MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'history of science'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:17:33 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096286&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2011%2F08%2F02%2Fthe-medical-history-background-for-the-oslo-terrorist-action%2F One of the inspirational sources of Oslo terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s peculiar manifesto ’2083: A European Declaration of Independence’ is the anonymous blogger Fjordman, who has been a leading intellectual in the international anti-Jihad movement for almost a decade. In a recent circular mail, Oslo historian of science Vidar Enebakk draws the attention of his Scandinavian colleagues to the fact that Fjordman has not only written about history, religion and politics in general, but also quite a lot about the history of science and medicine to ‘prove’ that modern science and medicine could only have emerged under the umbrella of European Christendom, and definitely not in Islamic cultures. I’ve now read a few of his many articles (originally pub... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096286 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:00:56 +0100 5096286 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028387&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2011%2F07%2F11%2Fhistory-of-science-blogs-and-twitter-accounts%2F Last year Michael D. Barton published a list of blogs and twitter accounts that “focus on or dabble in the history of science, science and technology studies, etc.” that he was aware of. He’s just posted a link to it on his FB wall, so this must be the latest updated version. Great work! But did he miss any? Seems like the list below doesn’t include much history of medical science (after all much of medicine is medical science), so hopefully someone with good link collecting instincts could make a similar list for HoMS. Advances in the History of Psychology (@AHPblog) Adventures of a Post-Doc Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project Alfred Russel Wallace News & Views (@ARWallace) AlunSalt AmericanScience: A Team Blog (@henrycowles, @danbouk) Anita Gu... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028387 Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:00:42 +0100 5028387 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4952930&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2011%2F06%2F18%2Fimpatient-discovery-vs-mature-understanding-revisiting-ragnar-granits-view-of-the-goal-of-scientific-work%2F Prompted by a recent guest blog post on the Scientific American site, I’ve just revisited an almost 40 year old essay titled “Discovery and understanding” by the Finland-Swedish neurophysiologist and Nobel Prize Winner Ragnar Granit. Growing out of a talk (see video here) that Granit gave at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in 1972, the essay was published in the Annual Review of Physiology later the same year. I remember dimly having read it when I was a PhD student a few years after it was published, but apparently I didn’t really appreciate it then — and didn’t understand the deeper significance of the message either. But now I think I’ve got it. And it’s quite interesting for discussions about the culture of sc... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4952930 Sat, 18 Jun 2011 20:22:49 +0100 4952930 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4820922&cid=t_104756_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2011%2F05%2F12%2Funderstanding-research-methodology-5-applied-and-basic-research%2F In conclusion, I will leave you with the words of Keith Stanovich: [I]t is probably a mistake to view the basic-versus-applied distinction solely in terms of whether a study has practical applications, because this difference often simply boils down to a matter of time.  Applied findings are of use immediately.  However, there is nothing so practical as a general and accurate theory. (2007, p.107) References Stanovich, K. (2007).  How to Think Straight About Psychology: 8th Edition.  Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Photo by Helen Cook, available under a Creative Commons attribution license. (Source: World of Psychology) World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4820922 Thu, 12 May 2011 19:55:10 +0100 4820922 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4734159&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2011%2F04%2F21%2Fhow-to-use-museum-collections-in-teaching-history%2F Of course you can, but few history teachers actually take the opportunity. Museum collections remain a remarkably underutilised resource in academic history teaching. And the history of science, technology and medicine is no exception. Here at Medical Museion we have occasionally brought material objects into our medical history courses and also into the course we’re giving on medical science and technology studies for medical engineering students. We have plans to do much more, especially when it comes to integrating traditional academic and curatorial perspectives on material objects, and we are very eager to learn about other university museums with more teaching experience than we have. Therefore, the initiative taken by The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4734159 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:02:29 +0100 4734159 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4600566&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2011%2F03%2F16%2Fblog-on-the-history-of-neurology-and-the-neurosciences%2F Cannot understand why I haven’t come across The Neuro Times blog — a historical blog dedicated to neurology and the neurosciences — before. Full of good stuff and a good example to follow. Tweet (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4600566 Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:01:15 +0100 4600566 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4241754&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F12%2F08%2F6596%2F The NIH Office of History has just announced a new batch of Stetten Fellowship for postdoctoral historical research on the biomedical sciences and technology since 1945. The stipends are ~$45,000 per year, include health insurance and office accommodation, computer and phone, and can be renewable to a maximum of 24 months. Application deadline is 31 December 2010. Full announcement here. (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4241754 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:00:20 +0100 4241754 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4214170&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F11%2F30%2Fthe-history-of-microplate-technology%2F One of my favourite objects for acquisition and display from the world of biomedical and clinical laboratories is the microplate (microtiter plate, microwell plate). A microplate is simply a series of small test tubes (’wells’) arranged in a regular matrix pattern on a plastic plate, usually made from transparent polystyrene. The little plate makes it possible to handle many samples in parallell—the most common size is 96 wells, but there are plates with several thousand wells—and the results can be read in an automated plate reader. In addition, the small size of the wells reduces sample volumes (from milliliter scale to nanoliter scale), which in turn saves money spent on reagents, like enzymes, which can be forbiddingly expensive. So it’s simple, ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4214170 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:00:41 +0100 4214170 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4207324&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F11%2F29%2Fintroduction-to-the-chemistry-of-life-exhibition%2F We’ve just opened our new exhibition, ‘The Chemistry of Life’, in our satellite exhibition area in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences (the Panum Building). For the record, here’s the talk I gave at the opening (for images from the opening, see here): The occasion for Medical Museion’s new exhibition, ’The Chemistry of Life’, is the new Center for Basic Metabolic Research here at the Faculty of Health Sciences. But the Center is only the occasion. What you will see in a few minutes is not an exhibition about any of the aspects of metabolism—diabetes, or obesity, or insulin resistance, or the metabolic syndrome—which the Center will be focus on in the years to come. Instead, we have chosen to take a look at the long research tradit... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4207324 Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:00:47 +0100 4207324 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4162949&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F11%2F13%2Fbuilding-new-museums%2F When a new museum is established, it is formed both by ideas of what the role of the medical history museum in society is, and by the context out of which that specific museum comes. The challenge of building new museums was approached from three very different angles at the Copenhagen conference in September. Kerstin Hulter Åsberg shared her vision of exhibiting the contemporary part of the history of medical sciences in the research centers where it happened and is happening. As it is the researchers and students who are at the same time the audience for the historical exhibitions and the makers of the future of medical science, they should be involved in the making of the museum from the very beginning. Read Kerstin’s full abstract here. Wendy Atkinson expressed that for her the miss... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4162949 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 09:00:38 +0100 4162949 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4002961&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F09%2F26%2Fweltwissen%2F Cannot wait to see the new exhibition WeltWissen (World Knowledge) which opened yesterday at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Organised by the Humboldt University, the Charité Hospital, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of the Sciences and Humanities and the Max Planck Society, it is announced as the highlight of the Berlin Year of Science with more than 3,200 square meters exhibition space containing 1,500 original things, installations and media stations crossing time periods, institutional and disciplinary boundaries. One of the highlights is yet another of Mark Dion’s typical installations that “highlights the system behind scientific activity as well as its fragmentary nature” — a 500 square metre shelf structure with objects Dion collected “wh... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4002961 Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:17:42 +0100 4002961 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3920886&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F09%2F01%2Fblogging-about-history-of-science-and-medicine%2F If you write or read blogs that include history of science and medicine, you may be interested in filling in this short online survey posted by Jaipreet Virdi, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto — it only takes a minute or two. Jaipreet explains the background for the survey here. (Thanks, Rebekah, for the tip. Rebekah also recommends this link to a good list of blogs and twitter accounts with history of science content). (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3920886 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:05:27 +0100 3920886 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3854557&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=35026&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FTheTreeOfLife%2F%7E3%2F0WIhpVJ3xNk%2Fquick-blog-post-interesting-piece-on.html There is a very interesting piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Simon Levin on the "Evolution of Ecology." See The Evolution of Ecology - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher EducationIn it Simon, who I consider both a friend and colleague and who has been an inspiration to me for much of my work, discusses the history of the concept and the field of ecology. He repeats a key phrase he has used elsewhere:Ecology, the unifying science in integrating knowledge of life on our planet, has become the essential science in learning how to preserve it.I like this phrase and plan to use it a bit here and there, with attribution of course.Levin also discusses how Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle helped launch the field of ecology because it defined a new and synthetic way of looking... The Tree of Life blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3854557 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:45:37 +0100 3854557 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3590368&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F05%2F23%2Fscience-as-a-material-and-sensuous-world-vs-history-of-science-as-a-textual-and-disembodied-world%2F Here’s the introduction to a talk titled ‘Cultures of Meaning and Cultures of Presence: The use of material objects in the history of science, medicine and technology’ that I gave at the Museo da Ciencia da Universidade Lisboa two weeks ago (see flyer here and resumé in Portuguese here); the images are from the web and for general illustration only: Before I went into history of science and medicine (and then medical museology), I took a Masters in chemistry, zoology and historical geology (major). Today, when I look back on my student years at a distance, I realise these disciplines were very much about the handling of tangible material stuff, involving all five senses. Chemistry, zoology and geology students were not just thinking about or viewing the world ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3590368 Sun, 23 May 2010 10:39:19 +0100 3590368 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3448892&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F04%2F08%2Freading-artefacts-do-we-really-read-them-2%2F I just got a mail saying that the Canada Science and Technology Museum is organising a summer institute in material culture research on the theme ‘Reading Artefacts’, in Ottawa, 16-20 August. Anyone interested in material research and museum artefacts — grad students, postdocs, faculty “teaching history through artifacts” and historians who are “looking to expand their research methods” — are welcome to attend. Because of the venue, there will probably be a lot of focus on sci, tech and med museum artefacts. Great initative. My only hesitation is the title — Reading Artefacts. What do the organisers actually mean by reading an artefact? In my understanding of reading, there is a text to be read. But an artefact is not a text (unless the... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3448892 Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:18:35 +0100 3448892 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3259008&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F02%2F09%2Fgreat-expectations-neuroscience-in-the-21st-century-and-beyond%2F As mentioned in a previous blogpost, I’m currently doing a ph.d.-project here at Medical Museion concerning the history of the concept of successful aging in neuroscience and its relation to ideas on cognitive enhancement. Part of my work, therefore, is going to conferences like this one, held in Copenhagen last week: The conference was arranged by the Danish research center GNOSIS, and featured both neuroscientists and philosophers – as an attempt to bridge the disciplinary boundaries and maybe produce some kind of synergy. The first day especially had that feeling. Themed under the headline ‘Brain Plasticity’ and featuring, among others, the English philosophical-minded neuroscientist Steven Rose, German phenomenological philosopher and psychiatrist Thomas Fuchs, and Danish bio... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3259008 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:13:22 +0100 3259008 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3197696&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F01%2F22%2Fa-genealogical-study-of-the-concept-of-successful-aging-iii-%25e2%2580%2599successful-aging%25e2%2580%2599-in-the-neurosciences-and-the-link-to-cognitive-enhancement%2F This is the last part of my project description for the Ph.D.-project called “A genealogical study of the concept of ’successful aging’ and its relation to the idea of ‘human enhancement”. See the first two parts here and here.  ’Successful aging’ in the neurosciences and the link to ‘cognitive enhancement’ In order to narrow the problem field, the project will look closely at how the notion of ‘successful aging’ has been understood and defined in the field of neuroscience in the last decades, and how ‘successful cognitive aging’ has played together with discussions — both in the scientific literature, in science policy documents and in general public discourse — about the possibility for so called ‘cognitive enhancement’ (‘neuro... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3197696 Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:00:42 +0100 3197696 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3193754&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F01%2F21%2Fthe-theme-for-the-next-artefacts-meeting-is-knowledge-on-the-move%2F It’s soon time for a new meeting in the ‘Artefacts’ series (for posts on earlier meetings, see here, here, here and here). This is the 15th meeting since the inception of the series in the mid-1990s, and this year’s theme is ‘Knowledge on the Move: Conflict, Displacement and Re-Engineering Society: 1933 to 1989′: The mass movement of people displaced in Europe was a transformative social phenomenon of the period leading up to and following the Second World War. Many of those immigrants were scientists, engineers, designers and others with technical skills and pent up innovative energies. Their institutions and innovative technologies were left behind or unceremoniously stripped away but their knowledge of science and technology, aesthetic theories and co... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3193754 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:00:26 +0100 3193754 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3189178&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F01%2F20%2Fa-genealogical-study-of-the-concept-of-successful-aging-ii-the-relation-between-%25e2%2580%2599successful-aging%25e2%2580%2599-and-%25e2%2580%2598human-enhancement%25e2%2580%2599%2F This is the second part of my project description for the Ph.D.-project called ‘A genealogical study of the concept of ’successful aging’ and its relation to the idea of ‘human enhancement’. See the first part here. The relation between ’successful aging’ and ‘human enhancement’ The project will particularly focus on an analysis of the possible connection between ideas about the prevention and treatment of age-related diseases, on the one hand, and the current merging discourse on ‘human enhancement’, on the other. Like ‘successful aging’, the notion of ‘human enhancement’ — including a large variety of different ideas about the future possibilities for technological improvements of human bodies — became widely spread in the 1980’s and... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3189178 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:00:10 +0100 3189178 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3182201&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F01%2F18%2Fa-genealogical-study-of-the-concept-of-successful-aging-i%2F I’ve just begun my ph.d.-project here at Medical Museion. Titled ”A genealogical study of the concept of successful aging and its relation to the idea of human enhancement”, the project is financed by the new Center for Healthy Aging at the Faculty of Health Sciences. Below is the first part of the project description concerning the notion of successful aging. In two following parts I will first introduce the possible relation between successful aging and human enhancement, and then my attempt to narrow the project to cognitive aspects of ageing and cognitive enhancement. Comments to one or all three parts are much appreciated. The genealogy of the notion of ’successful aging’ At present there is much focus on the notion of successful aging (healthy aging, opti... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3182201 Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:00:39 +0100 3182201 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3012645&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FhWgwK7kioEk%2Fmuseum_lecture_traces_historic.php The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts the final offering of its Charles Darwin Lecture Series on Tuesday, November 24 -- the 150th anniversary of Darwin's landmark publication of "The Origin of Species." Join Museum paleontologist and science historian Paul Brinkman for a free presentation titled "Charles Darwin's Beagle Voyage and the Origin of 'The Origin.'" Dr. Brinkman completed his PhD in History of Science at the University of Minnesota with research in the history of 19th-century natural sciences, especially geology and paleontology. He has published a number of articles on Darwin, museum history, and the history of American vertebrate paleontology. His second book, The Second American Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, is due out next year from the University of Chicago Press. ... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3012645 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:14:48 +0100 3012645 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2963124&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F11%2F05%2Fscientific-instruments-in-the-history-and-philosophy-of-medical-science%2F The creative editors or Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science (see earlier mention here) are planning a focused discussion section on scientific instruments in a forthcoming issue of the journal. With the “practical turn” in history and philosophy of science came a renewed interest in scientific instruments. Although they have become a nexus for worries about empiricism and standards of evidence, instruments only rarely feature as primary sources for scholars in the history and philosophy of science. Even historians of technology have been accused of underutilizing the evidence embodied in material objects (Corn 1996). The fundamental questions are not settled. First, there is no general agreement as to what counts as a scientific instrument: Are ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2963124 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:51 +0100 2963124 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2931010&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F10%2F27%2Flab-toys-on-display-please%2F Laboratory equipment for rats or mice have begun to fascinate me more and more. Not in the way the rat guillotine was fascinating, but more in the way of how lab equipment can show so many things about biomedical practices, contexts and knowledge production. The picture above is from an article in the October issue of The Scientist, which Thomas has referred me to, called ‘Lab Toys – How does cage enrichment affect rodents?’