Little known Jimmy Buffet story: Once when his tour plane was leaving the Caribbean islands, he almost crashed because a flock of migrating geese passed overhead and blinded his pilots by covering the windscreen in bird shit. It was a cloaca mistaka.
And yet "AMARI" has still not yet cracked the @nytimes.com Spelling Bee. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/d...
What the Bartender Really Thinks About Your Spritz
You might expect the fizzy summer drinks to be a downer for the people who make them by the hundreds. But think again.
nytimes.com
Question: what would you do if you discovered one deceased scholar plagiarising another deceased scholar?
A mission for: @emilyherring.bsky.social. Find and collaborate with this author. Just because.
Will Thomas@williamthomas.bsky.social · last wk.In today's AIP History Weekly Edition, our summer intern Amelie Heying explores what happened when the American Astronomical Society's council decided in 1978 to not hold future meetings in states that had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. 📷Sally Ride's ERA button, Smithsonian Institution.
I hate like hell that enacting this requires doing so at the expense of initiatives I very much support, and saying no to people whom I very much want to help, but I also feel strongly that we should be making this the norm: www.jdmartin.org/rate-sheet
Joseph D. Martin — Refereeing Rate Sheet for For-Profit Publishers
jdmartin.org
Great article about how, sometimes, we don't need to read against the grain - we just need to read. www.historyworkshop.org.uk/disability-h...
A Tale of Two Signals
Lucy Jameson explores technological collaboration and disabled expertise in the General Post Office in early twentieth-century Britain.
historyworkshop.org.uk
Who wants to start a book review journal the premise of which is: this book is the last remaining evidence of a lost civilisation; describe the civilisation.
One of the most pernicious lies that won't die is the idea that intelligence is innate. It's pathologies are many. But consider one of them. Intelligence is acquired and maintained. You have to work for it. Fight through friction. Challenge yourself. Keep challenging yourself.
Burn it all down. www.waterstones.com/book/artific...
Artificial Intelligence for Babies by Chris Ferrie | Waterstones
Buy Artificial Intelligence for Babies by Chris Ferrie from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.
waterstones.com
Cold take: If you use LLMs for so much as a grocery list, you are complicit in your own dehumanisation. Expect to be treated accordingly.
🏆 Congratulations to Lucy Jameson (Durham) and Michelle Pfeffer (Oxford), winners of the 2026 BSHS Singer Prize! Read about their award-winning essays, the special commendations and the panel's comments here: bshs.org.uk/singer-prize... More on the authors coming soon!
I would like to state for the record that I am standing up to help hand out agendas, not causing a ruckus and being ordered to sit back down.
BSHS@bshsnews.bsky.social · 2mo agoBSHS EGM just started with sandwiches and thanks to the fantastic people who made this meeting possible! Welcome to all new council members and our greatest thanks to the retiring council members and chairs! The BSHS would not be possible without all your hard work!
I'm pretty sure that the fact that Mario invariably dies immediately after getting the fire flower is a commentary on American gun culture.
In today's AIP History Weekly Edition, we sifted through the mammoth program for the ESHS/HSS meeting in Edinburgh next week to highlight talks related to the history of the modern physical sciences. It's a lot, and there was much we didn't cover. Full program here: hssonline.org/page/Edinbur...
Conference spotlight: ESHS/HSS Edinburgh
AIP History Weekly Edition: July 10, 2026
aip.org
Escatology, n. The study of the end of the world though enshittification.
Not the characteristic I would have singled out, but sure?
In today's AIP History Weekly Edition, for Pride Month summer intern Amelie Heying excerpted an oral history with Leeds food physicist Megan Povey, discussing her science, activism, and mid-career gender transition. Joe Martin (@randomjetship.bsky.social) & Wilson Poon conducted the interview. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Megan Povey—Activism, Identity, and the Physics of Food
AIP History Weekly Edition: June 5, 2026
aip.org
The journal Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (HSNS) is inviting short essays (800-1K words) revisiting "classic" works in the history of the natural sciences. These will be collected in a special issue planned for 2027. If you have an idea, please contact me. (I'm an associate editor)
An interesting and thoughtful review, that asks what #histsci was/is/will be. I'm also sympathetic to Dear - the Q of how science gained authority, and was shaped in the process, underlies much of what I do - but we gain from research on other kinds of natural knowledge. But is that #histsci?
Random Jetship@randomjetship.bsky.social · 5mo agoApparently what use this site for now is posting book reviews. The latest of Peter Dear’s The World as We Know It. No acknowledgments allowed in press, but thanks due to @coreenanne.bsky.social and Ludmilla Jordanova. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JAHQP...
Apparently what use this site for now is posting book reviews. The latest of Peter Dear’s The World as We Know It. No acknowledgments allowed in press, but thanks due to @coreenanne.bsky.social and Ludmilla Jordanova. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JAHQP...
Canon Fodder. The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science
Published in History of European Ideas (Ahead of Print, 2026)
tandfonline.com
It is surprising how so few of the many histories of eugenics centre the voices of disabled people. Uncovering these perspectives contradicts all previous narratives of eugenics in interwar Britain
Why did disabled people support eugenics in the 1930s? | Aeon Essays
In the story of eugenics, disabled people are often depicted as passive victims. But for some it seemed an opportunity
buff.ly
"Historians of science interested in the 1980s [...] can profitably learn from one another by comparing how scientists of different stripes moved through the greedy waters they swam in." Joseph Martin's review of Greedy Science: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Breaking my social media silence because this #histsci review was oodles of fun to write, and I hope it's also fun to read. www.brepolsonline.net/content/jour...
Physics Envy | Brepols Online
brepolsonline.net
Thanks to @patrickmccray.bsky.social and Michael Gordin for the chance to review this one. rdcu.be/eMsRb
Adjectival science
rdcu.be
