On 24 November 1639 the British astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree became the first observers to record a transit of Venus. #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/a...

Darwin's groundbreaking On the Origin of Species appeared #OTD in 1859 -- even though Darwin's publisher, John Murray, didn't accept evolution. A while back I wrote about their turbulent relationship, for @smithsonianmag.bsky.social: www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu... #science #history #histsci

24-Nov: On this day in 1859 was published Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species‘. As revolutionary science books go, it’s a damn fine read. Here’s my retrospective review: friendsofdarwin.com/reviews/book... #histsci

I can’t quite believe it’s been 16 years since we celebrated Origin’s 150th anniversary (and Darwin’s 200th birthday). One of these days I’ll make time to write about how my perspective has evolved since then (ba dum tsk), particularly around colonialism and the “great man of science” model.

BREAKING: Sen. Elissa Slotkin says police responded to her home tonight in response to a bomb threat. Slotkin wasn't at home at the time. This is two days after Trump said Slotkin and other Democrats committed "seditious conspiracy, punishable by death."

This short from the Swiss animator Georges Schwizgebel titled ‘Darwin’s Notebook’ envisions the encounter of Charles Darwin with three Indigenous people on the Beagle, who were travelling back to their homelands in Terra del Fuego after being kidnapped to England in 1830

Great video from @pbseons.bsky.social about Darwin and his work on barnacles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=plYu... #histsci #HPS

Great video from @pbseons.bsky.social about Darwin's earthworm studies: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEkb... #histsci #HPS

Visited the @universitypress.cambridge.org bookshop in 2009 during the Darwin Bicentenary!

Hey fountain pen people. I have a Parker 75 pen of my dad’s, and it includes this metal jobby with a squeezable part that I think is meant to let you use ink from a bottle. I can’t figure how to use it. Any tips? I don’t see where the threads match the pen.

ARTICLE: “The Apostle of the Monkey Ancestral Business”: Darwinism and Black Newspapers as Counterpublics, 1859–1929 ~ bit.ly/3JV5MmG #HPS #histsci

I can! Heaven: A story to convince you to accept your shitty life with the promise of a better one Hell: A story to threaten you into accepting your shitty life with the promise of a worse one

A few thoughts about Episode 1 of Ken Burns's new documentary about the American Revolution. open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

I watched Ken Burns' new documentary and it was great but the part I loved the most was the part at the end after the credits where they say the American Revolution was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Just started watching the new Ken Burns series about the #AmericanRevolution on PBS. Looking forward to the episode where the Continental Army takes over the airports. #TrumpIsAMoron

Kristin Johnson received the 2025 Watson, helen, Audrey & Miles Davis Prize for her book Darwin's Falling Sparrow: Victorian Evolutionists and the Meaning of Suffering. (One of her students is accepting the prize on her behalf.) #HSS2025 www.amazon.com/Darwins-Fall...

Two years ago today, True West came out! It feels like a 100. If you want to understand how we got to where we are, give it a read. I look at the collision of militia, MAGA, MAHA, cowboy mythology, billionaires, & fractures in urban/rural communities. It’s about healing, & fighting the bad guys…

Online lecture, open to all: 2 Dec 18:30 (GMT) Renée Bergland on her book 'Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science' Winner of @bshsnews.bsky.social Hughes Prize, for the best #histSTM book accessible to a broad audience www.bshs.org.uk/online-lectu...

Born #OnThisDay in 1738 was astronomer William Herschel FRS. Amongst his discoveries were the planet Uranus and its moons Titania and Oberon. Find out more about the work of William, his sister Caroline, and the Herschel astronomy dynasty: https://bit.ly/4oJ8FGn

I'm 150 pages into this new biography of composer John Williams by Tim Greiving, and Williams has not even met Steven Spielberg yet.

David Quammen recalls an expedition into the jungle with Jane Goodall.

Ziggy's not so sure about our new pet. 🦕 Excellent score from my town's free and trade Facebook group! #JurassicPark

Yay! I was one of three attendees of this webinar that won a copy of this book.

How good is @wellerstein.bsky.social? He’s so good that he can work the word “awful” into a book title and still make you want to read it! If you’re into atomic/Cold War history, he’s the man.

Memorial for Dr. Jane Goodall begins at 11am EST/8am PST: youtube.com/live/cQOVNJ2...

