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bookswain.bsky.social
@bookswain.bsky.social
Starting over, again. Science, history, books, etc.
I share books and other items I collect, one of my hobbies. I was a Jedi once, like my father before me.
All posts protected by the 1st Amendment.
I bet rubber tree Ents would’ve cracked Orthanc.
My 📷
November 11, 2025 at 5:22 AM
“As an alternative [for rare metals used in Li-ion batteries we currently use], lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have the potential to replace Li-ion batteries due to their very high energy density.. Moreover, sulfur is an abundant material..” 👇
🌎
Surface first: sulfur lithiation in Li–S batteries

Week 4 of Powering Possibilities from @energyadvances.rsc.org shows lithiation preferences on the surface of α-sulfur cathodes through quantum-chemical modelling.

🔗 Read full article https://rsc.li/49Hp8pJ

#PoweringPossibilitie #ChemSky
November 10, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted
Surface first: sulfur lithiation in Li–S batteries

Week 4 of Powering Possibilities from @energyadvances.rsc.org shows lithiation preferences on the surface of α-sulfur cathodes through quantum-chemical modelling.

🔗 Read full article https://rsc.li/49Hp8pJ

#PoweringPossibilitie #ChemSky
November 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted
It's not every day that both poles set new monthly temperature records (see my earlier post). Last month also observed the warmest October on record for the #Arctic Circle. Not great!!

Data provided by doi.org/10.24381/cds....
November 8, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted
Here's a look at the extent of the "warmth" across the #Arctic in October. This map uses my normal anomaly scaling for each month, but it clearly doesn't work for something this extreme.

Data from doi.org/10.24381/cds...
November 9, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted
October 2025 was the 3rd warmest October on record for our planet, following 2023 (1st place) and 2024 (2nd place). This month was about 1.55°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. The last 12-months have been about 1.50°C above it.

Summary of month: climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-... 🛠️🧪🌊
November 8, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Reposted
Happy 423 years of us! 🎉 📚

The Bodleian Libraries opened for the first time on 8 November 1602...

This means, we're older than the refracting telescope (1608), the publication of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1623) and Sir Isaac Newton's apple (1666)! 😅
November 8, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted
Spring in the Weald of Kent by the Kentish artist Rowland Hilder

I love everything about it. The blossom on the trees, the long gone Elm trees, the horse and cart slowly moving through a hedgerow lined lane, the Oasts
November 8, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Halley’s map, “A new & Correct SEA CHART
of the
WHOLE WORLD
Shewing the Variations of y’e COMPASS,” republished in my 1748 copy of ‘A System of Natural Philosophy’ by Thomas Rutherforth.
November 8, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted
Among his many achievements Edmond Halley, who was born 8 November 1656, was the first to map the magnetic variation in the Atlantic #histsci
thonyc.wordpress.com/2024/06/26/m...
Magnetic Variations – X Mapping the variation
Over this series we have tracked the discovery of magnetic variation and the gradual realisation that it was a real phenomenon and not just a malfunction of badly made or adjusted compasses. &…
thonyc.wordpress.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Sorta spectacular imo.
Anyway, have a good evening or morning whatever meridian you reside
Happy birthday to Maria Salomea Skłodowska, the first scientist, male or female, awarded two Nobel prizes. She & husband Pierre were the first husband & wife both awarded Nobel prizes. Daughter Irène & her spouse were second. She & Irène are the first & only mother & daughter to win a Nobel prize.
November 8, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Happy birthday to Maria Salomea Skłodowska, the first scientist, male or female, awarded two Nobel prizes. She & husband Pierre were the first husband & wife both awarded Nobel prizes. Daughter Irène & her spouse were second. She & Irène are the first & only mother & daughter to win a Nobel prize.
November 8, 2025 at 7:21 AM
I’ll leave the night with this 👇
A plate from the horticulture journal, ‘Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe’ founded by Belgian horticulturist Louis van Houtte and published from 1845 to 1880. The journal’s Belgian lithographers produced exceptional, colored botanical prints.
Coin for scale.
#sciart 🐡
November 7, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Reposted
A plate from the horticulture journal, ‘Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe’ founded by Belgian horticulturist Louis van Houtte and published from 1845 to 1880. The journal’s Belgian lithographers produced exceptional, colored botanical prints.
Coin for scale.
#sciart 🐡
October 22, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted
An illustration of calcareous sponges from Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel with details of their skeletal structure made of calcium carbonate spicules.

Sycon elegans is a bit of a dandy, always insisting on wearing a hat when posing for a naturalist.
Coin for scale. 🦑
October 22, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted
“Three things bear mighty Sway with Men,
The Sword, the Scepter, and the PEN”

Page from my copy of The Universal Penman by writing master and engraver George Bickham the Elder (1684–1758). It was a writing guide with a multitude of styles that presumably led to carpal tunnel syndrome.
October 22, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted
From the same mid 18th century writing guide. The book inspired me; I now only write and correspond in this exact style.
📚💙
October 22, 2025 at 12:09 PM
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Here is Orion again, this time next to the Milky Way in a hand-colored lithograph from Atlas of Astronomy, by Scottish cartographer and publisher Alexander Keith Johnston, published in 1855. 🔭 🐡
October 22, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted
An engraved plate from Florilegium renovatum et Auctum (1641) by Swiss-born engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593 – 1650). The added lepidoptera species is apropos: his daughter was entomologist & scientific artist Maria Sibylla Merian.
Coin for scale.
#sciart #histsci
October 22, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted
Crinoids, aka sea lilies, look like lilies in this plate from Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Haeckel, but they are in reality echinoderms, animals with five-pointed radial symmetry seen in the stem ossicle cross sections that look like stars.
Coin for scale.
🦑 🐡
October 23, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted
On the left is a diagram from the same book published in 1794 in the quoted post below for its chapter on eclipses. On the right is the current diagram for the Wikipedia entry on eclipses. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it I suppose. 🔭
October 23, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Too busy for new content
November 7, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Reposted
“Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)”

Is Furry Friday a thing? If so, quills are modified hairs giving porcupines one of the coolest fur coats in the animal kingdom.

#Sciart by Charles Lang from “Eighth and Ninth Reports of the Forest Fish & Game Commission of the State of New York” published in 1904.
October 24, 2025 at 12:53 PM
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Not exactly my taste as far as the book’s subject matter goes, but the quality of the hand colored lithographs was too hard to pass up. And it’s quite a scarce title.
#booksky 📚💙
October 24, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted
This photo better reflects a few of my interests: a fossilized mollusc in a sandstone that was deposited by an interior seaway during the Cretaceous resting on a painting of a flower by Georgia O'Keeffe.
My 📷
October 24, 2025 at 1:39 PM