##HistSci
LightNews LightNews
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
I was browsing through NASA’s Photojournal archive when I found this historic image of Saturn, taken by Voyager 2 on Aug. 11, 1981.

The spacecraft was about 14.7 million kilometres away when the picture was captured.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

➡️ science.nasa.gov/photojournal...

🔭 🧪 #histsci

1/5
Admire this historic picture of Saturn, captured by Voyager 2 in 1981. The giant planet fills nearly the whole view, with north tipped toward the top-right corner. A pale band crosses the middle; along its bottom edge there’s a greenish oval (it would look brown in ordinary light). Just above and left of it is a brighter yellowish patch, and between them some small clouds stand out. Higher up, against the black sky, you can see two moons: bigger Dione on the right and smaller, icy Enceladus on the left.
November 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
astroroyalscot.bsky.social
Enquiry from an 8yo asking what the Fulton Orrery planets were? Apparently the #Kelvingrove museum staff didn't know, so he e-mailed the Astronomer Royal to find out! I also didn’t know, but the AstroSociety of #Glasgow did (after watching an old VHS recording on the topic!) 🔭 #histsci 1/2🧵
Old Glasgow Museum: Fulton's Orrery A clockwork machine on an ornate stand, with small orbs (planets) on sticks centred around a large shiny orb in the middle (the Sun) From https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSE00101
November 17, 2025 at 10:49 AM
darwinsbulldog.bsky.social
Great video from @pbseons.bsky.social about Darwin and his work on barnacles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=plYu...

#histsci #HPS
November 21, 2025 at 12:28 AM
celinecamps.bsky.social
I recently joined the Scientific Instrument Society and they sent me one of their recent bulletins as a welcoming gift. I am so pleased to open it and to see @stephenaj.bsky.social's article on Astrolabes on the first page ❤️ #EarlyModern #MedievalSky #HistSci #HistTech #HisSTM 🗃️
Page in the bulletin from the Scientific Instrument Society showing the article "Gerard Turner Memorial Lecture. Back to the Future: New Approaches to the Astrolabe" by Stephen Johnston. A photograph of the front and reverse of an astrolabe is included in the upper right corner of the article.
November 19, 2025 at 3:15 PM
astroroyalscot.bsky.social
Fulton started the orrery in 1833 with these known planets, moons & asteroids

Earth - Moon
Asteroids: Vesta, Juno, Pallas, Ceres
Jupiter - Ganymede, Calisto, Europa, Io
Saturn - Titan, Rhea, Iapetus, Mimas
Uranus - Titania, Oberon, Ariel, Umbriel

🔭 #histsci
🎥 www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbha...
A 19th century model of the solar system | Fulton's Orrery | Collection Highlights | Kelvingrove
YouTube video by Glasgow Museums
www.youtube.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:49 AM
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
Admire the extraordinary view of Pluto's nightside!

It stares back at us from the outer reaches of the Kuiper Belt in a view we’ll never forget.

Credits: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap24111...

🔭 🧪 #planetsci #histsci #science

1/4
Black disk of Pluto edged by a thin, glowing halo—sunlight sneaking through its wispy, layered air from 4.9 billion km away. A slim crescent at the top catches Sputnik Planitia’s flat nitrogen ice and the sharp, icy ridges of Tenzing Montes. By New Horizons, 2015.
November 16, 2025 at 4:45 PM
stemfem.bsky.social
11/19/1876 — b. Tatyana Afanasyeva, Ukranian-Dutch physicist, mathematician. Researcher of pedagogy, randomness + entropy;significant contributor to the fields of statistical mechanics + statistical thermodynamics. Published numerous papers #womenshistory #WomenInSTEM #MathSky #HistSci #SlavaUkraine
Tatyana Alexeyevna Afanasyeva
November 19, 2025 at 4:54 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
"An overweening faith that our genes make us who we are is a terrifying thing."

Today's #histSTM lunchtime read: @nccomfort.bsky.social discusses James Watson's gradual embrace of genetic determinism in an essay for @nytopinion.nytimes.com.

