Looks like the Lanark Museum was looking into how this might be removed and restored back in 2016. I suspect the costs were too high for them to attempt www.facebook.com/share/17qbER... See down the thread for more details of the history #histSTM 📜

Hastily draped curtains, cheap gold-sprayed wedding venue chairs and social media feed on the big screen. classy

My favorite fact about the year's 1st meteor shower is that it is named after an obsolete constellation! Quadrans Muralis (the wall-mounted quadrant) was proposed by Jérôme Lalande in 1795 and was well-established when the #Quadrantids received their name in the late 1830s. #histSTM #astronomy 🗃️🔭

Never has the casual use of "literally" been more apposite

A farewell to St Abbs (yesterday, about 3:45 pm)

Sometime in the mid-1780s, Robert Barker was out for a walk on Calton Hill when he had an idea to record the cityscape - the entire 360 degree view from one spot. On Capital Collections you can see the resulting wonderful panoramic view and see how Edinburgh looked 200 years ago! zurl.co/OulZl

Good Morning and welcome to another episode of regime change by the USA. The US seems to be militarily trying to get rid of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro right now. There are reports of US ground forces in action. However, watch the Cubans too. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Exciting skies tonight (view from the Creel Path, St Abbs)

Earlier in the year, we worked with the Incorporated Trades of Edinburgh who told the story of Edinburgh as a City of Industry, focused on the Incorporated Trades, an organisation which was established in the 1500s and still continues today. Find out more on Our Town Stories - zurl.co/YXnaV

I've downloaded this for some trepidatious new year listening

Yesterday's Part 1 on Newton portraits is here: thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/25/c... Tomorrow is Kepler! #histSTM

Do you enjoy my periodic rantings on Isaac Newton's alchemical citations? If so, take a look at my shiny new article on our improved #TEI encoding system of Newton's citations & what we can learn from some preliminary analyses of the data! #BookHistory #histsci (tldr in 🧵) doi.org/10.14434/tc....

Music, materials, weather and climate - a great story about a set of organ record books from the 1960s to now. Are there older ones? When did recording temperature and humidity become a common part of the tuner's practice? www.theguardian.com/environment/... #histSTM #envhist

It will surprise nobody that the cataloguing system that is slopwashing like this turns out to be Primo. (If you're not sure what system your university library uses: have you ever searched for a book and been offered three pages of links to reviews instead? That was Primo too.)

THREAD. My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments. I've collected his work here...

This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Come for the spoon-fed cat, stay for the film history that puts Birth of a Nation in its place

I am on leave! Met the last deadline of the year. Ignoring the deadlines piled up for January. The #histSTM toys advent calendar continues until 24 Dec: www.instagram.com/p/DScYD2WjJW...

Special issue (OA) of British Art Studies on James VI & I, including a multi-authored section on the Ramsay-Kerr watch @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social main--britishartstudies-29.netlify.app/issues/29/ (see also www.nms.ac.uk/discover-cat...)

The most complete skeleton of a woolly mammoth unearthed in Michigan is to be found in the Museum of Natural History, Andrews University. The museum's located in Price Hall, named for young-Earth creationist George McCready Price (who's discussed at length in my book doncha know) #FossilFriday

Are you a professor planning to incorporate THE INTERMEDIARIES (medical #history, Weimar, #Jewish history, #transgender history, #LGBTQ fighting Nazis) into your course? I have pdf to share, additional teaching materials, images, and resources for use. Please ping me. wwnorton.com/books/978132...

Amazing use of drones to collect whales' blow to test for pathogens. Very sad to see what they're finding

Special issue (OA) of British Art Studies on James VI & I, including a multi-authored section on the Ramsay-Kerr watch @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social main--britishartstudies-29.netlify.app/issues/29/ (see also www.nms.ac.uk/discover-cat...)

18th-century, French, Newtonian physicist, Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet who was born on 17 December 1706 #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/a...

Sir Humphry Davy, English chemist, pioneered electrolysis, discovered new elements & alkali metals, invented miner’s safety lamp, born #OTD 1778. Portrait by Thomas Phillips 1821 National Portrait Gallery Royal Institution

The king may, perhaps, if she's willing, look at the cat.

How is King Cross-St Pancras not in this list?

One of the things I find fundamentally objectionable about my university’s survival policy - partly driven by government policy - is that our community is mostly in these quintiles, but we’re deliberately creating cold spots by reducing what we do to courses thought to appeal to overseas students.

I wrote a piece for Marginalia Review of Books, based on a talk earlier this year, about the role of narratives in science - something that I think deserves more attention than it gets. www.marginaliareviewofbooks.com/post/theory-...

For those interested in scientific instruments, this volume, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Scientific Instrument Commission (DHST/IUHPST) is a must-read. How have we gone about, and what have we learned from, Forty Years of Scientific Instrument Studies? brill.com/display/titl... #histSTM

👀 #sts

I may have gone overboard with Christmas concerts this year - two rehearsals today, concert Monday, concert Tuesday, bookshop singing Thursday and in the audience for a band concert on Saturday! The festive spirit will be forced into me! 🎄 🎁 ⭐ 🔔 🌲

Depressing. As the article says, the SNP has repeatedly made the case for immigration, but here we are.

A marvellously clear talk (fully comprehensible to and enjoyed by this historian, mostly stuck in 18/19thC astronomy)!

I went to Lagganlia in P7 many (ahem) moons ago - sadly this was not then one of the activities on offer.

The Museum after closing. Dolly still quietly rotates, you can hear a gentle chatter from the AVs, as if the objects are catching up and comparing notes about the day's events

Hot off the presses! Thrilled to be a part of this important new initiative at National Museums Scotland: People of the past: Building a future for Scotland’s archaeological human remains, in the latest @currentarchaeology.bsky.social magazine or with subscription at the-past.com/feature/peop...

Virtual doors for days 3-5 have now also been 'opened' #adventcalendar 📜 #histSTM www.instagram.com/rebekahhiggi...

This is such a sad story! An important collection that had been sent for digitisation (though why from Kent to Scotland, I'm not sure) 📜 www.bbc.com/news/article...

Interesting piece: I learnt a lot, which I love. Also, a great sentence within the opening paragraph which explains why experts like @rhiggitt.bsky.social are good to have around 🙂

This is a great, quick, informative read on an important institution in the long history of science policy.

I have a short Comment piece just published in Nature Reviews Physics on the 350-year-old Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and its funding rdcu.be/eSXb2 #histSTM

#adventcalendar Day 2 www.instagram.com/p/DRwvjB5DFE... #histSTM 📜

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Tonight’s the night! Renée Bergland’s online lecture on Natural Magic begins at 6:30pm GMT. Free event on Zoom—register via Eventbrite to receive the link and join us for an evening of poetry, science, and 19th-century “natural magic.” ✨ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/natural-ma...

At last, some properly rigorous reporting on the vampiric management consulting behind proposed cuts at Edinburgh Uni. Grab some garlic, read and weep.

Some push back in the replies - noting the differences in full time employment rather than unemployment - but they seem to have missed the big gender differences (which are not split out in the report, though that does note differences likely due to the pay gap)

Uncertain whether I'll see it through to Christmas Eve, but my NMS #histSTM themed #adventcalendar is starting today over on Instagram. This year's theme is Science & Technology toys 📜 www.instagram.com/p/DRu9LVKjNa...

We've put together a 25-day advent calendar showcasing Library and Archives collections. Enjoy! 1. 'Snowy Owls’, John James Audubon (publ. 1827-1838). Did you know... #adventcalendar #Christmas #SpecialCollections #Art #NaturalHistoryMuseum #BirdsInArt Alt text: an advent calendar, with 2 white owls

Credit to the 18yo (who has a much better camera than I do these days)