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Sketch of Dinner in Iguanodon Model as remembered by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 1862. Source: Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins to Edward James Alfred Trimmer, 27 August, British Library Add MS 50150 f215. Photo: ProfJoeCain CC BY NC.

Remembering Dinner in the Dinosaur: Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1862 Sketch

Near the end of August 1862, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894) wrote to Edward Trimmer (1827-1904) with a brief mention of the New Year’s Eve dinner in Iguanodon mould. The letter [...]

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 [...]

#208 When Fieldwork Goes Wrong Go Public | WeAreSTS

Today, an experiment: can Generative AI replace this podcast? There’s a new feature in the GenAI service, Google Notebook LM, that creates an audio discussion about texts you give it. [...]

G. Ledyard Stebbins’s (1950) Variation and Evolution in Plants. Title page

Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950) by G. Ledyard Stebbins

G. Ledyard Stebbins‘ (1906-2000) book, Variation and Evolution in Plants, was published in 1950 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in [...]

HPSC0041 Dissertation

Undergraduates in UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) undertake final year projects resulting in dissertations or research reports. Students undertake a research project largely of their own design in the field of science […]

HPSC0011 STS Perspectives on Big Problems

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies

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

Joseph Henry Woodger (1894-1981) Papers at University College London (UCL)

Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 2 | EGP

Evolution: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 1 | EGP

Physiological Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 3 | EGP

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Remembering Dinner in the Dinosaur: Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1862 Sketch

Brock’s Illuminations 1906 Connected with Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

GenAI in Research

#208 When Fieldwork Goes Wrong Go Public | WeAreSTS

Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950) by G. Ledyard Stebbins

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#205 Why Green Activism Must Turn Blue | WeAreSTS

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HPSC Modules 2026-27