Great #histSTM story this - Cold War and whales, different kinds of knowledge and different kinds of attention, as well as ranging scales, spaces and geographies. Naval personnel were (secretly) expert in ignoring whale-shaped background noise.

Some #histSTM on Radio 4 this morning with 18thC naturalist Georg Forster

Thrilled to be on Start the Week on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow morning at 9am to discuss George Forster and my new book "The Traveller".

Great #histSTM story this - Cold War and whales, different kinds of knowledge and different kinds of attention, as well as ranging scales, spaces and geographies. Naval personnel were (secretly) expert in ignoring whale-shaped background noise.

New open access #histSTM series - very exciting!

Each time I've heard this story on the BBC it has felt like they're offering it up for the usual suspects to take and run with it. Depressing. Distressing.

Geological strata in cake form is always a good idea - happy tercentenary!

For inspiration, the latest issue of Nuncius is a special issue edited by Charlotte Bigg, Christoph Meinel, and Helmuth Trischler: Writing the History of Scientific Instruments: Challenges and Perspectives. A must-read! #histSTM brill.com/view/journal...

Calling all PhDs and ECRs who work on the history of material and visual culture of science - the Nuncius Essay Prize for 2026 is open for submissions until 31 August. Details here: brill.com/fileasset/do... #histSTM

📣 BSHS Outreach & Engagement Project Grants Having an idea for sharing the history of science with wider audiences? BSHS offers grants of up to £500 to support creative engagement projects. Next deadline: Sep 18, 2026 bshs.org.uk/oec/#project...

via @metafilter.bsky.social - storied colors, an absolutely amazing website on the provenance, history and cultural context of colo(u)rs, one a day. storiedcolors.com/browse/

In this James Hutton anniversary year, and in light of the recent fundraising to acquire and digitise Charles Lyell's notebooks, I ask: which Scottish man of science is the real 'Father of Modern Geology'? There's only one way to find out...

🎉 Join us at NMS to help celebrate the Tercentenary of James Hutton! Attend free, drop-in short talks and mini-tours focused on Hutton's rock specimens and his Theory of the Earth and get hands-on with the Earth Systems collection in the Grand Gallery🤚

Born in Częstochowa, to Bronislawa and Dawid Kozak. The Germans took their factory away. Polish nuns hid the Kozaks from the Germans. It's close to miraculous she survived. In the 1970s, she did a PhD on women munition workers in WW1 at Hull. May her memory be a blessing.

So much of Arsenal watching this season has been a chore or, indeed, purgatory.

This is lovely, but this made me chuckle: "I guess it’s a big thanks to Reform that our headliner is Claire Richards [from Steps] this year.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

📚️ 📝 🍎 The Victorian Schoolroom (History of Education Centre) in Newhaven, Edinburgh is delighted to offer some lively events to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the birth of James Hutton, the renowned, Edinburgh-born “Father of Geology”.

Flagging to the GLAMs feed 📜

Makes for a great sculpture park! I get to visit in September, for the first time. (NB @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social has a matching radio frequency accelerator cavity to the top right)

Book Review: The Board of Longitude: Science Innovation and Empire, (CUP, 2025) thonyc.wordpress.com/2026/05/28/t...

That the present government would let this enormously valuable sector collapse is unforgivable. But they’ve done next to nothing.

This is glorious. (From the British Museum, Midsummer 1939.)

"good for growth, jobs and the economy" also for personal finances and a habitable Earth BBC News - Green jobs contributing £10.2bn to Scotland's economy, says CBI www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🧵 #histSTM

A postage box in a village on a small Scottish island that has been yarn bombed with a knitted PS Waverley, the last ocean-going paddle steamer still running (named after the Walter Scott novel.)

I have a prize lecture about extinction this Thursday evening at the Royal Society. I’ll also receive a medal. Tickets are free and it will also be steamed on YouTube. Booking and watching details here: royalsociety.org/science-even...

I *just* wanted to check some details on the most famous historical analogy for "synchronisation by clock transport" for a text on special relativity and promptly went down the rabbit hole of "The Board of Longitude" by Alexi Baker, @rhiggitt.bsky.social and others. Really cool book! 🧪🔭⚛️

This is lovely

"Ten years of dropping this commodity to see where the pieces land is not an education policy worthy of the name. It is neglect bordering on vandalism.” However, I don't think things are as rosy in Scotland and Wales as this seems to suggest.

A thread 🧵 for the @bshsnews.bsky.social Pickstone book prize, with a little more of each title on the shortlist 📚 #histSTM 🗃️

Well this is a shame. There's a great track record of placements at NMS and going on to good careers.

Ahrgh

A job in the global history of science at UCL. FT, permanent, starting at £54k, closing early June. A rare post in this area and a great department from what I hear. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRP512/l...

Nice, long article on the Clockworks Museum, focused on the history of electrical timekeeping #histSTM 📜 From when time went electric to the emergence of quartz clocks share.google/7XYmkerxgbkq...

Most of the comments I've seen on this are clearly from people who haven't actually read the piece. It's worth a proper look. The recent trends are not (just) about education, precarity and national economies. www.ft.com/content/fba3...

Post by @lottaleiwo.bsky.social, Tamara Caulkins & me on the thinking behind our call for contributions to a Sourcebook for Histories of Weather and Weathering - the workshop(s) that inspired it and our own perspectives. The deadline is 4 September #histSTM #envhist meteohistory.org/announcements/

53 out of 100, not bad. I've also read plenty of other novels as good as any of these www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

Like I said.

This was sad news. This photo may date from the period at which she and her family lived in a flat above my family's. My sympathies to all those that will miss her.

You get the feeling that Hearts are not going to be allowed to win (or draw) this game.

Our new President @jim-wild.bsky.social and @iop.org President Paul Howarth have written to science minister Lord Vallance calling for a full impact assessment of proposed cuts to particle physics, astronomy and nuclear research. Read the letter in full: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

A brilliant piece by @samfr.bsky.social on why our universities are in trouble - and why it’s in ALL our best interests to save them.

The pigeons love the little gilded "Romanesque" statue of George II in St Helier's Royal (formerly Market) Square – the Jersiais took longer to be persuaded jerripedia.org/wiki/Statue_...

I'd missed this bit: "an internationally recognised orthopaedic surgeon who spent more than 10 years working for the NHS in the UK."

Born #OnThisDay in 1900 was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. In her doctoral thesis she concluded stars are primarily composed of hydrogen & helium, an idea dismissed by the establishment of the day. It was later described as "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy."

*would, not will. Let's keep this strictly in the conditional

For reasons that are hard to explain in a short post, I am in Jersey. Despite all the Union Jacks around (it is Liberation Day tomorrow) it turns out that I can't get mobile data here, and nor can I get into my work email. It's lucky I had a vague memory of the name of where I'm staying tonight!

Great (and terrible) new project by @amyqin.bsky.social and team on the many different types of data that the Trump administration is failing to collect. "We are literally having babies dying, and we’re not able to look and say, ‘OK, what is it about those babies?'"

Lots of great titles on this year's Pickstone Prize shortlist! Congratulations to: * @lindaaburnett.bsky.social * @brucealexb.bsky.social * Alison Bashford * @brad.bolman.com * @melissacharenko.bsky.social * @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social * David Singerman #histSTM #histsci #booksky 🗃️📜📚