returning to work on scientific "bubbles" this week & may solicit your views on a few candidate bubbles. for instance, anyone know what happened in maser research in 2003? the bubble peaking in 1963 is easy to explain (maser->laser); but why the spike in 2003 (w/ some "ringing" in later years).

given the Nobel announcement, I hope Mathias Grote is getting interviewed about the history of rhodopsin research: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Membranes to Molecular Machines

Today's science tells us that our bodies are filled with molecular machinery that orchestrates all sorts of life processes. When we think, microscopic "channels" open and close in our brain cell membr...

press.uchicago.edu

one of the most beautiful archival reading rooms in the world - that of Historisch Centrum Limburg & Tracé in Maastricht. very pleased that my energy history students will visit on Friday to hear Joris Roosen (pictured, barely) talk ab/ the region's coal, wind, biofuel, & other energy entanglements.

NLers - while you have the chance, go to the Kröller-Müller to see *all* their van Goghs at once. Dozens of them, most of which are hardly ever on display. Lots of surprises. E.g., I never knew van Gogh took such an interest in weavers and looms:

MUSTS colloquium '#Freedom, #Imagination and #Change | From Answers to Questions: #Heritage, Meaning-Making, and #Multivocality in #Museum Collections' by Carmen Cabo & Vilja Marée-Bemelen (Discovery Museum). 📅 7 October, 15:30-17:00 📍Grote Gracht 80-82, room 3.002

📣 Call for Contributions! 📣 The Third International History of Knowledge Conference will take place in Utrecht on 25-27 August 2027, with the central theme Decentering the History of Knowledge. The deadline for all submissions is 15 December 2026. More information here: www.uu.nl/en/news/call...

Call for Contributions Third International History of Knowledge Conference

From 25 - 27 August 2027 the third International History of Knowledge Conference will take place in Utrecht. It is now possible to submit contributions that tie in with the central theme of the confer...

uu.nl

find a job you love as much as Leonard Rossiter enjoyed hammily prancing in his red coat and riding boots in Barry Lyndon: www.youtube.com/watch?v=koWs...

Barry Lyndon - Irish Jig

YouTube video by TheElstonG

youtube.com

historically-minded fans of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn: Tom Hughes says the 1st megawatt electrical plant powered by a steam turbine was built in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal) in 1899. Schwebebahn was built 1901. Was it built because of (to show off?) the megawatt plant? or just coincidence?

congrats to Dmitri Shostakovich, bell hooks, Barbara Walters, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas, Glenn Gould & Donald Glover, among others. It is a well-known statistical fact that among 23 people w/ the same birthday, there is a 50% chance that two will have been married to each other.

📰 Our team member Guillaume Cabanac is in Physics World today! “Cabanac says that the latest misconduct smoking gun can be found in bibliographies and the growing use of hallucinated references…” Read here: physicsworld.com/a/how-scient... @gcabanac.cpesr.fr

How scientific publishers are fighting back against fraudulent papermills – Physics World

The growth of AI and papermills has caused publishers countless headaches

physicsworld.com

So many moving parts & last-minute scrambling to get this post up in time for Sunday's 50th anniversary of the Ark's opening. Just like the Ark's opening itself! #princeedwardisland #pei #envhist #cdnhist

NiCHE Canada@nichecanada.bsky.social · 4w ago

Today @alanmaceachern.bsky.social & @joshmacfadyen.bsky.social share the final part of a 3-part series on Prince Edward Island’s 1970s turn to energy self-sufficiency, which includes an interview with David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund, the architects of "The Ark." niche-canada.org/2026/09/18/p...

Want to know how #heritage was used to open up the #secret #atomic #cities in #Russia? See my article on #NuclearCulturalHeritage in #Sarov/Arzamas-16 that has just been published in @urbanhistory.bsky.social as part of special issue edited by Victoria Fomina www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

'strong language programmes make every discipline stronger' is one absolutely unavoidable lesson of the Cold War university that managers (consultants) have been falling over themselves to forget since then

Pavel Iosad@anghyflawn.net · 3mo ago

So this Defence Universities Alliance thing… we do actually need defence capacity but it’s a bit insane that somehow the defence sector still has nothing to do with languages, area studies, history and suchlike. Complete loss of institutional memory. This used to be widely recognised!

Today @alanmaceachern.bsky.social and @joshmacfadyen.bsky.social share PEI & The Spirit of ’76 – pt 2, which features their interview with pioneering energy scientist, Amory Lovins. niche-canada.org/2026/09/16/p... #envhist #pei #cdnhist #energyhistory

PEI & The Spirit of '76 – pt 2: Amory Lovins at Energy Days

Following the OPEC crisis, Prince Edward Island launched a 1976 energy self-sufficiency initiative featuring scientist Amory Lovins and renewable alternatives.

niche-canada.org

Help, Mijn Kat Is Klusser!

the time for coy obfuscation is over - I can announce that the European Society for the History of Science 2028 meeting will take place in Maastricht in the last week of October or the first week of November. Maastricht hosted the first ESHS meeting in 2004, so European #histsci is coming home!

