Homepage | Professor Joe Cain

Crystal Palace in Sydenham. Undated postcard 61 showing glasshouse, gardens, and fountains.

Crystal Palace Company – First Annual General Meeting 1853

Crystal Palace Company formed in 1852 to purchase the glasshouse and remains of the 1851 Great Exhibition and somehow – no plan was clear at the start – restart it [...]

Illuminations by C. T. Brock and Co, Sutton, Surrey, England. Advertising postcard for Brock’s Crystal Palace Fireworks and Illuminations, postmarked 1906.

Brock’s Illuminations 1906 Connected with Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Brock’s Illuminations and Fireworks might be celebrating Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in their famous and rare 1906 postcard promoting their “Illuminations” at Crystal Palace. It’s possible, but I think that is [...]

Sample Medical Card for Croydon Schoolboys 1920s-1930s

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Historians must make more – and more creative – use of AI technologies for data analysis as well as for routine task of data sorting and transcription. To create a [...]

Project Pitch Explained for HPSC0044 Undergraduates

In HPSC0044 Science and the Publishing Industry students develop a book proposal. First, they sketch an idea. Second, they deliver a project pitch. Third, they submit a book proposal. To [...]

HPSC0010 History of Modern Science

This page is in development. Please return in September 2026. Until then, please enjoy these cartoons. What are these?

HPSC0155 Science Communication Final Project

UCL’s Science Communication MSc degree culminates in a science communication project of the student’s own design. This project is documented by a project proposal in Term 3 and a final product submitted near the end […]

HPSC0044 Science and the Publishing Industry

The publishing industry is enormous. It shapes science communication in fundamental ways. This module investigates publishing. How does it work? How does it enable, constrain, and challenge science communication? The module covers a wide range […]

Cain 2007 Regular Contact With Anyone Interested - Dobzhansky and friends on his new car

Regular Contact with Anyone Interested: Documents of Society for the Study of Speciation | EGP

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 […]

Philip Henry Gosse (1854) Handbook to the Marine Aquarium - Euston Grove Press ISBN 9781906267186 | starfish in aquarium at London Zoo ZSL

Handbook to the Marine Aquarium, 1856 Manual | EGP

This handbook to the marine aquarium was one of the first manuals with practical instructions for constructing, stocking, and maintaining a marine fish tank, and for collecting plants and animals to stock that tank. It’s […]

Vernon Kellogg Headquarters Nights 9781906267322 Euston Grove Press | soldiers in the trenches during World War 1

Darwinism or Militarism? Headquarters Nights (Vernon Kellogg) | EGP

Headquarters Nights was the 1917 account by Vernon Kellogg of conversations and experiences at the headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium during World War 1, following one man’s transformation from an opponent of all wars […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies

Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 2 | EGP

One Hundred and One Mendelians – Buttolph (2008)

Exploring the Borderlands of Evolutionary Synthesis

Using LLMs to query 1939 International Genetical Congress

Evolution: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 1 | EGP

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Crystal Palace Company – First Annual General Meeting 1853

Brock’s Illuminations 1906 Connected with Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

LLMs and GenAI in Research

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Project Pitch Explained for HPSC0044 Undergraduates

Categories

Featured

Punch 1855 Cartoon Dreaming of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Recent Posts

HPSC Modules 2026-27