Here is a portrait of a young Sophie Germain, the French mathematician whose celebrated work involved the properties of elasticity and number theory (especially prime numbers). When we read about Germain, we quickly encounter a narrative that focuses on the multiple limitations placed on her life: her parents initially discouraged her scholarship, she was banned […]
Sophie Germain and Overcoming her Limitations Read More »
Here you can see the grim and chaotic scenes of battle depicted in the Ludovici Battle Sarcophagus, made in the Roman Empire mid-third century CE. The horrifying conditions that Ancient Roman soldiers experienced have led to a debate as to whether PTSD extended farther back in time than the late 19th-century. Some of the symptoms
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Scientific genome analysis has shaped history once again with a recent study published in the science journal _Nature Communications_. This painting of death strangling a victim of the plague gets at the horror caused by the infamous Black Death, a pandemic that wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century. By studying
Scientific Genome Analysis and the Black Death Read More »
This stained-glass window from the Royal Society of London shows the Latin motto of one of the world’s most important science institutions: “NULLIUS IN VERBA,” which means “take nobody’s word for it.” This admonition is a central premise of the scientific method, stressing that knowledge should not be determined by unproven authority and confirmation bias.
The Royal Society of London Read More »
Here is Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, one of the first women (alongside biochemist Marjory Stephenson) to be innagurated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1945 (as I wrote yesterday, the Society began in 1663, so this achievement was long in the coming). Lonsdale’s work was in material chemistry — proving, for instance,
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale and Crystallography Read More »
In the Late Middle Ages, one chemical became a driving force in the economy, even forming the source of a cartel by the Papacy. Potash Alum [KAl (SO4)2] is a chemical compound that occurs naturally as crystals in some encrustacions (see second photo). It enables cell walls to harden – it can give a dill
Potash Alum and Medieval Italy’s Wool Industry Read More »
In our current social climate, it can seem that confidence in the scientific method and trust in the expertise of professionals are being challenged for the first time. Is it good news or bad, then, to realize that this is not the case? Strap in, ladies and gents, as I introduce you to _The Cellular
Cyrus Tweed’s “The Earth a Concave Sphere” Read More »
This illustration is the best I can do to represent American scientist Eunice Foote, since no extant images of her remain. This is a shame, because Foote was the first scientist to analyze the composition of gasses to predict what we now call the Greenhouse Effect. In 1856, hundreds of scientists were in attendance at
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Here you see an illustration of one of the most important medical textbooks in history: Avicenna’s _Canon of Medicine_. Written by 1025 CE, the _Canon_ represented a pinnacle of scientific progress in the Golden Age of Islam. Avicenna synthesized knowledge from the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Ancient and Medieval India, China, and Persian Muslim traditions
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I adore Early Modern Science! Through no fault of their own — since genes hadn’t been discovered but everyone in Europe knew about horrible parasitic body worms — some biologists thought of sex and propagation in very different ways than we do now. For instance, _preformationists_ thought that there were very small people inside either
Early Modern Biologists and Ideas of Propagation Read More »
Sometimes Medieval art gets weirder the more you look at it. For instance, take these scenes of an animal fleeing from a hunter: the creature isn’t just turning his head back — he is actually biting off his testicles to throw them to his pursuer. Medieval people thought that beavers regularly did this (I know:
Medieval Beaver Hunting Read More »
About two months ago, in my small town of south-central Pennsylvania, people gathered for a municipal board hearing to debate whether we should stop putting fluoride in our public water supply as a preventative measure against tooth decay. Loads of scientific evidence is easily available for the critical reader to make up her mind on
Struggles of Relieving Medieval Tooth Aches and Decay Read More »
It’s a common joke that the human genitalia have their own minds that act like second brains, but some Early Modern scientists evidently thought the opposite was also true. The seventeenth- and sixteenth century anatomists Thomas Willis, Matteo Realdo Columbo, Isbrand van Diemerbroeck, and Thomas Bartholin named different parts of the body’s seat of intelligence
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I hope you’re not too hungry as you read this, because it’s time to talk about cannibalism. Dear readers, although we might recoil now at the thought of consuming human flesh, it turns out that this practice is extremely ancient: cases among Homo Neanderthalis, another early human species called Homo Antecessor, and Homo Sapiens have
Cannibalism Practices of the Ancient Homo Neanderthalis Read More »
Two years ago, researchers published findings concerning DNA samples taken from the Early Medieval York Gospels. Manuscripts from this era are extremely rare: it was written around 990 and lavishly illustrated. By taking a simple eraser, scholars used a technique called “eZooMS,” which allowed them to sample DNA from the pages without damaging them. A
Medieval York Gospels and Science Read More »
Flu season is upon us, and I still need to get my flu shot. If the unfortunate happens and I do get sick, _The Distaff Gospels_ has some words of healing advice for me.Readers of yesterday’s post will recall that the _Distaff Gospels_ is a book of women’s lore from the 15th century, and has
“The Distaff Gospels” and Healing Advice for the Flu Read More »
An idea is only as influential as a society is able to appreciate. The invention of the steam engine bears this truth out. Here you see an “aeolipile,” described in the first century CE most notably by Hero of Alexandria (d. 70 CE). In the first image is a drawing of his machine – so
The Aeolipile Machine as the First Steam Engine Read More »
Hawai’i has generated many amazing things, but the trifecta of women featured here are superlative and worth knowing about. Alice Ball (d. 1916) is a scientist who created a way to end the suffering of people with Hanson’s disease — a.k.a leprosy. Published in a chemical journal during her undergraduate years, Ball went on to
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These shapely flowers come from one of the most peculiar texts from the late 19th-century Western world. _Geometrical Psychology, or the Science of Representation_, by Louisa S. Cook, smashes together mathematics, evolution/eugenics, Vedanta Hinduism, and Spiritualism. Shakespeare is also in there too, for good measure. Cook’s aim was as ambitious as physicists today who are
Grand Unified Theory Read More »
Here you are looking at a diagram of the Medieval universe. Or, a giant mystical vulva — your choice.In the Middle Ages, it was common to depict the macro-cosmos as a sort of expanded version of the micro, much like the fresco painted in the late fourteenth century by Piero di Puccio (4th slide), which
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