We are also currently hiring a curatorial fellow to work with the papers of Rosalind Franklin and others in the History of Molecular Biology Collection! This is a 2-year staff position in the archive with a salary of $55k/year and full benefits: www.sciencehistory.org/research/fel...

This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of Thomas Henry Huxley, born 4 May 1825. The only notice I've seen for this is John van Wyhe's short piece for the @linneansociety.bsky.social: bit.ly/4oVPZmq #HPS #histsci

No jacket required forest walk with my pup yesterday, in West Linn, Oregon. 🍄 🍁 ☀️

Yes, some people's legacies are complicated. For example, Watson. After all, though he was racist, don't forget his other traits. For example, he was also sexist. And also anti-semitic. And a data / idea thief. So let's not forget all the different facets.

07-Nov: On this day in 1913, Alfred Russel Wallace died. Wallace famously came up with a near-identical explanation for how evolution occurs independently of Charles Darwin. You can read about their friendship here: friendsofdarwin.com/articles/dar... #histsci

James D. Watson is dead. Stay tuned for some thoughts, based on my research on his biography, to be published soon. While I write that up, y'all can throw tomatoes at this if you like. But I will offer a more nuanced take. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

As the spouse of a kickass county clerk who officiates weddings for ALL couples, if you don't want to marry a gay couple, resign and get a different fucking job!

I asked him what was the most important thing he ever did. He replied “opposing the patenting of human genes”. For a full picture of Jim, his terrible flaws and his insights, we will have to wait for @nccomfort.bsky.social’s forthcoming biography.

Anthony Hopkins to play Charles Darwin in movie that will begin filming in 2026. The film Creation (2009) relied on the ghost of his daughter Annie to dramatize his life, now the ghost of Darwin himself will appear to his widow Emma. I guess movies about Darwin can't be made w/out the supernatural.

OTD in 1880, Charles Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants. D believed that plants are active agents in the world: “A radicle may be compared with a burrowing animal such as a mole, which wishes to penetrate perpendicularly down into the ground.” 🧪🌱🐋 #philsci #HistSTM 🦋🦫

I love these secular candles ✨

always mildly shocked that Darwin looked like this and didn't have a big beard when he wrote On the Origin of Species. He said: "if I really have as bad an expression, as my photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising."

Lovely autumn color at the Environmental Learning Center at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, Oregon yesterday. 🍂

We have a new review on the BSLS website: Jim Endersby reviews Adrian Desmond's Reign of the Beast: The Atheist World of W. D. Saull and his Museum of Evolution (www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/06/desm...).

Historian of science Jim Endersby on "Darwin, Hooker, and Empire" (from 2009): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzb9... #HPS #histsci

Happy Publication Day to Ellen Morris Bishop! "Living with Thunder: Exploring the Geologic Past, Present, and Future of the Pacific Northwest, 2nd Edition" is now available from your favorite booksellers and directly from OSU Press! beav.es/x72 #NorthwestGeology #Mountains #Oregon #Washington #Idaho

Animals and the history of natural history, or, what would natural history look like had Charles Darwin been a cat person? With @professorbopeep.bsky.social and Anya Zilberstein @animalhistory.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/a...

Ooh, Simon Schaffer reader coming down the pike. I blogged through a good chunk of his oeuvre back in the day, which was really illuminating. Too bad they didn't include "The Show That Never Ends" (on perpetual motion), which is probably my favorite: doi.org/10.1017/S000... #HPS

It's late autumn here in the northern hemisphere. The leaves are beginning to pile up on the ground. Please consider leaving them there to play their natural role in the ecosystem. This new episode of In Defense of Plants explains why. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Stopped reading about rivers to read about rocks, but now back to rivers!

Happy #WorldAsteroidDay At events, we’ve been asked by kids if dinosaurs would have seen THE asteroid before it hit LOTS of assumptions, but a 10km object coming in at 45° would hit the atmosphere 200km away, so its angular size would be ~3° - approx 5x the size of the moon - before hell begins..

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/s...

★ “Slyly chatty and insightful,” Nicholas Day and illustrator Hadley Hooper’s picture book HOW TO HAVE A THOUGHT: A WALK WITH CHARLES DARWIN is “a fittingly meandering biography that introduces the work it can take to sort through difficult concepts”