#histbio #histsci
#eugenics #DNA 🗃️📜🧬
Opinion | James Watson Saw the True Form of DNA. Then It Blinded Him.
www.nytimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:55 PM
roto-rub.bsky.social
Next Monday, we welcome @cshambaugh.bsky.social from the University of Oregon in our ROTO Lecture Series who will talk about dialectical biology. Just register via the link and join the talk and discussion at 4pm (CET): rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
#HPBio #PhilSci #HistSci
Poster for the talk by Chris Shambaugh, entitled "What is Dialectical Biology?". It will take place on Monday, 24 November 2025 at 4 pm (CET) via Zoom.
November 17, 2025 at 2:43 PM
celinecamps.bsky.social
I'll be examining various 15th-18thc objects (clocks, locks, astrolabes, sundials, astronomical compendia & microscopes) through hands-on engagement, various kinds of analyses, as well as historical reconstruction. In other words: I'll be making screws! 🔩 #EarlyModern #MedievalSky #HistSci #HisSTM 🗃️
November 18, 2025 at 5:49 PM
bookswain.bsky.social
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in London in 1699. She created her herbarium to help her family after her good for nothing (see the rest of his life) husband was condemned to a debtors’ prison. Carl Linnaeus was aware of her work in 1739. #histsci
bookswain.bsky.social bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d
A plate from the second volume (1754) of Herbarium Blackwellianum Emendatum et Auctum by botanist Christoph Jacob Trew, a German edition of Scottish botanical artist & engraver Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal.
Coin for scale.
#sciart
A botanical illustration of pincushion flowers consisting of a stemmed plants, leaves, and purple flowers on laid paper. There is taxonomy information at the bottom labeling it Scabiosa. #womeninstem #bloomsky
November 20, 2025 at 1:23 PM
darylj.bsky.social
My third article on time/spacetime is live.
It isolates the precise category error behind 2,500 years of confusion about time — and shows why the problem finally dissolves once that mistake is fixed.
theconversation.com/physicists-a...
#cosmology #philsci #histsci #astrohistory
Physicists and philosophers have long struggled to understand the nature of time: Here’s why
How can time feel so obvious, so woven into the fabric of our experience and yet, for thousands of years, remain the bane of every thinker who has tried to explain it?
theconversation.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM
drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
What do you give someone who has everything? A purpose-built room in which to put their stuff?

A while back I wrote about Ole Worm's 17th-century curiosity cabinet for @smarthistory.bsky.social. 1/n

🗃 #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #arthistory #materialculture

smarthistory.org/ole-worm-mus...
An engraving of a curiosity cabinet: four walls and floor. Every surface is covered in stuffed animals, animal bones, boxes of specimens, or human-made artefacts. The floor is mostly empty, with a large tablet in the centre reading: Musei Wormiani Historia.
November 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
fabribald.bsky.social
My special issue on gardens and plants as laboratories of premodern science is out on @royalsocietypublishing.org #notesandrecords #nrrs #histplants #histsci #vegscilif #envhist with articles by me, Luzzini on minerals, @johedesan.bsky.social on Guy de La Brosse, Jalobeanu on Bacon, and Benharrech🌱
November 17, 2025 at 11:07 AM
darwinsbulldog.bsky.social
Great video from @pbseons.bsky.social about Darwin's earthworm studies: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEkb...

#histsci #HPS
November 21, 2025 at 12:26 AM
yavannakemi.bsky.social
I'm very much looking forward to @cshambaugh.bsky.social finally explaining once and for all what the f*** dialectical biology is! 😃
#HPBio #PhilSci #HistSci
roto-rub.bsky.social ROTO Research Group @roto-rub.bsky.social · 3d
Next Monday, we welcome @cshambaugh.bsky.social from the University of Oregon in our ROTO Lecture Series who will talk about dialectical biology. Just register via the link and join the talk and discussion at 4pm (CET): rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
#HPBio #PhilSci #HistSci
Poster for the talk by Chris Shambaugh, entitled "What is Dialectical Biology?". It will take place on Monday, 24 November 2025 at 4 pm (CET) via Zoom.
November 20, 2025 at 11:58 AM
darwinsbulldog.bsky.social
ARTICLE: “The Apostle of the Monkey Ancestral Business”: Darwinism and Black Newspapers as Counterpublics, 1859–1929 ~ bit.ly/3JV5MmG #HPS #histsci
ARTICLE: “The Apostle of the Monkey Ancestral Business”: Darwinism and Black Newspapers as Counterpublics, 1859–1929
In the journal Isis: “The Apostle of the Monkey Ancestral Business”: Darwinism and Black Newspapers as Counterpublics, 1859–1929 Matthew W. Hughey Abstract After Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of S…
bit.ly
November 18, 2025 at 10:59 PM
drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
Reading @weinersmith.bsky.social and @zachweinersmith.bsky.social’s terrific A City on Mars on the train and I might die laughing before getting to my destination.

