It’s difficult to make a hero out of Edward Jenner, the doctor who developed one of the earliest types of vaccinations (for smallpox), but did so by experimenting on a nine-year old kid (James Phipps, the son of Jenner’s gardener). That kind of callousness fuels the fire of all sorts of negative stereotypes about scientists, […]
Barry James Marshall and His Ulcers Read More »
Here you see a picture of a most unusual lady — this is one Ruth Belville, right outside the Greenwich Observatory in London in 1908. And Up until her 80s, she made her living selling time.Belville was of a certain moment in history, right on the cusp of the so-called “Second Industrial Revolution,” which was
Ruth Belville and Arnold Watches Read More »
Who could showcase the spirit of American trust in mid-20th-century corporate capitalism more than Walt Disney? His ambition and vision propelled him to wild success at a myriad of ventures in his lifetime. One of these great ideas failed to pan out however, and you see that portrayed here. These watercolor images are mock-ups by
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We all know (some of us might still be sad about it) that Pluto was demoted to a “dwarf-planet” status back in 2006. In other news, however (and mayhaps this could make up for Pluto’s decline), some scientists have speculated that another planet — known as Planet Nine — might be orbiting our sun.Ideas about
This Ancient scientist was championed by intellectuals across time, and by the 1600s was known in Europe as one of the most important alchemists of Ancient history: Cleopatra “Chrysopoeia” the Alchemist (aka not the Pharaoh). Thought to have been active in the third century BCE, Cleopatra was praised in the early 1600s as being one
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Last on a series of posts on Victorian Egyptomania. One of the ways Victorians enjoyed themselves a good mummy was from the mummy unwrapping parties that became popular, beginning in 1821 when a man named Giovanni Belzoni did a highly publicized event near Piccadilly Circus that attracted over 2000 people. The fad took off from
Victorian Egyptomania Read More »
Here’s a reconstruction of the oldest European mummy, called Ötzi, named for a region where he was found in the Alps back in 1991. His body had been preserved by his glacial environment for 5,300 years, and has been extensively studied by scientists who have put together a fascinating picture of the Iceman and his
This is “Arctium lappa,” aka burdock. Originally from Eurasia, it is now an invasive species in North America — this beautiful specimen was flowering yesterday in the Shenandoah National Park, and July and August are typical months when the spiny bulbs blossom in lavender and purple. Although burdock root has long been used in cuisines
Burdock in Shenandoah National Park Read More »
This Ancient Egyptian “shadow clock” dates to the Ptolemaic Period (330-306 BCE), but is representative of the earliest known timepieces. The earliest extant dates to about 1500 BCE, but this fragment is much more interesting to look at. Check out the parallel and oblique lines engraved on the sloping face: one would have placed a
The Earliest Timepieces from Ancient Egypt and the Hebrews Read More »
We who have been raised in a culture with microscopes and electronic microscopes take for granted the existence of a universe of minutiae that shape our surroundings (SARS-COV2, to pick an example we are all exhausted about). Before Antony van Leeuwenhoek developed his microscope around 1668, however, this was impossible.And so it was that a
William Ramesey’s Illustrations of Parasites Read More »
“They will see that there is in it nothing more than Natural, and nomore than the necessary result of the Motions of the Sun and Moon.” — so wrote astronomer Edmond Halley about the solar eclipse that he predicted for 1715. For millennia, eclipses – especially solar eclipses — had been considered frightening events that
Pittsburgh’s unusual geography — with three rivers that conflate at different spots amidst steep hillsides — made it difficult for pedestrians to traverse. Starting in the 1870s, German immigrants started building funicular railcars to make getting around easier. Today only two of these remain, and the one featured here is the Duquesne Incline. Built
These rocks from the northern shore of Lake Superior are from the dullest period in our planet’s history, apparently. Most of us humans of the early twenty-first millennium do not do well with being bored. Imagine, then, one billion years of it. From 1.8 to 800 million years ago, Earth’s life forms remained relatively
The Boring Billion Read More »
Yesterday I did a post about the “boring billion”: a period of Earth’s history when very little changed. Today I offer the exact opposite, which is the most exciting two minutes in all of existence. And those in fact were the first two minutes of everything, at the start of the Big Bang. We
This is Jonas Salk, inventor of the first polio vaccine, ending the childhood disease that had killed or crippled so many Americans — especially children — in the mid-20th century. But Salk was important for other reasons. His approach to designing the vaccine was innovative, using a denatured version of the virus rather than
Many of us have had need to wrap presents in the last few weeks, but maybe only some of us waited until early this morning on December 25 to start wrapping their children’s gifts. (Yours truly, ahem). The discipline of intentionally folding paper into different shapes is known as origami because this practiced flourished
I love how scientific technologies are helping us understand the earliest millennia of human history ever better. This drawing, for instance, features an artistic re-creation of skull fragments dated in 2017 that have helped to overturn our understanding of human evolution. Basic questions, such as “how long have Homo Sapiens been around?” And “where
Appearances of Homo Sapiens Read More »
You are looking at an artist’s rendition of a device known as “the staff of al-Tusi” which sounds like a magical weapon straight out of Tolkien but in fact was a genius scientific tool made by one of the most important mathematicians in history. Sharaf al-Din al-Muzaffar al-Tusi (c. 1135-1213) lived in various cities
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When you were a kid, did you learn that the first humans in the Americas crossed over the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago? Scholars have overturned this chronology completely, but it held away for many years in part because of this type of spear- or knife- head technology featured here, which is the
Clovis Culture and Migration Read More »
So, I was looking up some information about the 13th-century thinker Roger Bacon the other day (as one does), and I came across a popular legend associated with the scholar in the Early Modern Period. It was a story about a magical automaton made of brass in the shape of a man’s head that could
Brazen Heads and Fortune Telling Read More »
