Carsten Timmermann
@ctimmermann.bsky.social
Historian of Biology and Medicine. Science is culture, and long live the Humanities. Director of @manchstm.bsky.social. Lapsed biochemist. Migrant. Rheinländer in 🇩🇪. Northerner in 🇬🇧. Lived in 🇺🇸. Owned by dog. Here privately. He/him.
Pinned
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
New #OpenAccess #HistMed article by our CHSTM colleague Dr Meng Zhang, on compulsory masking and the role of barbers in 1930s China.
academic.oup.com/shm/advance-...
academic.oup.com/shm/advance-...
Protest From Unexpected Corners: Barbers, Labour Unions, and Compulsory Masking in Modern China, 1930s–1940s
Abstract. This article examines resistance from below to compulsory masking in modern China, from the 1930s to the 1940s. Initially marginalised and stigma
academic.oup.com
February 9, 2026 at 8:36 AM
New #OpenAccess #HistMed article by our CHSTM colleague Dr Meng Zhang, on compulsory masking and the role of barbers in 1930s China.
academic.oup.com/shm/advance-...
academic.oup.com/shm/advance-...
This Wednesday.
Imagining a Gender Equal World: Join CHSTM's Dr Amelia Bonea and other colleagues on 11 February for a free, international online symposium celebrating the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
events.teams.microsoft.com/event/0b1ef0...
events.teams.microsoft.com/event/0b1ef0...
February 9, 2026 at 4:36 PM
This Wednesday.
For your diaries: CHSTM Seminar, 17 March 2026 - Dr Siobhán Hearne will be speaking on Soviet Healthcare Diplomacy in the Global South.
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
CHSTM Research Seminar, 17 March 2026
Dr Siobhán Hearne
Soviet Healthcare Diplomacy in the Global South
blogs.manchester.ac.uk
February 9, 2026 at 4:10 PM
For your diaries: CHSTM Seminar, 12 May 2026 - Professor Mary Augusta Brazelton will be speaking on Looking up at the ‘Little Moon’: Media and Mass Participation in Astronomy Under Mao
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
CHSTM Research Seminar, 12 May 2026
Prof Mary Augusta Bazelton
Looking up at the ‘Little Moon’: Media and Mass Participation in Astronomy Under Mao
blogs.manchester.ac.uk
February 9, 2026 at 4:09 PM
For your diaries: CHSTM Seminar, 21 April 2026 - Dr Sarah Qidway will be speaking on Aligarh’s Scientific Society (est. 1864)
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2026/0...
CHSTM Research Seminar, 21 April 2026
Dr Sarah Qidway
Aligarh’s Scientific Society (est. 1864)
blogs.manchester.ac.uk
February 9, 2026 at 4:09 PM
Interesting BBC podcast on weight loss drugs and their history.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
The Hunger Game - 1. The Wonder Stuff - BBC Sounds
A series exploring the weight loss drug revolution. Presented by Prof Giles Yeo.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 9, 2026 at 1:59 PM
Interesting BBC podcast on weight loss drugs and their history.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
“I’m mad I can’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics because they’re not in English”
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
February 9, 2026 at 5:46 AM
“I’m mad I can’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics because they’re not in English”
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
Billions of people around the globe have been listening to rock and pop in English and Spanish and other languages that aren’t their mother’s tongue, because they are curious about the world and not small-minded and parochial, unlike the Orange One and his white supremacist supporters.
“I’m mad I can’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics because they’re not in English”
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist
February 9, 2026 at 10:39 AM
Billions of people around the globe have been listening to rock and pop in English and Spanish and other languages that aren’t their mother’s tongue, because they are curious about the world and not small-minded and parochial, unlike the Orange One and his white supremacist supporters.
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
Impossible not to love this story. Historians represent!
Bad Bunny has a consulting historian. news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...
Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one.
Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”
news.wisc.edu
February 9, 2026 at 9:53 AM
Impossible not to love this story. Historians represent!
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
Ich arbeite mich gerade durch einen Volksgerichtsprozessakt eines örtlichen NS-Funktionärs, weil ich dem Tod einer Frau in Auschwitz nachspüre, die wegen "Rassenschande" verfolgt wurde. Es ist himmelschreiend. 🧵 1/
February 9, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Ich arbeite mich gerade durch einen Volksgerichtsprozessakt eines örtlichen NS-Funktionärs, weil ich dem Tod einer Frau in Auschwitz nachspüre, die wegen "Rassenschande" verfolgt wurde. Es ist himmelschreiend. 🧵 1/
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
Macbeth: SHIT
February 9, 2026 at 2:50 AM
Macbeth: SHIT
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
This is absolutely insane. The sort of Kafka-esque nightmare you would find in a Philip K Dick book set far in the dystopian future. A window on America tumbling into autocracy.
www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
‘Absolute hell’: Irishman with valid US work permit held by Ice since September
Seamus Culleton has been in a detention facility in Texas for nearly five months despite having no criminal record
www.irishtimes.com
February 9, 2026 at 7:59 AM
This is absolutely insane. The sort of Kafka-esque nightmare you would find in a Philip K Dick book set far in the dystopian future. A window on America tumbling into autocracy.
www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
🏺Amazing opportunity to work at this site (I wrote about it a little in #Kindred)
Keen on excavating some Neanderthal sites in Spain?
Well, today is your lucky day!
Call for participants at Roca dels Bous site just opened. Excavations on this unique Neanderthal site will run 1-20th August (both inclusive). For further information and details, contact me!
Well, today is your lucky day!
Call for participants at Roca dels Bous site just opened. Excavations on this unique Neanderthal site will run 1-20th August (both inclusive). For further information and details, contact me!
February 9, 2026 at 9:53 AM
🏺Amazing opportunity to work at this site (I wrote about it a little in #Kindred)
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
A senior MoD official helps shape defence strategy, then joins Palantir.
Months later, Palantir lands a £240m MoD contract without tender.
No laws broken – just the revolving door doing what it does best.
Months later, Palantir lands a £240m MoD contract without tender.
No laws broken – just the revolving door doing what it does best.
The great Ministry of Defence-to-Palantir pipeline
Senior defence officials are moving into Palantir roles as the company secures ever-deeper footholds across government
eastangliabylines.co.uk
February 9, 2026 at 8:09 AM
A senior MoD official helps shape defence strategy, then joins Palantir.
Months later, Palantir lands a £240m MoD contract without tender.
No laws broken – just the revolving door doing what it does best.
Months later, Palantir lands a £240m MoD contract without tender.
No laws broken – just the revolving door doing what it does best.
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
In Kopenhagen gibt es die Vorschrift, dass alle wichtigen Radwege bei Schneefall bis spätestens 08:00 Uhr morgens geräumt sein müssen, damit die Menschen sicher mit dem Fahrrad zur Arbeit fahren können. So sieht dass dann aus❤️😀
February 9, 2026 at 9:16 AM
In Kopenhagen gibt es die Vorschrift, dass alle wichtigen Radwege bei Schneefall bis spätestens 08:00 Uhr morgens geräumt sein müssen, damit die Menschen sicher mit dem Fahrrad zur Arbeit fahren können. So sieht dass dann aus❤️😀
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
How we say things in writing is a large part of *what we are saying*, and yes, that embraces the differences and delights of writing in a second language, using unfamiliar words and concepts, it embraces errors! All of it. It's us on a page and handing that over seems to me intellectually bereft.
I've pointed out before there's going to be a cost to pay for that sustained usage. People think the cost is expressed in energy use, or social capital. Nah, you're paying those too, but you're also handing a chunk of intellectual labour over to unthinking machines of loving grace, so, "GL".
February 9, 2026 at 9:22 AM
How we say things in writing is a large part of *what we are saying*, and yes, that embraces the differences and delights of writing in a second language, using unfamiliar words and concepts, it embraces errors! All of it. It's us on a page and handing that over seems to me intellectually bereft.
The parakeet invaders have come for the neighbours’ house.