. It is a really interesting article (as he knew I would think) about, well, lab toys – and their consequences for lab practices. For instance the article illustrates one of the aspects about the use of laboratory animals that you seldom think about: the everyday life in the lab where humans and animals interact. Rats, for example, are not only i... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2931010 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:45 +0100 2931010 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2923490&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FbgfdZdZwZgQ%2Fdarwin_across_the_disciplines.php At Duke University John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute: Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 4:00 pm In collaboration with the Office of the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies and Duke's University Institutes, the FHI is pleased to present a 2-day symposium marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origins of Species. The core idea of the symposium is to mark these dual anniversaries by discussing Darwin's work (its impacts, legacies, etc) from a range of disciplinary perspectives crossing the sciences, humanities, arts, and social sciences, and to use that opportunity as an occasion for thinking about the kinds of knowledge projects and practices that can emerge when we traffic those disciplinary divides. A complet... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2923490 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:56:57 +0100 2923490 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2908628&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F10%2F20%2Fthe-materiality-of-scientific-objects%2F The material dimension of science is back in focus for historians.  As far back as I remember, it was historians of technology who were the ‘materialists’, whereas historians of science were ‘idealists’. Didn’t really matter what kind of studies they did — historians of science have always tended to be intererested in mind (theories, ideas, concepts, discourses, etc.), whereas historians of technology have given higher priority to matter — material matter, not just conceptualised matter. But historians of science are about to discover the material aspects of science. Next summer’s workshop ‘Scientific Objects and their Materiality in the History of Chemistry’ is a case in point. Organised by Michael Gordin (Princeton), Ursula Kle... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2908628 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:53:57 +0100 2908628 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2768651&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F09%2F05%2Fnew-exhibition-primary-substances-treasures-from-the-history-of-protein-research%2F   Yesterday, at last, we opened our new exhibition — ‘Primary Substances: treasures from the history of protein research’ — in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences here in Copenhagen.  ‘Primary Substances’ is about protein research in the long time perspective, from the early 19th century to the present. However, the main focus is on analytical protein studies between the 1930s and 1980s, i.e., before the emergence of comtemporary proteomics. The immediate occasion for the show was the newly opened Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (the exhibition has been paid for by the foundation; no strings attached!). But the scope is much broader, because CPR evidently stands on the shoulders of generations of protein resear... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2768651 Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:40:39 +0100 2768651 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2752120&cid=t_104756_136_f&fid=35302&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FWhitePebble%2F%7E3%2FA6NVv1CRvjs%2F Web Produced By: Jeannine Gallenstein Email: jgallenstein@wcpo.com Last Update: 7:56 am DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A new Air Force supercomputer is named in honor of an Ohio man who was instrumental in cracking Nazi codes during World War II.The $2.2 million machine to be used by researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton is called the “Desch.” It will turn large amounts of radar surveillance data into three-dimensional video images that can observe an entire city and focus in close — on an individual lighting a cigarette, for example. Joe Desch, who died in 1987, was the designer of a computer that helped the Allies break the Nazis’ Enigma codes. Desch’s daughter, Debbie Anderson, planned to attend Monday’s unveiling of th... white pebble blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2752120 Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:01:36 +0100 2752120 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2734285&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FeTforyYd6NU%2Fgalileos_telescope_is_400_year.php And Google celebrates: Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2734285 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:16:19 +0100 2734285 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2691539&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F08%2F12%2Fartefacts-meeting-at-science-museum-20-22-september%2F The program for the Artefacts meeting at Science Museum, 20-22 September, has been finalised. It looks great! Medical Museion’s former senior curator Søren Bak-Jensen (now at the Copenhagen City Museum) will present some of the ideas behind the current exhibition ‘Split+Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine’. Here is the whole list of papers for the meeting: Bruce Lewenstein, Cornell University. Can museum visitors learn about the relation of science and technology in museums? Peter Donhauser, Vienna Museum of Technology. Science versus technology in a museum’s display. Changes in the Vienna Museum. Benjamin Gross, Princeton University. “The Antithesis of the Attic”: Historical Artifacts, “Interactive” Exhibits, and the Presentation of Science a... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2691539 Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:00:57 +0100 2691539 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2688715&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F08%2F11%2Farchives-for-contemporary-science-at-risk%2F Just got a letter from the University of Bath librarian, who says that the National [i.e., UK] Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists is closing 31 October. That’s sad, because in the 22 years since the unit moved to Bath, it has been instrumental in securing nearly 200 scholarly archives in institutional libraries around the UK — a very important contribution to the preservation of an important part of the contemporary scientific and engineering heritage. I haven’t heard about any similar closures in other European countries, so let’s hope this is not the beginning of a broader tendency to neglect the history of contemporary science, technology and medicine. (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2688715 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:18:04 +0100 2688715 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2688937&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FwAbepsJWjmw%2Fthe_exciting_history_of_histor.php Scientific facts are fun. But probably to a limited number of people. It's more fun to know how scientists got those facts - their thoughts, motivations and methods. How they did it. Why they did it. Where did they get the idea to do it in the first place. It's even more fun, for a broader number of people, if that finding is placed in a historical context - how work of previous generations of scientists, meandering around various age-specific ideas, led to the work of this particular group. But it is even more fun watching the historians of science at work. Most recent science is pretty easy to figure out. But going into the past, it gets harder and harder. The unit of information today is the peer-reviewed scientific paper in a journal that is for the most part easily obtainable onlin... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2688937 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:06:53 +0100 2688937 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2602037&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F07%2F14%2Fmore-on-small-animal-guillotines-an-invisible-practice%2F I distributed my memory of being a biochemistry student swinging rats by their tails through the air so the neck landed on a bench edge (no blood, just a momentarily broken neck) to the rete list, adding: It took some training to land it exactly on the edge, though; some less manually skilled students smashed the rat’s back on the table, which only paralysed it. I must confess that I sort of liked this swinging procedure, to the great admiration and horror of some of the other (female) students. Sublime! Gothic biochemistry, to paraphrase Bruce Sterling. This provoked another round of comments, which I take the liberty to quote from (they are publicly accessible in rete’s online archive), because they throw some additional light on the rat guillotine phenomenon. Frank Manasek (c... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2602037 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:51:21 +0100 2602037 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2510988&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F06%2F16%2Feye-catchers-and-swagger-images-a-new-exhibition-about-scientific-posters%2F In addition to Split and Splice, we have recently opened another and smaller exhibition in the reception hall — Eye Catchers and Swagger Images: Research in Poster Format (Danish: Blikfang og blærebilleder: forskning i posterformat) — with a selection of our collection of scientific posters, from the mid-1980s to the present. The idea behind the exhibition goes back to August 2007, when we had a specialist workshop on Biomedicine and Aesthetics in a Museum Context here at Medical Museion, followed by a conference on Biomedicine and Art. One of the speakers at the Biomedicine and Art conference was James Elkins (the Art Institute of Chicago), who spoke about the new impulses for art theory and visual studies presented by science, technology and medicine. Rikke Vindberg,... