Looking forward to joining my friend Matthew Booker to discuss our transpacific oyster project at the University of Georgia's agriculture and environment focused Dirty History Workshop on October 23rd. I'll be Zooming in at 4am in the morning Kyoto time... history.uga.edu/events/conte...

Passing by the Toy Film Museum おもちゃ映画ミュージアム, Kyoto

From @harrycroft.bsky.social about the Augsburg conference on uncharismatic animals: #envhum #envhist

Towards an Uncharismatic Turn in Environmental History: How to Talk about the Boring and Forgotten Ones?

Six presenters from a September 2026 Universität Augsburg workshop explore how historically ignored, "uncharismatic" species shape environmental history and human records.

niche-canada.org

I wrote about the new paper about Jonathan the tortoise's secret to living 194 years defector.com/the-secret-t...

The Secret To Living 194 Years Is Being A Turtle | Defector

Geriatric Jonathan has made the news again, this time for having his genome sequenced. The Aldabra giant tortoise, who is estimated to be 194 years old, is the oldest known land animal on the planet. ...

defector.com

This special issue out today gathers five perspectives on what #environmentalhistory brings to understanding #wildfires. My paper compares fire histories of Portugal and S Africa, and how to write comparative fire histories. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/whpeh/cu...

Contents | Environment and History 32, 4

Modern China’s understanding of wildfires is primarily applied science aimed at resolving issues related to fire management. Dominant conceptions of fire focus on physical processes and interactions – a physical paradigm. This was not always the ...

liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk

My colleague Ellen Van Goethem posted this fascinating news that a late 8th c wooden tablet 木簡 has been uncovered that's inscribed with "the price of a slave (nuhi) and the method of payment." Reposting here a thread on slavery that didn't migrate from the Bad Place. www.asahi.com/ajw/articles...

1st wooden tablet listing details of a slave sale found in Nara | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

NARA―A wooden tablet describing the sale of a slave in the Nara Period (710-784) that includes the price has been unearthed in the ancient capital of Heijokyo here, the first discovery of such a detai...

asahi.com

Sean Kheraj and Jennifer Bonnell come onto the show to discuss their edited book Traces of The Animal Past. They delve into how environmental and animal histories differ as well as some of the key methods scholars interested in them can use. www.theanimalturnpodcast.com/s9-history/s...

S9E5: Historical Methods with Jennifer Bonnell and Sean Kheraj

In this episode we switch gears toward considering historical methods. Sean Kheraj and Jennifer Bonnell come onto the show to discuss their edited book Traces of The Animal Past and together with Clau...

theanimalturnpodcast.com

Delicious Odisha-style fish curry near the Kyoto University campus. This is the tuna, but there are always five or six fish options available.

We just added James Fleming’s “Excuse Us, While We Fix the Weather” to our 𝘚𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 archive–now with a new foreword! Originally published in 𝘙𝘊𝘊 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, the piece highlights the male-dominated culture surrounding proposals for weather and climate interventions: springs-rcc.org/excuse-us-wh...

Very sad to hear that Margaret Hamilton has passed away. Here's a short thread about her role in the Apollo mission, and her lesser-known work on the simulations that led to the discovery of Chaos Theory. 🧪 👩‍🔬 ⚛️

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90

Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.

news.mit.edu

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Margaret Hamilton, a pioneer of software engineering who led NASA's in-flight software team for the Apollo mission, was born #OTD in 1936. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 Image: NASA

Exciting new historical work on Rosalind Franklin continues to appear. This is a neat bit of sleuthing by historian @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and crystallographer Brian Sutton. Here's the DOI to the actual article (it's OA): 10.1007/s10739-026-09866-7 The main finding is an x-ray image of exactly

Science Magazine@science.org · 6d ago

Exclusive: A new analysis refutes James Watson’s claim that he was the first to recognize the significance of the famed photograph 51. https://scim.ag/4rTKck8

A vaguely familiar scene to many, just a few minutes up the road from my office. Need to get the angle better next time.

#CfA: The MPIWG is offering First Research Article #Fellowships for 📑 doctoral students based at Asian, African, or Latin American institutions, to publish their first English article on 📚 history of science, technology, and medicine, or #STS 🗓️ Deadline: Jan 15, 2027 🔗 tinyurl.com/mu5tend3

Statistical charts I've looked at in old Japanese sources really love scaled pictorial charts. I can't remember which source I found this from, but here we have 1935 global coffee consumption leaders. Sweden (7.75kg, I assume per year), Norway (6.95kg), and Denmark (6.9kg) in the lead.

I just saw that this book on the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s has been published fully open access, with contributions from many top scholars in the field. I look forward to reading! brill.com/display/titl...

The Aftermath of the Imjin War in Early Modern East Asia

"The Aftermath of the Imjin War in Early Modern East Asia" published on 29 Sep 2026 by Brill.

brill.com

Exciting job for #envhum postdocs! Project "Tolerating Urban Animals. Techno-moral perspectives on killing and caring for other species" (U Copenhagen) is looking for 2 postdocs to work on use of technologies for managing undomesticated/feral urban animals in 🇩🇰🇸🇪🇳🇴. employment.ku.dk/faculty/?sho...

Two Postdoctoral positions in Ethnology at the Saxo Institute, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen

employment.ku.dk

Just got an email from a former student who took my class a decade ago, asking me for the reading list because she enjoyed the course so much and wants to revisit the texts. And she *apologized* for making the request. Are you kidding me?

Sad Old Man Crying

ALT: Sad Old Man Crying

static.klipy.com

Perhaps unsurprising to those who know my interests, but I'm always intrigued when oysters 🦪🦪 🦪 make an appearance in historical research.

Émilie Pasquier@emilie-pasquier.bsky.social · 2w ago

Vraiment ravie de participer cet après-midi à l’atelier de recherche « