Daniel Liu 🍜
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dan-liu.net
Daniel Liu 🍜
@dan-liu.net
Historian of biology, chemistry, *and* some physics, somehow.
About me + publications + CV + etc.: https://dan-liu.net/
Today Sylvana was 49 x 15 cm. #特に意味をなさない猫の計測
August 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM
I suspect it was the woman in this carpet business ad who done it.
July 25, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Trains!
July 13, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Apparently a very big electrical defect. Was this you? gruene.social/@jon/1148010...
July 5, 2025 at 4:39 PM
New life goal is to get published in AARP Magazine.
June 26, 2025 at 12:48 PM
June 10, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Oh no
May 26, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Yesssssss…!
May 22, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Sometimes I wish we lived in a world where DjVu was common for book scans and we didn't have to deal with buggy and bloated PDFs. Instead I get to use this slick piece of 2006 vintage software with this incredible splash screen maybe 2–4 times a month.
May 19, 2025 at 8:01 AM
These are the brown marmorated shield bug eggs that hatched on my ficus last year. The eggs were hauntingly pearl white.
May 17, 2025 at 5:37 PM
I feel like a lot of philosophy of biology could be avoided if we just gave this diagram out on an index card in intro #philbio.
May 15, 2025 at 4:35 PM
French physiologist Claude Bernard goes on a low nitrogen diet on June 6, 1846 and examines his urine.

(From Olmsted's Claude Bernard & The Experimental Method in Medicine, 1952, archive.org/details/clau..., #histsci 🌱🧪)
May 14, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Current mood:

(Odilon Redon, "L'oeuf," Hommage à Goya, 1885, gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...)
May 9, 2025 at 1:37 PM
At least this contraption from Brazil is above where the water comes out. The first time I saw a tankless electric hot shower unit in the UK I was shocked (figuratively) that it was mounted a shoulder height.
May 6, 2025 at 5:18 PM
My vaguely informative Google Ngram of the day, Zellbiologie vs. Zellphysiologie #histsci 🌱
🧪
May 5, 2025 at 2:44 PM
"Walpole is memorable for inventing a new policy of letting dogs go to sleep."
April 29, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Omg I’m so here for this diagram, “Distribution of subject focus at 40 German materials science and engineering adjacent institutions” between Werkstoffwissenschaft (materials science), mechanical/electrical engineering, and physics/chemistry in 1994: link.springer.com/article/10.1... #histsci
April 27, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Poking around the the term "scientific consensus" means different things in different periods. In the 19th c. the phrase "consensus of opinion" is more common, by the 1940s it's a term of art about public testimony, eg in court or to Congress.

books.google.com/ngrams/graph...
April 26, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Most days I study the history of microscopy, and some days I feel like the microscope studies me. (Fig. 353 from Péterfi’s Methodik der wissenschaftlichen Biologie, vol. 1, 1928) #histsci
April 22, 2025 at 10:07 AM
The US isn't just a very different country, Trump's approval rating was like a flat line ca. 40% through all of 2017-2020, unlike every other president. (Screenshot from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...)
April 9, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Since "whipsaw" has become a trending word, I looked it up: figuratively it either means "victimize in two opposite ways at once" or by two causes (i.e., two people holding a saw; MW+OED) or "characterized by rapid fluctuation" (i.e., the saw is moving up and down; OED). These are very different!
April 8, 2025 at 11:40 AM
January 21, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Testing to see if pics of big cats get shared through the Cat Pics feed.
January 7, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Santa's two-wheeled sleigh was spotted today in Berlin.
December 23, 2024 at 8:10 PM
Milieus of Minutiae from UVA Press is out, and I got my copy! This began as a workshop on details and small things in literature, philosophy, and science. My chapter, "Confronting the Limits of Optical Interpretation," is my new take on the history of the microscope. DM me if you want a scan! 🧪 🗃️ 🐋🌱
December 11, 2024 at 8:53 PM