Just got to the (first?) hadrosaur. I love it!

Such a necessary book. #science #histsci
November 16, 2025 at 10:31 AM
uchicagopress.bsky.social
#Edinburgh! Join Alison Bashford tomorrow, Nov 18 at 7pm, at Blackwell's Edinburgh South Bridge as she and @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social's Richard Oosterhoff discuss her new book, Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic. #HistSTM #HSTM #HistSci #BookTour #Palmistry buff.ly/3WjBiMJ
Event post for a November 18, 7pm, book talk at Blackwell's Edinburgh with Alison Bashford in conversation with Richard Oosterhoff on Bashford's new book "Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic," featuring a banner with the book's cover image and Bashford's headshot, as well as praise from historians Janet Browne, David Stack, and Simon Schaffer, all over the silhouette of a hand. https://buff.ly/3WjBiMJ
November 17, 2025 at 6:30 PM
bartlettastro.bsky.social
Working with #legacy data?
Share your experiences w/ @innako.bsky.social & GRStahlman as part of a study of how such resources are perceived, preserved, and collaboratively managed

#histsci #astrophysics #science #heliophysics #planetaryscience #earthscience

fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Legacy Data: Value and Practices
This is a study to develop a systematic understanding of legacy research data efforts across disciplines and stakeholder communities.
fsu.qualtrics.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:05 AM
minouette.bsky.social
Happy birthday to geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) who in his famous ‘Principles of Geology,’ wrote that to avoid some sources of prejudice in understanding #geology would require an Amphibious Being, who could, say, compare processes happening today on land & those happening below 🧵 #histsci 🧪🐡⚒️
My linocut print with text “Lyell’s Amphibious” above and “Being” below of a Victorian anthropomorphic frog-geologist in a gradient of blue at the bottom to brown at the top. The geologist wears a suit with his frog shins and feet bare, waistcoat, bow tie, shirt, jacket and magnifying lens on a ribbon around his neck. His frog limbs and head are green with blue spots. He carries a satchel, pick ax, geological hammer and rock sample and is kneeling down. Behind him is an on- and offshore geological section from Lyell’s book with an onshore volcano at the ocean shore. In the top left corner is a fossil plant in brown and grey. In the top right corner is a fossil ammonite shell in gold and brown.
November 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
fancynahyan.bsky.social
I am very pleased and grateful to share this announcement of our recent award from the @wellcometrust.bsky.social for a project on history of smallpox and measles #histmed #histsci news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-h... The project will be based @exeter.ac.uk @cceh-u24.bsky.social led by ... 1/2
Exeter scholars secure significant research funding to investigate the early history of Smallpox and Measles
The early histories of smallpox and measles – and the insight they might offer to contemporary health and medicine – will be under the microscope of a new research project. Pustules, Palaeogenetics an...
news.exeter.ac.uk
November 19, 2025 at 12:54 PM
drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
I'm not at #HSS2025 but wrote a #NOLA -themed newsletter, anyway - with registration info for an online #histsci talk on HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY.

Fans of @danielkraus.com - this is for you, too!

#horror 💙📚 🗃

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
Join me online on Thurs Dec 6th! And a horror novel even for scaredy-cats
Hallo, nerds with a conscience - and thanks for subscribing! This week’s newsletter: Event newsflashA horror novel recommendation, even for scaredy-catsNew...
buttondown.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:27 PM
scarcerc.bsky.social
✨For our second talk in this semester’s colloquium series, @mininghistory.bsky.social will present “Mining the Past: What is the role of historians in the mining industry?”⛏️📜

📅 Date: November 24, 2025

⏰ Time: 3:00–4:30 PM CET

Learn more and register: bit.ly/MiningThePast

#histSci
Mining the Past: What is the role of historians in the mining industry?
SCARCE Colloquium Speaker: Duncan Money (Independent scholar) University of Vienna Hybrid Event
bit.ly
November 17, 2025 at 11:35 AM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Back once again in the Edgewood room for a panel on teaching & textbooks in #histsci.

Our first speaker, Laura Clerx, is discussing political debates over education, political economy & social status that emerged from mechanics institutes & agricultural societies in the antebellum USA. #HSS2025
November 15, 2025 at 8:23 PM