February 9, 2026 at 9:23 AM
The parakeet invaders have come for the neighbours’ house.
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
UKRI increases minimum stipends for PhD students share.google/4HamGmefmp2N...
UKRI increases minimum stipends for PhD students
National funder commits to another above-inflation increase of almost 5 per cent
share.google
February 9, 2026 at 9:02 AM
UKRI increases minimum stipends for PhD students share.google/4HamGmefmp2N...
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
'Launching in April and running until October, they will each offer researchers the opportunity of between £50,000 and £100,000 funding.' 1/2
ESRC to pilot two new applicant-led calls.
Existing schemes will remain open, says leader of Economic and Social Research Council Stian Westlake.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
Existing schemes will remain open, says leader of Economic and Social Research Council Stian Westlake.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
ESRC to pilot two new applicant-led calls - Research Professional News
Existing schemes will remain open, says leader of Economic and Social Research Council
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
February 9, 2026 at 8:01 AM
'Launching in April and running until October, they will each offer researchers the opportunity of between £50,000 and £100,000 funding.' 1/2
My life choices haven’t been so bad after all. I’ve never had to sit through a dinner like this.
February 9, 2026 at 8:50 AM
My life choices haven’t been so bad after all. I’ve never had to sit through a dinner like this.
This 👇🏻
So Starmer, a man who never met Epstein but made a bad appointment, might resign. But Trump, his closest friend, fellow sex abuser and coverer-upper of his crimes, is going nowhere.
That’s how it works, isn’t it?
That’s how it works, isn’t it?
February 9, 2026 at 8:46 AM
This 👇🏻
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
Any history of technology people know if there are other technologies that were touted as "here to stay" in the manner of generative AI that...didn't stay?
i guess worth looking into whether people were similarly convinced about other technologies in the past
February 9, 2026 at 7:22 AM
Any history of technology people know if there are other technologies that were touted as "here to stay" in the manner of generative AI that...didn't stay?
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
events.mpipriv.de/b?p=Gegenwar...
freue mich drauf & bin etwas nervös - habe Ehrfurcht vor den Kolleg*innen in den Rechtswissenschaften, aus guten Gründen. Mein Thema
"Sexuelle Selbst-Bestimmung, oder: Wie lässt sich selbst bestimmen, was vorher nicht gewusst werden kann?
Soziologische Anmerkungen
freue mich drauf & bin etwas nervös - habe Ehrfurcht vor den Kolleg*innen in den Rechtswissenschaften, aus guten Gründen. Mein Thema
"Sexuelle Selbst-Bestimmung, oder: Wie lässt sich selbst bestimmen, was vorher nicht gewusst werden kann?
Soziologische Anmerkungen
Gegenwartsdebatten -
events.mpipriv.de
February 8, 2026 at 5:35 PM
events.mpipriv.de/b?p=Gegenwar...
freue mich drauf & bin etwas nervös - habe Ehrfurcht vor den Kolleg*innen in den Rechtswissenschaften, aus guten Gründen. Mein Thema
"Sexuelle Selbst-Bestimmung, oder: Wie lässt sich selbst bestimmen, was vorher nicht gewusst werden kann?
Soziologische Anmerkungen
freue mich drauf & bin etwas nervös - habe Ehrfurcht vor den Kolleg*innen in den Rechtswissenschaften, aus guten Gründen. Mein Thema
"Sexuelle Selbst-Bestimmung, oder: Wie lässt sich selbst bestimmen, was vorher nicht gewusst werden kann?
Soziologische Anmerkungen
Reposted by Carsten Timmermann
Now there’s an idea!
One of the numerous reasons why I could never become PM is that I'd now go full scorched earth if I was Starmer.
11am Wednesday - release the 2019 Russia report in full. No one will care about PMQs.
2pm Wednesday - announce application for fully rejoining EU.
Populist playbook - flood the zone.
11am Wednesday - release the 2019 Russia report in full. No one will care about PMQs.
2pm Wednesday - announce application for fully rejoining EU.
Populist playbook - flood the zone.
February 8, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Now there’s an idea!