Razib explains why such a black-and-white dichotomy is unhealthy.
Looking at a different hypothesis, also environmental, for the mammoth extinction (comet impact), Archy places the black-and-white dichotomy in the historical context and tries to figure out why the environmental hypotheses are so popular nowadays, while extinction at the hands of human hunters is not a popular idea any more.
clock | May 23, 2007When it's someone's birthday it is nice to give presents, or a flower. Perhaps a whole boquet of roses. But if the birthday is a really big round number, like 300, and the birthday boy is the one who actually gave names to many of those flowers, it gets a little tougher. Perhaps you may try to do something really difficult and build, actually plant, a Flower Clock. After all, it was Carl von Linne, aka Carolus Linnaeus, today's birthday celebrator, who invented the flower clock. He drew it like this, but he never actully built one:
The first one to make (and write down) an observation…
clock | May 23, 2007As promised, I will gather here (and update a couple of times during the day) some of the most interesting posts from around the blogosphere about the celebrations of the 300th birthday of Carl von Linne aka Carolus Linnaeus, the guy you cussed at when, back in high school, you had to memorize the order of taxonomic categories: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species (and you all know the mnemonic, don't you?).
So, what's with the name? Is it Linnaeus or von Linne? Merriam-Webster explains:
But today we come not to praise Linnaeus but to parse his various names. When…
clock | May 22, 2007Tomorrow is 300th birthday of Carl von Linne (or Carlus Linnaeus) and there will be celebrations in Sweden and around the world. So, tomorrow is a good day for a post about him (and if I find enough time and energy, I may compile the best ones into a mini-carnival).
clock | May 11, 2007Oh, no, you are thinking that I was going to write yet another post about my own birthday. Fear not. This is a different kind of voyage that started on this day. On May 11th, 1820, that curiously important litttle ship, HMS 'Beagle', was first launched (via Beagle Project blog)
clock | May 2, 2007Spiked and Pfizer are asking:
'What's the Greatest Innovation?' is a survey of key thinkers in science, technology and medicine, conducted by spiked in collaboration with the research-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Contributors were asked to identify what they see as the greatest innovation in their field. More than a hundred experts and authorities have responded already, including half-a-dozen Nobel laureates.
The survey will roll through May and June, and the discussion will go live at an event in central London on Wednesday 6 June
What is the difference between innovation and…