Giants’ Shoulders #49: The “Crisis what Crisis?” edition.

Finally with more than somewhat of a delay you are reading the 49^th edition of the history of science blog carnival On Giants’ Shoulders. Should you not be aware of the significance of the title then please read the previous post here at The Renaissance Mathematicus and add your comments to the on going debate. Now on to the carnival!

At the end of the last Giants’ Shoulders period several of the histsci bloggers were gathered together in Philadelphia for the 3 Societies meeting. This is a meeting of the history of science societies of Britain, Canada and the USA. At teleskopos, Becky blogged about previous meeting in advance of this one. She was involved in a session put on by the Longitude Board Research Project and at their blog Alexi has posted her talks about Instruments and Cook in Philadelphia and Katy has posted about the experience at Spoons on Trays. We also have 3 Soc reports from Jai at From the Hands of Quacks, Paul from PACHS  and Dominic at A Glonk’s HPS Blog.

Elsewhere in the histsci universe we have had the usual potpourri of blog posts in the last month.

It being Alan Turing’s 100^th birthday there was a cornucopia of post in his honour covering many aspects of his life and work. At Ars Technica, the BBC, the Guardian, the ODNB, the Royal Society, Wired, Aperiodical, and the BBC again. If you read all of that you’ll be a real Turing expert by the time you finish.

Staying in the 20^th century we have Paul on Philadelphia’s somewhat bizarre Einstein Museum, the NYT on a strange case of biological fraud, the Smithsonian on Louis Leakey, Amy on the first women in space, Larry Moran on Stephen J Gould, Berfois on Hugh Everett, the BBC on Peter Higgs, Egil on religion and scientific change between the wars, and finally Nuclear Secrecy on the Hair of Physics!

On the medical front we have Vanessa on Victorian sport doping, a trickster medical museum, the Wellcome Library Shackled in Leg Irony, a 19^th century medical chest, an artists view of a medical museum, The Chirugeon’s Apprentice being Toxic!, the Guardian on 17^th century midwifery, Hannah Newton on Early Modern Childbirth, John Locke and Anne Docwra and Michelle Ziegler on Plague and Warfare in the 20^th and 14^th centuries.

In the Early modern Period we have 17^th century social media (not strictly histsci but interesting!), John Locke observing the weather, judging books by their covers, getting published in the 18^th century, experimental philosophy in Spain, Robert Boyle’s to do list, Becky on the trail of Lewis & Clark, and to close Longitude, Drugs and Robinson Crusoe!

Going back to the Greeks where, according to the standard mythology of science, it all began (it didn’t but that’s another story) we have a great podcast on Ptolemy, The Odyssey and geology, and Euclid.

On the more theoretical side we have Darin on The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a super nova, and also on a Mediaeval historian as futurologist, Nature on the scientific education of women in the 19^th century, Becky on what history says on science, innovation and growth, a podcast of Boon, Lynch & Schaffer on presenting the history of science, Wired on some classic science books, The Daily Fail(!) on what visitors to the Science Museum don’t see, Alice Rose on climate stories at the Science Museum, Will Thomas on The Search for a Mature View of Industrial Research, the Technology Review on Scientific history and the lessons for today, and finally John Ptak on The Title of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius.

To close a couple of post that don’t fit my somewhat arbitrary categories Karen James on the very sad death of Lonesome George, How stuff works on 10 inventions by Thomas Edison that you’ve never heard of, The Primate Diaries on The Origins of Kindness, Romeo continues his Frankenstein obsession with The man who made insects, and some refreshment after all that reading Inside Science on The origins of beer.

Next months On Giants’ Shoulders the half century 50^th edition will be hosted by Jai Virdi at From the Hands of Quacks, this time hopefully punctually, on the 16^th of August, which just happens to be Sascha’s birthday. Nominations please either direct to the host or to me here. Meanwhile I hope by then to have resolved the crisis and reached some conclusions on the future of On Giants’ Shoulders.