Cyrus Mody@ccmmody.bsky.social · 3mo ago

for those attending #ESHS-HSS (esp. on the ESHS side), watch this space! I, @moneschleper.bsky.social, @rafdebont.bsky.social & our colleagues hope to have some news soon which you can preview 👇

this bit especially ironic since Barton County is the only Kansas county named after a woman or (AFAIK) a medical professional

Josh Marshall@joshtpm.bsky.social · last mo.

A crazy article, surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/u...

📣 New paper out by our team members Maud Bernisson and Willem Halffman titled Imaginaries of Writing and Pain: The Backstage of a Ghostwritten Paper 📄 🔗 Read here (open access 📖): journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @maud--b.bsky.social @willemhalffman.bsky.social

Imaginaries of Writing and Pain: The Backstage of a Ghostwritten Paper - Maud Bernisson, Willem Halffman, 2026

Ghostwritten medical papers are a cornerstone of pharmaceutical marketing. We trace how one manuscript written under the instructions and supervision of opioid ...

journals.sagepub.com

Give Me a Lab and I Will Raise the Chip Industry: University-industry Kinship, Boundary Work, and the Making of Taiwan's IC Design Ecosystem www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Give Me a Lab and I Will Raise the Chip Industry: University-industry Kinship, Boundary Work, and the Making of Taiwan's IC Design Ecosystem

Existing scholarship on Taiwan's semiconductor industry has focused on manufacturing and state intervention, leaving the IC design sector and the role of universities remain comparatively underexpl...

tandfonline.com

your periodic reminder to submit a paper for our special issue on scientific bubbles! I'm working on my own paper for SI right now & came across an oddity in the graphs kindly generated for me by Yagmur Ozturk @nanobubbles.bsky.social 1/x

Cyrus Mody@ccmmody.bsky.social · 8mo ago

reminder that Miles Macleod, @federicoboem.bsky.social @yjerden.bsky.social & I have a call for papers out for a special issue on scientific "bubbles" with Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. nominal deadline July 15, plus or minus. www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Dear ethicist, My neighbor looks like Phil Silvers. Is it wrong of me to think of Sgt. Bilko every time I see him?

Prof Paul Edwards, @avastmachine.bsky.social on CO2 Newsletter Vol. 2, 6. – “remarkable documents, capturing a crucial moment in the history of climate science and politics.” Pls comment, share widely! If you want to write a commentary, get in touch. allouryesterdays.info/2026/09/02/p...

Our next Philosophy of Science in Practice colloquium will take place on September 3, in room RA4231 from 15:45 to 17:00. Miles MacLeod and Y. J. Erden will be presenting a paper titled "Exploring Scientific Bubbles": www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

NanoBubbles | University of Twente Philosophy Section

Our next Philosophy of Science in Practice colloquium will take place on September 3, in room RA4231 from 15:45 to 17:00. Miles MacLeod and Y. J. Erden will be presenting a paper titled Exploring Scie...

linkedin.com

ugh. on my last visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences archive I found a priceless, argument-defining document in the Ruth Patrick collection. sounds like their special collections will still exist (for now), but no more public viewing of beauties like this 👇😡

Ben Gross@bhgross144.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy 250th birthday, America! To celebrate the occasion, we're closing your oldest natural history museum. www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/a... #scicomm #Philadelphia

Very excited to work with @ccmmody.bsky.social and Matt on this series, building on what Gary Downey and Matt built! We welcome conversations and proposals for books about engineers and engineering - as a social, historical, political, etc practice.

Cyrus Mody@ccmmody.bsky.social · 2mo ago

some personal-professional news: @thatminesgirl.bsky.social & I have been appointed to join Matt Wisnioski as co-editors of the @mitpress.bsky.social Engineering Studies series. we are taking up the mantle of the legendary Gary Downey, who founded the series in 2010, w/ Matt joining him in 2017. 1/x

some personal-professional news: @thatminesgirl.bsky.social & I have been appointed to join Matt Wisnioski as co-editors of the @mitpress.bsky.social Engineering Studies series. we are taking up the mantle of the legendary Gary Downey, who founded the series in 2010, w/ Matt joining him in 2017. 1/x

🏆 Congratulations to Michiel Bron on receiving the inaugural William Burr Prize in Nuclear History, awarded by @shafrhistorians.bsky.social and @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social, for his PhD on how #oil and the #petroleum industry have been deeply intertwined with the development of #nuclear energy.

our special issue on Historical Epistemologies of Planetary Modelling is out. What started in Berlin in 2022 as a collaboration between me and Tom Turnbull grew into a larger project running over several years, featuring three workshops in Berlin, Stockholm and Venice tinyurl.com/3uudrmw9 #envhist

The Anthropocene Review - Volume 13, Number 2

Table of contents for The Anthropocene Review, 13, 2

journals.sagepub.com