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Dinner in the Iguanodon Model, at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham

New Year’s Eve Dinner in the Iguanodon at Crystal Palace 31 December 1853

The “Dinner in the Iguanodon Model” is the best known story involving Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. That dinner took place on New Year’s Eve 31 December 1853. It was immortalised in an [...]

Punch's Almanack for 1855 cartoon titled, "A visit to the antediluvian reptiles at Sydenham – Master Tom strongly objects to having his mind improved".

Punch 1855 Cartoon Visiting Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Punch, or The London Charivari, was a British weekly magazine famous for its illustrated commentary and satire of politics and culture across the nineteen century and twentieth century. Mr Punch [...]

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 [...]

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 […]

HPSC0097 Research Project

Postgraduate taught students in UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) undertake summer research projects resulting in dissertations or research reports. Professor Joe Cain supervises some students in this work, as do all academic […]

HPSC0028 History of Life Sciences

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 […]

Second Brown Dog Statue, Battersea Park, London, UK. Joe Cain

Brown Dog Statue in Battersea Park London | EGP

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 […]

Richard the Lionheart statue outside UK Houses of Parliament

Nature of Gothic: A Chapter from The Stones of Venice (John Ruskin) | EGP

The famous essay by John Ruskin, The Nature of Gothic, first appeared as a chapter in his 1853 The Stones of Venice. This chapter proved immensely popular and took on a life of its own. […]

Tiger in UCL Grant Museum of Zoology - cover for Cain - No Ordinary Space

No Ordinary Space: UCL Grant Museum | EGP

UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology moved to the Thomas Lewis Room in UCL’s Rockefeller Building in 2011. No Ordinary Space is a book designed to answer popular historical questions about the room, the building, and […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies

Sergei Sergeevich Chetverikov (1880-1959) Russian population geneticist

Using LLMs to query 1939 International Genetical Congress

George Gaylord Simpson’s “Night Thoughts on Leaving the American Museum of Natural History”

Historical Significance of George Gaylord Simpson’s Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944)

New Evidence on Dobzhansky 1936 “Jesup” lectures

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

New Year’s Eve Dinner in the Iguanodon at Crystal Palace 31 December 1853

Punch 1855 Cartoon Visiting Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

LLMs and GenAI in Research

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Project Pitch Explained for HPSC0044 Undergraduates

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