Coming soon to @ransomcenter.bsky.social: The Worlds of Gertrude Stein! This exhibit, curated by Dr. Sophie Oliver (@liverpooluni.bsky.social), uses manuscripts, photos & artifacts to explore the personal & artistic life of a literary icon. www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releas... #BookSky #poetry 📚🗃️📜

"Nevala-Lee is an American writer of science fiction, detective thrillers & biographies...He likes to write about creative risk-takers. Alvarez is a natural subject for him." Today's #histSTM & #physics lunch read: Steven Shapin reviews Alec Nevala-Lee's biography of Luis Alvarez for @lrb.co.uk. 🗃️📜

I'm not attending #ESHS-HSS, but if I were, I would probably be rushing to Floor, Level 2 - Lennox 3 for a panel on The Environmental Lives of Things! #HSS2026 🗃️📜

I'm not in Edinburgh, but that won't stop me from promoting an excellent panel! *275. The Environmental Lives of Things* Frozen foods and vanadium ore Utility poles, crates galore! Using culture material They’ll shed light magisterial On the “things” at two disciplines’ cores. #HSS2026 #ESHS-HSS 🗃️

I walked or drove past this hotel nearly every day during my time in Kansas City. I can only imagine how loud its implosion would have been if I were still living in an apartment a few blocks away... #KCMO #KansasCity

Sending best wishes to all my @historyscience.bsky.social, @bshsnews.bsky.social & European #HistSci Society friends heading to Edinburgh for this year's annual meeting! Sadly, I won't able to attend, but I'll be keeping an eye on the #HSS2026 hashtag... hssonline.org/page/Edinbur... #histSTM 🗃️📜🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Snapshots taken during an afternoon field trip to @lbjlibrary.bsky.social. Despite living in #Austin for over a year, this was my 1st time touring the library’s permanent exhibits. Johnson is a fascinating and tragic figure. (At some point, I really need to read Robert Caro’s biography…) #LBJ 🗃️📜

I am once again asking a historian of science or technology* to review this exhibition... (* Preferably someone deeply familiar with the early modern period or the history of computing. Or both, like Mike Mahoney!) #histSTM #histsci #histtech 🗃️📜

Given who I follow on Bluesky, I'm surprised no one mentioned there was a fun #AlternateHistory Books category on #Jeopardy yesterday j-archive.com/showgame.php... Some thoughts: 1) Why isn't S.M. Stirling mentioned in the $400 clue? 2) Where's @hntdove.bsky.social? #booksky #althistory #scifi 📚

I wonder if Texas’s new age authentication rules also apply to X, or if Bluesky is being singled out for some reason…

Dear Texas & @bsky.app, I respectfully decline. -Ben

“It appears that the decision to retract the papers was a human error and we can confirm that no software or ‘bot’ would have been involved in the process.” (Based on this photo, Max Planck is skeptical...still, it's good that his previously retracted papers are back online.) #histSTM #physics 🗃️📜

For anyone looking for an additional reason to support Norway in the World Cup...

🎶"And they shouldn't fence at night, or they're going to hurt the gymnasts. Why do they play football inside? Here's another shot of fencing..."🎶 (RIP, Bonnie Tyler)

Is #MapMonday still a thing? If so, here's a contribution from @ransomcenter.bsky.social's collection: A map of Italy, dated 1565, in an atlas compiled by the Venetian publisher Ferrando Bertelli & previously owned by John Locke search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01... #Maps #Cartography #histSTM 🗃️📜

Q: What's your favorite avian term of venery? A: Some people may prefer a parliament or an unkindness, but...

#ICYMI: @ransomcenter.bsky.social is represented several times on this list of UT collections related to America's founders, including our copy of Common Sense & locks of hair from Richard Henry Lee & George Washington news.utexas.edu/2026/07/02/f... #FourthOfJuly #IndependenceDay #America250 🗃️📜🇺🇸

A 500-year-old map known as “America’s Birth Certificate” was found a century ago. But what, and where, was “America”? To learn more, check out my op-ed in the LA Times. PDF & images in 🧵. 1/ 🧵 #maphistory #cartography #histsci #earlymodern #america250 #4thofJuly 🗃 www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Happy Independence Day from @ransomcenter.bsky.social! Learn more about our American history collections: www.instagram.com/p/DaV-Y8FgWP... #IndependenceDay #FourthOfJuly #America250 📜🗃️

It's really more of a concept of a plan... #ID4

Appropriately, these extraterrestrial visitors have arrived on #WorldUFODay! Seems like a good time to check out @ransomcenter.bsky.social's back issues of Flying Saucers From Other Worlds ("The Magazine of Space Conquest"). Learn more: www.instagram.com/p/DZkhGwHjap... #scifi #UFO #histsci 🛸👽🗃️📜

Surprised this isn't trending yet...

For anyone wondering why Caesar Rodney appeared on the first state quarter (or perhaps I should say "First State" quarter) in 1999... #Delaware #RevolutionaryWar 🗃️

"Websites are ephemeral. Citations must not be." 👏👏👏 (Of course, that assumes that the citations are not also referencing websites or databases, which as previously discussed, are no substitute for physical publications or archival collections.)