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2510988 Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:00:08 +0100 2510988 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2441587&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F05%2F24%2Fgood-old-history-of-science-is-big-news-for-bbc%2F Jon Agar at UCL’s Department of Science and Technology Studies quotes an ‘intriguing announcement’ for the new series of BBC Radio 4’s Leading Edge broadcast: For the past decade this programme’s principal concern has been with the products of science with its findings whether a freshly disinterred fossil, or a distant galaxy, a recent observation or a new theory. Starting this week we are shifting the focus from the findings themselves to the process by which they are found. Instead of treating science as an accumulating mountain of facts we will look at the who, the why, the what and the how. Who does the work? Why is it done? And how scientists operate as people who are more than the sum of their scientific publications [my emphasis] ‘Well that sounds like ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2441587 Sun, 24 May 2009 11:19:28 +0100 2441587 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2416954&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F05%2F18%2Fthe-laboratory-as-an-exhibition-venue%2F My friend Michael (who is a regular reader of the German HSozuKult-list) has drawn my attention to the meeting ‘Wissenschaft im Museum: Ausstellung im Labor’, to be held in Tübingen, Germany, 8-9 April 2010. In contrast to the usual discourse about displays of science in museums, this English-German bilingual ‘Tagung’ will concentrate on the relationship between scientific practices and presentation practices in the laboratory: Our assumption is, that this two-way relation is not only part of scientific representation, but also shows epistemological processes. Exhibitions and showrooms in scientific work spaces are not only displays of knowledge, but play a crucial role in its production. Thus, the leading question is: How much exhibition is there in science? ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2416954 Mon, 18 May 2009 07:00:04 +0100 2416954 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2349749&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FfLy7tGurEso%2Fhappy_100th_birthday_rita_levi.php Italian scientist, turning 100, still works: Rita Levi Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, said Saturday that even though she is about to turn 100, her mind is sharper than it was she when she was 20. Levi Montalcini, who also serves as a senator for life in Italy, celebrates her 100th birthday on Wednesday, and she spoke at a ceremony held in her honor by the European Brain Research Institute. She shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine with American Stanley Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells and organs. "At 100, I have a mind that is superior -- thanks to experience -- than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her. The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussol... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2349749 Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:20:55 +0100 2349749 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2269219&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2FJxWFTxt5jGY%2Fmammoths_in_history.php Archy continues to post snippets of his research on the history of the discoveries and descriptions of mammoths: The description of the mammoth as a subterranean animal that dies on exposure to surface air is almost identical to that given by the Chinese writer Tung-fang So in the second century BC.... Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2269219 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:56:37 +0100 2269219 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2232638&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F03%2F04%2Fbiodigital-lives-making-consuming-and-archiving-the-lives-of-technoscience%2F One of the potentially most interesting workshop titles I’ve seen announced so far this year is ’Biodigital lives: making, consuming and archiving the lives of technoscience’. The meeting — convened by Kate O’Riordan (Sussex) and Adrian Mackenzie (Lancaster) and hosted by the Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), the Centre for Material Digital Culture and the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex on 14 July — will “examine issues and questions about digital and biodigital life, lives and identities framed by biosciences, contemporary media and biopolitical cultures”: From the lives of scientists to the technologisation of life, ‘Biodigital lives’ will ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2232638 Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:38:12 +0100 2232638 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2222567&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F02%2F27%2Fexhibition-on-the-history-of-protein-research-call-for-artefacts%2F We are currently preparing a small exhibit on the culture and history of proteins and protein research, which is planned to open Friday 4 september in connection with the official opening of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. The aim of the exhibition — which shall be placed in the main hall of the Faculty of Health Sciences’s Panum building on U Copenhagen North Campus (right at the entrance to the new eco-friendly and health-promoting canteen) — is to give a historical and cultural perspective on the current focus on proteins in biomedicine and biotechnology. We want to create an object-rich exhbition, and therefore we would like to get in contact with laboratory and clinical scientists on the Øresund area who may provide us with ob... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2222567 Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:15:42 +0100 2222567 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2205036&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F02%2F22%2Frete%2F For some reason I have until recently been unaware of rete, a mailing list for curators, historians, students, collectors, dealers, etc, interested in the history of scientific instruments. The archives (from June 2003 onwards) are available online. The list owner (the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford) will not accept messages for commercial purposes like announcing instruments for sale, etc., but otherwise all messages for academic and museum purposes are welcome. To join, send a blank message to rete-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk. (thanks to Gustav for the tip) (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2205036 Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:02:01 +0100 2205036 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2177521&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F02%2F11%2Fthe-collective-biomedical-memory%2F is notoriously short. It resides mainly in daily anecdotes and small stories provided by the older members of the laboratory/clinic. You acquire snippets of the past in the coffee breaks or in the bar after working hours, through the introductory chapters of standard textbooks and anthologies, or by reading the memoirs of biomedical celebrities (like Craig Venter). You collect fragments that slowly coalesce in your mind as a more or less vague narrative about the past. The chances are high that most biomedical scientists are creating rather similar versions of a fairly standardized historical narrative. The ‘truth’ about the historical past is a strong social construct (much more social than scientific constructs, in spite of what many science studies peo... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2177521 Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:06:16 +0100 2177521 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2147796&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2Fst9Ab_nXs94%2Fdarwin_day_talk_by_carl_zimmer.php From NESCENT: Carl Zimmer "Darwin and Beyond: How Evolution Is Evolving" February 12, 2009 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm Talk Overview: Charles Darwin launched the modern science of evolution, but he hardly had the last word. In fact, today scientists are discovering that evolution works in ways Darwin himself could not have imagined. In my talk I will celebrate Darwin's achievements by looking at the newest discoveries about evolution, from the emergence of life to the dawn of humanity. Please join us for a Darwin Day presentation by Carl Zimmer. Mr. Zimmer is well known for his popular science writing, particularly his work on evolution. He has published several books including Soul Made Flesh, a history of the brain, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, At the Water's Edge, a book about major tr... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2147796 Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:48:05 +0100 2147796 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2137586&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F01%2F27%2Fpreannouncement-for-artefacts-meeting-at-science-museum-in-september%2F I have written about the Artefacts meeting series before (here, here and here). The 14th meeting will be hosted by Science Museum in London on 20-22 September 2009. The topic will be “The relations of science and technology as portrayed in museums”. Reserve the dates. Deadline will be around 1 April, but we’ll be back with a more formal and detailed announcement. (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2137586 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:26:18 +0100 2137586 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2107744&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F01%2F15%2Fthe-design4science-poster%2F Today, the poster for Design4Science got in place in our external showcases. It’s made by the exhibition designer, Shirley Wheeler (see earlier posts). If you are interested in buying a poster, please write to our outreach officer, Bente Vinge Pedersen (bvpn[atsigntoavoidawfulspamrobots]sund.ku.dk). (more photos here)  (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2107744 Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:58:17 +0100 2107744 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2097903&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F01%2F12%2Fdesign4science-and-medical-museion%2F Our next temporary exhibition is on its way. Today Shirley Wheeler arrived with her team from Sunderland (UK) to set up Design4Science, which will open next Tuesday. It’s an exhbition about the interface between design and science, more precisely how design has interacted with molecular biology in the last 50 years. How the invisible biomolecular world has been represented, modelled and visualized in co-operation with artists and designers. And, vice versa, how designers and artists have been inspired by research in molecular biology. Design4Science will be on display in our temporary exhibition venue in Bredgade, Copenhagen, until 12 April. Stay tuned — Bente will follow Shirley and her team while they install during this week and the following weekend. Here are some of Be... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2097903 Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:54:33 +0100 2097903 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2094823&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F01%2F10%2Fhistory-of-the-neurosciences%2F The 14th annual meeting of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN) will be held in Charleston, South Carolina, 16-20 June 2009. The ISHN encourages contributions about “all of the history of all of the neurosciences, including basic and clinical specialties, ancient and non-Western topics, technical advances, and broad social and cultural aspects”. Send abstracts to Sherry Ginn, sginn@carolina.rr.com, before 28 February. For details, see here.   (Source: Biomedicine on Display) Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2094823 Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:00:50 +0100 2094823 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2092575&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2009%2F01%2F09%2Fthe-incomplete-child-an-exhibition-about-congenital-deformities-in-science-art-and-society%2F The Steno Museum for the history of science and medicine at Aarhus University has produced some very interesting temporary exhibitions over the past few years (see fx here). Their latest contribution deals with congenital deformities in children, and takes an historical as well as an artistic approach to the challenge of culturally accomodating the issue of birth defects. Here is what Morten A. Skydsgaard, head curator of the exhibition, writes about the show: “Congenital deformities have always fascinated and disgusted us - and calls for further explanation. The exhibition ”The incomplete child”, at the Steno Museum, The Danish Museum for the History of Science, shows how science, art and society have viewed children with congenital deformities through history. Mythical figures... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2092575 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:17:08 +0100 2092575 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2090190&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F506748676%2Forigin_of_species_readalong.php Three chapters a week. First edition (if you know what is good for you). Here. With John Whitfield. First, read this and this as mental preparation. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2090190 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:47:43 +0100 2090190 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2087232&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F505847087%2Fblog_for_darwin.php From Blog For Darwin: February 12th-15th, 2009 participating bloggers around the world will be celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12th, 1809) with a BLOG SWARM, in which posts will be aggregated on BLOG FOR DARWIN to be kept as a resource for educators, students, and others. CLICK HERE or read below to learn how you can participate! Yes, there's a month left, but I hope you participate. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2087232 Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:41:18 +0100 2087232 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2035618&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F12%2F13%2Fthe-history-of-biomedicinebiotech-and-economic-policy%2F Two quotes from yesterday’s online media caught my interest as a historian of contemporary biomedicine: First from an interview in yesterday’s Nature online with former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Elias Zerhouni: The economic stimulus package is $500 billion, with $1 billion for science. It’s outrageous. This is the future of our country. So now we’re subsidizing the industries of the past at the expense of investments in the industries of the future. It’s almost an insult, frankly. Second from a post on yesterday’s Medgadget about a European Union (EU) funded project that aims to develop a microchip that can do DNA analysis for clinical applications: This is one of the examples of pan-European cooperation that we constantly see... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2035618 Sat, 13 Dec 2008 10:01:01 +0100 2035618 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2033149&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F12%2F12%2Fhistory-of-genetics-day-norwich-2009%2F A History of Genetics Day will take place at the John Innes Centre, Norwich (UK) on 9 September 2009. An international line-up of historians of science will speak, including Robert Olby: William Bateson and the establishment of the John Innes Horticultural Institution Marsha Richmond: Institutionalizing Mendelism: Women in the John Innes Workforce Donald Forsdyke: William Bateson’s contributions to evolutionary theory Ted Porter: Biometry and the question of blending inheritance Oren Harman: Evolutionary chromosomes: C. D. Darlington and Cytogenetics Jenny Marie: Genetics in 1930s Britain: a context for genetics at the John Innes Horticultural Institution and the Plant Breeding Institute Soraya de Chadarevian: Genetics in the atomic age Mike Gale: From Plant Breeding Institute to ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2033149 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:32:59 +0100 2033149 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2018104&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F476310973%2Fwell_remember_hm_even_if_he_co.php Everyone who's ever taken a Neuroscience class in college remembers the strange case of H.M. H.M. suffered from epilepsy. Back in 1953, his brain was operated on - some large chunks (the hippocampi) were removed. Epilepsy was gone. So was his memory. He could remember his life before surgery, but could not form any new memories. More specifically, he could not remember any new events ('declarative memory'), things that happened to him. Whataver he experienced years, months, weeks, days, hours, even minutes before, was forever lost. Every moment was a fresh moment. Every day a new beginning. But there were things he could remember - new skills ('episodic memory'). If he practiced something one day, he would be better at it the next day even though he could not remember he ever did it bef... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2018104 Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:21:30 +0100 2018104 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1985178&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F464005935%2Fthe_birthday_of_the_origin.php The Origin originated on this day exactly 150-minus-1 years ago. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1985178 Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:56:24 +0100 1985178 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1981301&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F460934718%2Fvirtual_journey_with_darwin.php Check out the new NHM's interactive Voyage of the Beagle: [Hat-tip, of course, to Karen] Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1981301 Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:32:42 +0100 1981301 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1975093&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F11%2F20%2Fmaking-visible-embryos-and-the-art-of-conservation%2F The recently launched online exhibition “Making Visible Embryos“, curated by Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, offers a fascinating tour through a paradigmatic, but also highly controversial, aspect of the history of medicine: the engagement with and displaying of human embryos. The exhibition invites visitors to move thematically through the development of different aspects of how embryos have been depicted through time. We learn about how research into embryology gradually moves from the secrecy of the laboratory to the public sphere in connection with debates about human development, birth control, and reproductive technologies like IVF. The curators also inform us o... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1975093 Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:49:16 +0100 1975093 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1963958&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F11%2F17%2Fcurating-medical-artifacts-with-an-eye-to-the-future%2F The acquisition of medical museum artifacts is usually seen as a job for specialists (curators) with historical training. To curate a collected artifact for later use in exhibitions, you are supposed to know where it came from, how it was produced and used, what meanings were attributed to it, what role it played in medical practice, how it related to other things, and so forth. In other words, curating museum artifacts is, as a rule, always already a historical practice. The future doesn’t seem to be of any immediate interest for the curator. Yet the future creeps into the equation, whether the curator wants it or not. When curators handle artifacts from the past, the future of these past times is an integral part of the curatorial practice. The description of, say, ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1963958 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:00:01 +0100 1963958 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1961228&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F452949733%2Fbeagle_project_liveblogging_th.php Go here (requires a 5-second process of signing up for FriendFeed, a move you will not regret, if you want to comment instead of just reading) and participate in liveblogging as the Beagle Project crew visits the opening of the Darwin exhibition. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1961228 Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:36:07 +0100 1961228 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1939094&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F11%2F06%2Fhistory-of-robotics-in-medicine-and-otherwise%2F The number of conferences of potential interest for medical museologists and historians of contemporary medicine is increasing. Take, for example, the annual conference of the German Society for the History of Technology that will be held at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach am Main (close to Frankfurt aM), 22-24 May 2009 — on the theme of the history of robotics. “If ‘the atom’ and then ‘the gene’ were symbols of the 20th century, then ‘the robot’ is that of the 21st century”, say the organizers. (Especially nanorobots, I guess.) The aim of the meeting is to discuss the historiography of robots and robotics and analyze presentations of robots in museums and exhibits. In science fiction, visions of the future were and a... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1939094 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:00:13 +0100 1939094 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1901502&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F10%2F22%2Fphilosophy-of-history-vs-museum-tangibles-and-specifics%2F In her short obituary of George E. Palade — who was the first to identify what was later called ribosomes (thus a shared Nobel prize in 1974) — Andrea Gawrylewski, staff writer at The Scientist, refers in passing to something that Palade wrote in his autobiographical essay: My father had hoped I was going to study philosophy at the University, like himself, but I preferred to deal with tangibles and specifics, and - influenced by relatives much closer to my age than he was - I entered the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest (Romania) in 1930. Interesting opposition between philosophy and medical science as dealing with ‘tangibles’ and ’specifics’. Wonder if this is valid for historians too? Is there an opposition between being inte... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1901502 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:00:19 +0100 1901502 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1891982&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F10%2F21%2Fhall-of-shame-the-most-fraudulent-vile-depraved-despicable-base-evil-wretched-and-slimy-scientists-of-all-times%2F The next issue of the Vienna science magazine heureka! will feature an overview of the most evil, base, fraudulent and slimy scientists in history — a Hall of Shame — “um das breite Spektrum an ethisch verwerflichen und fragwürdigen Motivationen abzubilden”. Not only Nazi scientists, but all kinds of ”Menschenhasser und skrupellose Experimentatoren, die übelsten Plagiatoren und Betrüger, die größten Neider und die hoffnungslos Verblendeten” (sounds much better in German than in English, especially when you read it out loud!). The inclusion of “hoffnungslos Verblendeten” is probably a mistake, because if this criterion is taken literally, heureka! will be thicker than Who’s Who in Science. But otherwise, send your suggesti... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1891982 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:29:38 +0100 1891982 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1862749&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F10%2F08%2Fa-true-biomedicine-on-display-nobel-prize%2F ‘An unbelievably romantic prize with beautiful colours’ [’ett otroligt romantiskt pris med vackra färger’] — that’s how an inorganic chemist at the University of Gothenburg characterizes today’s news about the Nobel prize in chemistry. I’m not sure I understand what he means by ’romantic’. I would rather call it a ‘medical’ prize in disguise, like most chemical Nobel prizes these days. Because the green fluoresent protein (GFP) and other GFP-like proteins in a variety of fluorescent colours are widely used in basic and clinical medical research. (glial cells expressing GFP among red neurons: credit: RICCARDO CASSIANI-INGONI / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY) And the colours are beautiful indeed. They’ve been a s... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1862749 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:21:05 +0100 1862749 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1856050&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F10%2F07%2Fhas-the-emergence-of-the-life-sciences-reconfigured-c-p-snows-two-cultures-thesis%2F Next year is 50 years since C. P. Snow delivered his famous lecture ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’, suggesting that as cultured citizens we need to know as much about the second law of thermodynamics as the plays of Shakespeare. To celebrate this event, and to raise the question whether Snow’s notion has any relevance today, Science Museum and Tate Modern are organizing a two-day event on the theme ‘Art and Science Now: The Two Cultures in Question’: In a world of increasing disciplinary specialisation in which there has been exponential growth of sub-disciplines in both science and the humanities, it will also ask whether the distinctions between and indeed within the two cultures might have become further entrenched. The most fundamental quest... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1856050 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:19:23 +0100 1856050 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1853599&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F10%2F06%2Fmoving-beyond-recognition-how-to-make-sense-of-recent-medical-artefacts%2F Camilla’s post about Robert Wilson’s recent lecture at Stanford reminded me of David Pantalony’s essay in the July issue of the History of Science Society Newsletter: Why does a control panel for a computer from 1950 attract several viewers in the architecture and design galleries of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, while similar objects rest unnoticed in storage rooms and science museums around the world? Referring to Joshua Taylor’s Learning to Look (1981), David reminds us that we too often stop considering objects as soon as we have recognized them. Putting them in other surroundings (like the control panel in MOMA), however, makes it easier to reconsider them. Thus, the main challenge with recent technological artifacts, David points ... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1853599 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:45:15 +0100 1853599 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1815407&cid=t_104756_136_f&fid=35302&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FWhitePebble%2F%7E3%2F399067388%2F My possible new hobby: telling time, the history of, etc. Post helpful links in the comments section, please. Copyright © 2008 white pebble. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.white-pebble.net so we can take legal action immediately.Plugin by Taragana (Source: white pebble) white pebble blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1815407 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:40:17 +0100 1815407 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1750404&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F380715214%2Fthe_places_in_and_around_londo.php Heart of Darwin: Even the founding father of evolutionary theory was not born a gloomy old man. I began to wonder if it might be possible to walk Darwin's London and get a sense of him as a young man caught up in the fray. The landmarks of his life turned out to be all around. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1750404 Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:32:02 +0100 1750404 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1689203&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F359007532%2Fi_hope_you_dont_faint_while_re.php ...but if you do, I hope it was enjoyable! And edifying, of course. Kind of science that is amenable to experimentation at home. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1689203 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:29:59 +0100 1689203 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1686534&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F357801097%2Fthe_genius_of_charles_darwin.php Not on US television (Channel 4 in the UK only): Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 [Via] Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1686534 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:49:52 +0100 1686534 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1679645&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F355430270%2Fimportance_of_history_of_scien.php My SciBling John Lynch recently published a very interesting paper, on a topic close to my heart: Does Science Education Need the History of Science? by Graeme Gooday, John M. Lynch, Kenneth G. Wilson, and Constance K. Barsky. Isis, 2008, 99:322-330 This is a part of a broader focus issue of Isis on the topic of History of Science. I got the paper two weeks ago, but only now found some time to sit down and read it. And I was not disappointed! Fortunately for all of us, the entire paper is available online for free (yeah!), so you can read it in its entirety. While using the fight against Creationism (including Intelligent Design) in the USA as an example of how history of science education can help in the public arena may or may not appeal to everyone, the main thesis of the paper - that... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1679645 Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:23:25 +0100 1679645 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1639433&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F340349502%2Fmake_your_own_hms_beagle_ship.php From the The Beagle Project Blog: Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1639433 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:11:18 +0100 1639433 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1631590&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F337262194%2Fdarwinist.php Olivia Judson is absolutely right - let's get rid of the terms "Darwinist" and "Darwinism". She writes, among else: I'd like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn't think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology to... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1631590 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:21:40 +0100 1631590 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1625802&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F336850579%2Fthe_giants_shoulders_1.php Welcome to the Firstest, Biggestest, Inaugural Edition of The Giant's Shoulders, the carnival of History Of Science! The carnival grew out of the Classic Papers Challenge by gg of Skulls in the Stars. That was so much fun, several of us thought this is something that should be done regularly, perhaps every month. So, gg and I got together and got this thing started. I know some of the future hosts will do this very creatively (and yes, you can volunteer to host, though you will have to wait six months for your turn!), and I envisioned doing this in a form of, perhaps, a vigorous debate at the meeting of Royal Society or something like that. But then I got so many entries and the carnival got so big, I decided I had to go with a simpler scheme - the link and brief quote from each post. As... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1625802 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:36:11 +0100 1625802 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1564185&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F325163126%2Fmammoth_hunting_does_the_memor.php Archy tackles that question expertly. He's on a roll these days! And this is the mammoth story, so of course, his blog is the place to go for such answers. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1564185 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:58:48 +0100 1564185 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1561308&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F324302244%2Fnatural_selection_anniversary.php You can listen to the short and sweet Takeaway podcast: A look at Charles Darwin's legacy as the theory of evolution turns 150: One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection were presented at the Linnean Society of London. A year and a half later, Darwin published what is now a monumental work: "The Origin of the Species." The Takeaway looks at Darwin's legacy and the continuing debate surrounding evolution. By John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1561308 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:00:45 +0100 1561308 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1556515&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F323802931%2Fhappy_150th_birthday_to_the_pr.php On this day 150 years ago essays by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles R. Darwin were read at the meeting of the Linnean Society in London. This was the first time in history that the idea of natural selection was presented to the world. George Beccaloni and Wesley R. Elsberry wrote excellent pieces commemorating the anniversary. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1556515 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:43:01 +0100 1556515 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1556520&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F323764692%2Ftunguska_explosion.php Something happened in Siberia 100 years ago - exactly, on this day. I always found the event very intriguing. If you want to learn everything one needs and wants to know about the event, written in a way that will make you excited - go and read Archy's latest masterpiece (hmmm, anthology-worthy?). Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1556520 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:22:06 +0100 1556520 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1488212&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F06%2F03%2Fis-there-a-special-beauty-in-science-tied-to-the-making-of-new-things-new-materials-new-smells-new-colours%2F A few minutes ago — as I was sitting in my beautiful and quiet room in Schokofabrik (the best B&B in Berlin), struggling with my paper on art and science in medical museums for the SLSA-session on Friday – a mail dropped in announcing a lecture by science writer Phillip Ball on Thursday 10 July, which may be quite interesting for us in the medical museum business. Phillip Ball lecture is occasioned by his receipt of the 2007 Dingle Prize for communicating the history of science and technology through his book Elegant solutions: Ten Beautiful Experiments in Chemistry (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2005): Scientists frequently talk about ‘beauty’ in their work, but rarely stop to think quite what they mean by it. What makes an experiment beautiful? Is it t... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1488212 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:31:46 +0100 1488212 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1480682&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F05%2F31%2Fexhibition-on-20th-century-anaesthesiology-and-intensive-care-at-the-euroanaesthesia-2008-meeting%2F A couple of months ago the Danish Anaesthesiological Society asked Medical Museion if we were interested in making a small exhibition about the history of Danish anaesthesiology and intensive care in connection with the fourth Annual Meeting of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (Euroanaesthesia 2008) in Copenhagen. With 5000 potential exhibition visitors in mind, we said yes!, of course, and during the last two months Søren Bak-Jensen and Nicole Rehné have worked hard to plan the exhibition and set it up. The European society has supported us with ~10.000 euros, and we have received a lot of help from specialists (see credits below). And today it opened in the main hall of the Bella Center: 80 sq.m. display area with a Dräger iron lung from 1952 as the iconic object of... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1480682 Sat, 31 May 2008 15:06:23 +0100 1480682 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1472703&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F299536459%2Fthree_more_days_for_the_classi.php The deadline for the Classic Papers Chellenge is looming - the end of May. Submit it to Skulls in the Stars and have it collected here. As I mentioned before, I'd like to see this turn into a monthly blog carnival. It would have some kind of criteria developed, but perhaps those should be flexible. Let's say that a "classic paper" is one that gave birth to a new discipline (or subdiscipline), or rewrote the textbooks, and overturned a long-held pernicious dogma of some kind. And let's say it is more than 30 years old, though this may be waived in cases of really young disciplines. As I mentioned recently, old classic papers are essential for newcomers into any field. In order to be good and successful, one needs to grok the historical, theoretical, methodological and philosophical context... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1472703 Wed, 28 May 2008 04:21:18 +0100 1472703 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1432936&cid=t_104756_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F05%2F09%2Finterview-of-eric-kandel%2F Here is a twenty-one minute interview of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, discussing memory, free will, the history of science, Freud, and his work with pharmaceutical companies among other things. This video comes from Science Blogs. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1432936 Fri, 09 May 2008 16:00:51 +0100 1432936 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1418447&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F05%2F03%2Favoid-boring-watson%2F It took the local university bookstore for ever to get my copy of famous molecular geneticist James D. Watson’s Avoid Boring People. Lessons from a Life in Science (Knopf 2007) ordered and shipped – so apologies for this late review. Like biographies, autobiographies are written and read for a multitude of purposes, from trying to settle priority disputes to producing a piece of literature. Watson (who shared the medical Nobel Prize in 1962 for his construction, with Francis Crick, of the double helix model of DNA, and then played a significant role in the subsequent triumph of molecular biology) has chosen another option. He has penned the history of his life in the form of a “recollection of manners” deployed to navigate in Academia. A self-help book for scientists and acad... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1418447 Sat, 03 May 2008 19:38:03 +0100 1418447 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1369756&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F269621217%2Fspiders_and_bycicles_1.php Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much as I enjoyed writing it: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1369756 Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:57:32 +0100 1369756 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1338212&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F261262490%2Fhappy_birthday_robert_bunsen.php Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (31 March 1811 - 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. With his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, he developed the Bunsen burner. Bunsen also worked on emission spectroscopy of heated elements, and with Gustav Kirchhoff he discovered the elements caesium and rubidium. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, he was a pioneer in photochemistry, and he did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1338212 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:46:48 +0100 1338212 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1335368&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F259943169%2Fisaac_newton.php ...Savior or Satan? Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1335368 Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:02:03 +0100 1335368 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1316659&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F03%2F20%2Fscience-on-stage%2F At the occasion of the 60th birthday of Svante Lindqvist, Director of the Nobel Museum in Stockholm (and member of our Advisory Board), a one-day celebration seminar will be held on Friday 25 April. Under the heading ”Science on Stage”, John Heilbron, Tore Frängsmyr, Paolo Galuzzi, Sven Widmalm, Jim Bennett, and Kjell Espmark will raise questions about the role of science in public life and the relation between science, theatre and music, and their talks will be interspersed by music and theatre performances. Access is restricted to registered participants—contact Ulf Larsson, ulf@nobel.se, before April 14. Full program (in Swedish) below: Program 9.30–10.00 Registrering och kaffe 10.00–10.30 Professor John Heilbron, Oxford 10.35–11.05 Professor Tore Fr... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1316659 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:33:11 +0100 1316659 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1309136&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F253385696%2Fyuris_night.php is in 25 days, commemorating the date, April 12, 1961, when the first human, Yuri Gagarin went out in space. There are 12-hour long overnight parties all over the world and you can probably find one near you. If everything goes as planned, I will be in Cambridge, UK on that day and the nearest party is in London. Perhaps a bunch of Plossians, SciBlings, Nature Networkers, other science bloggers, non-science bloggers and friends will be interested in going as a big group? Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1309136 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:56:29 +0100 1309136 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1288399&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F03%2F08%2Fideas-and-instruments-in-social-context-23rd-congress-of-the-history-of-science-and-technology-budapest-july-2009%2F During the cold war years, the international congresses of history of science used to be rather dull events, with too many local dignitaries involved and too many talks by people who apparently had never been in contact with major intellectual streams in the field. But post-1989 globalisation has gradually beefed up these meetings. So there is every reason to go to Budapest 26-31 July 2009 for the XXIII (23rd) Congress of the History of Science and Technology (they brought technology in after the last congress, in Beijing, in 2005). The broad heading of the meeting is ”Ideas and Instruments in Social Context”. Here’s an excerpt from the circular: All kinds of scientific and technical instruments as preserved in museums, descriptions, memories and in art be... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1288399 Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:41:39 +0100 1288399 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1280744&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F03%2F05%2Fnext-artefacts-meeting-the-relationship-between-art-science-and-technology%2F “Artefacts” is a network of academic and museum-based historians of science, technology and medicine who are interested in promoting the use of objects in scholarly work. The network started in 1997, and recent meetings have dealt with “Exploration” (Oslo 2007; see also here), “Constructing and Deconstructing Icons of Achievement in Science and Technology” (Stockholm 2006), “Globalization” (Washington 2005), and “Scientific Instruments as Artefacts” (Utrecht,2004). Six proceedings volumes have been published so far. The 2008 meeting will be held in Washington DC, October 5-7. The subject for this year’s meeting is the relationship between art and science/technology, broadly understood (not medicine? I thought we agr... