The cartoon depicting a man dreaming of monsters is one of two famous illustrations from Punch magazine referencing Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. In a previous post, I presented the other 1855 cartoon, [...]
The Dinosaur Gallery in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Brussels Museum of Natural History) includes the famous Bernissart Iguanodons. This consists of thirty complete or nearly complete skeletons [...]
George Gaylord Simpson‘s (1902-1984) book, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, was published in 1944 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in [...]
I needed a quick and easy broadcast clock for creating podcast episodes. (There is a great episode of ‘99% Invisible’ on broadcast clocks that is well worth listening to.) While [...]
What work can large-language models (LLMs) do for historical researching? They offer tools for voluminous compilation of data ready for complex human analysis. They can organise and reorganise data. They can extract data from source material. They can be set to search for trends. We’re coming to grips with LLM tools for historical researching, and we’re quickly moving well beyond the LLM-as-author model so distrusted in our community. Historians must push ourselves to be as creative and demanding of LLM resources as those in our sister disciplines.
A historical survey of the biological sciences from the Enlightenment to the present. What are the big names and big ideas? How were they received at the time and appropriated later? Who’s been ignored and […]
The theme for 2026-27 will be “Food”. “Science and technology are two of the most important drivers of our world. As a field of study, STS is organised to interpret those activities in the past, […]
Organising the Society for the Study of Speciation was a simple affair in 1939. The job of implementing its vision fell upon the entomologist Alfred Emerson, recruited to serve as Secretary. ‘The need was felt by […]
Sewall Wright taught throughout his long career. Between 1926-1955, he worked at the University of Chicago. During this time, he developed and taught both undergraduate and graduate courses. By the early 1930s, Wright’s teaching load […]
Protests were sure to follow the unveiling of the brown dog statue in Battersea, London, in 1906 in Latchmere Recreation Ground. The little terrier had become the focus of an anti-vivisection campaign directed against Professor William Bayliss […]