Submit your recently published work on philosophy of science & race or nominate a colleague's work ‼️TODAY‼️(deadline July 1st Anywhere on Earth). Prize is $500. It is super easy to nominate a work here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... #HPS

Happy 100th birthday to the Ben Franklin Bridge! One of my favorite #Philly memories was walking across it w/a group of @sciencehistory.org fellows en route to a Camden Riversharks game. (1926 aerial photo HT @hagleycenter.bsky.social: digital.hagley.org/1970200_0154...) #Philadelphia #histSTM 🗃️📜

Let's kick the tires, light the fires, and get ready to enjoy what is arguably the greatest annual tradition on social media...

Coming soon to a library near me: A brand-new, annotated edition of From the Earth to the Moon edited by the inimitable @anaklimchy.bsky.social! 🚀🌔 #histsci #histSTM #scifi #JulesVerne

Further evidence of the need to preserve the printed scientific record. The digital version is far too easy to manipulate or erase... #histsci #histSTM 🗃️📜

Tonight’s cast iron cooking experiment turned out really well! (Shrimp and potatoes pil pil served with salad-e shirazi and toasted buttermilk sourdough bread.) #cooking #CastIronCooking

🎶"Hope for the best, expect the worst The world's a stage, we're unrehearsed Some reach the top, friends, while others drop, friends Hope for the best, expect the worst!"🎶 Happy 100th birthday to the man, the myth, the legend...Mel Brooks! #MelBrooks #MelBrooks100 #comedy

Boosting the signal for any #histsci (or #histSTM, #histmed & #histtech) friends specializing in antiquity! (FWIW, it looks like there are several ancient science talks on this year's @historyscience.bsky.social program: cdn.ymaws.com/hssonline.or...) #HSS2026

For a show about nothing, there sure seems to be a lot of data to analyze... #Seinfeld #DataViz #infographic

THERE'S ADVENTURE IN METEOROLOGY! (And in many other books @history.aip.org...) #physics #histSTM #HistSci #booksky #scicomm 📚

You've caged your last elephant!

A gentle reminder that UT's libraries, museums, and archives--including @ransomcenter.bsky.social--are also free to students, faculty, and staff. Why settle for artificial intelligence when you can cultivate the real thing by exploring their collections?

Rufus Porter (artist, inventor & founder of @sciam.bsky.social) would be rolling in his grave... www.lindahall.org/about/news/s... #scicomm #SciAm 🗃️

At a moment when the scientific establishment is under attack and the future of journal articles is in flux, @mbaldwin.bsky.social's history of #PeerReview will provide a valuable perspective on the policy debates that shaped US science. (* Just don't ask Reviewer #2 about it!) #booksky #histSTM 🗃️

Since @ransomcenter.bsky.social is home to his archive, my colleagues and I hear a lot of stories about David Foster Wallace. This thread is one of the most heartfelt reflections on his life, death & mental illness that I've read since I started working here. #booksky 📚

Registration closes next Friday! Come join us. #histmed #histstm #medicalsky #medievalsky #historysky

🚨 The CHSTM is offering 13(!!) new dissertation completion fellowships! Each provides $15k for three months of research for PhD candidates at US schools. Residence at SHI is optional, but comes with a place in our research community also - we’d be delighted to welcome any fellows! More info here:

Two weeks to apply for the tenth and final Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize! $1000 for an outstanding book collection built by a woman, aged 30 or younger. The Knicks did it – now it’s your year! #honeyandwaxprize #honeyandwaxbookcollectingprize

Today is #Juneteenth, and @ransomcenter.bsky.social is commemorating the occasion with an IG slideshow examining William Still's The Underground Railroad, an 1872 anthology of illustrated accounts of enslaved people escaping captivity. Learn more: www.instagram.com/p/DZxZFLvD4q... 🗃️📜

80 years ago today, #RCA introduced the image orthicon camera while broadcasting the boxing match between Joe Louis & Billy Conn. The "immy" produced sharper pictures than previous cameras & later became the namesake of the #EmmyAwards! eyesofageneration.com/june-19-1946... #OnThisDay #histSTM 🗃️📺

There’s nothing quite like leaving the climate-controlled confines of an archive and crashing headlong into the excessive heat of a spring evening in Austin! (Remember, we’re still a few days out from the solstice…) #ATX #weather

Not to be confused with Reamde by @nealstephenson.bsky.social! (To be clear, both books are related--either directly or indirectly--to the history of computing, but that's where the similarities end...) #histSTM #histtech #Booksky #scifi 🗃️📚💻

Babylon 5 is the thinking man’s Deep Space 9. But Deep Space 9 is also the thinking man’s Babylon 5.

"And that concludes our intensive three-week course!" #Simpsons

Name a TV show you're positive no one remembers but you.

“Joyce has a most goddamn wonderful book. It’ll probably reach you in time." -Ernest Hemingway describes #Ulysses in a March 1922 letter to Sherwood Anderson Happy #Bloomsday, everyone! (This Al Hirschfeld caricature is from @ransomcenter.bsky.social's art collection.) #BookSky #modernism 🗃️📜🎨📚