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1280744 Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:11:24 +0100 1280744 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1274857&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F03%2F03%2Fbig-questions-about-scientific-invisibles%2F A propos our historical and curatorial interest in invisibles (see earlier post here)—the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford is inviting to a lecture on Wednesday 5 March by renowned philosopher of science Rom Harré, who will talk about one the most common assumptions of modern science, “namely that our experience of the natural world is to be explained in terms of tiny entities”. What kind of knowledge can we have of this invisible world? The lecture is titled ’Big questions about small worlds” and takes place in the museum building on Broad Street. For small inquiries, contact Stephen Johnston (who has co-curated the exhibition ‘Small Worlds’, which opened last October and runs until 6 April; see earlier post here). (Source: Bio... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1274857 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:13:06 +0100 1274857 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1274975&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F244863901%2Fhow_the_planets_got_their_name.php Ah, the quirky world of science! Archy gives us a tour of history of how various objects in the Solar System got named, and the intrigue and politics around it. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1274975 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:02:47 +0100 1274975 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1270556&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2008%2F03%2F01%2Fmundane-laboratory-artefacts%2F When I walk around our own collections—or when I visit other (history of) science and medicine museums—I’m often struck by the relative lack of mundane biomedical laboratory artefacts. The acquisition of lab artefacts tends to focus on high-tech things like gene sequencers, PET scanners, PCR machines, knock-out mice, etc. Curators are fond of them, perhaps because these are the kinds of artefacts that the donators (lab people) spontaneously come to think of when asked for potential museum items. As a consequence much ephemeral and mundane laboratory equipment—like cover slips, tissue grinders, disposable gloves, plastic tubing, cups and flasks, filtering equipment, petri dishes, cell spreaders, and so forth—are largely absent in museum collectio... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1270556 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:18:33 +0100 1270556 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1266667&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F242980474%2Fon_this_day_in_history_2.php 150 years ago Alfred Russel Wallace sent a letter to Charles Darwin, describing natural selection. 55 years ago, Watson and Crick announced the structure of DNA. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1266667 Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:31:56 +0100 1266667 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1225637&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F233879499%2Fdarwin_the_botanist_not_just_t.php As a part of the Darwin Day celebration the North Carolina Botanical Garden has organized a series of events for today, culminating in the lecture "Darwin the Botanist" by Dr.William Kimler, a Darwinian scholar and the professor of History (of Science) at NCSU: Most people do not think of Charles Darwin as a botanist. He is famously connected to the animals of the Galapagos Islands, and to the subjects of animal and human evolution and behavior. But Darwin's famous curiosity did extend to plants. In fact, among his numerous publications are a book on carnivorous plants and one on orchid pollination titled, "On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects." Dr. Kimler will discuss the influence of botany and some famous botanists on Darwin's train... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1225637 Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:02:11 +0100 1225637 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1220012&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F232263141%2Fdarwin_day_in_the_guardian.php Karen is excited this morning, reading the enormous Guardian edition full of good Darwiny goodness, chockful of articles by Dawkins and many others, as well as extracts from Darwin's works. The only part I find a little too narrow is The best Darwinian sites on the web which mentions only a small handfull of such sites, e.g., Darwin Online, Darwin Correspondence Project, Darwin Day Celebration, AboutDarwin.com and Darwin Today (the last one yet to launch next month). I know, I know, these are the biggest and bestest, but there are so many others that I feel are snubbed by being left out - they should at least have been linked from a sidebar or a box. How about Talk Origins, Panda's Thumb, The Dispersal of Darwin, The Beagle Project and The Beagle Project Blog, The Friends of Charles Darwi... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1220012 Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:36:50 +0100 1220012 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1170223&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F221354812%2Fcool_new_open_access_journal.php From Sage Ross, via John Lynch come exciting news about a new Open Access Journal - Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science Spontaneous Generations is a new online academic journal published by graduate students at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. The journal aims to establish a platform for interdisciplinary discussion and debate about issues that concern the community of scholars in HPS and related fields. Apart from selecting peer reviewed articles, the journal encourages a direct dialogue among academics by means of short editorials and focused discussion papers which highlight central questions, new developments, and controversial matters affecting HPS. Check out the first issue - the... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1170223 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:59:26 +0100 1170223 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1148250&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F216179641%2Fdo_you_know_who_programmed_the.php You may be surprised... Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1148250 Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:37:40 +0100 1148250 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1100290&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F201716965%2Frip_george_folkerts_november_2.php George Folkerts was one of those naturalists of the 'old school', interested in everything and excited about learning and sharing the knowledge throughout his life. He died on Friday, suddenly and unexpectedly, at the end of a typically busy day at Auburn University. Anne-Marie was his student, one of thousands who had the privilege to learn from and with Folkerts, and one of those who now has to carry on his work. She wrote about him in two very touching posts: Huge loss on many levels and Classifying grief. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1100290 Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:14:56 +0100 1100290 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1097495&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F201068477%2Fcongratulations_1.php Michael Barton has graduated! He got his degree in History of Science and will try to pursue a graduate degree in the same field. Hey, check out NC State as an option... Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1097495 Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:37:23 +0100 1097495 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1064961&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F193968357%2Fin_memoriam_seymour_benzer.php One of the greatest biologists of the 20th century, Seymour Benzer died last Friday. In his obituary post John Dennehy focuses on the bacteriophage work that led to deciphering of the genetic "alphabet", and so does Carl Zimmer. Readers of my blog probably know the name more in the connection with the discovery of the first clock mutants in Drosophila, by Ron Konopka in Benzer's lab. You can read the paper itself (pdf) and watch a video in which Benzer explains it. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1064961 Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:12:08 +0100 1064961 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1048567&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F189979168%2Fhappy_birthday_origin_of_speci.php Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party! It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get creationist clap-trap as they cannot even copy and paste correctly (hence they are better known these days as cdesign proponentsists). Pondering Pikaia and The Beagle Project Blog were first out of the gate this morning with wonderful posts. Here is a recent book review of the Origin by someone who knows some biology and another one by someone who does not - both are quite nice and eye-opening. Corpus Callosum, John Wilkins, Shalini, Paul Erland also mark the date. The first printing of 1250 copies did not fly off the shelves, because they were all already sold to subscribers - yes, amaz... A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1048567 Sat, 24 Nov 2007 21:57:42 +0100 1048567 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=984052&cid=t_104756_154_f&fid=36427&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FABlogAroundTheClock%2F%7E3%2F175859100%2Fbeagle_project_has_swag.php You 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: Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) A Blog Around The Clock blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=984052 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:56:59 +0100 984052 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=486327&cid=t_104756_107_f&fid=35009&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsciencesque.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F02%2F27%2Fa-history-of-morpholinos%2F In response to my blog entry about my lab’s use of morpholinos to characterize gdf6a function in zebrafish eye patterning, Jon Moulton of Gene Tools has posted a brief history of the morpholino. He gently corrects my statement that morpholino technology is 10 years old, and points out the Jim Summerton originally tried to publish his ideas about antisense gene silencing back in 1973, but the paper was rejected on the grounds that it was a “pipe dream”. Eventually, the paper was published in 1979. Morpholinos were made commercially available in 2000, with the first demonstration of their usefulness in zebrafish being published that same year. Of course, I was aware of the zebrafish timeline, but was a little fuzzy on the early years of the morpholino. I’ve corrected ... Sciencesque blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=486327 Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:33:54 +0100 486327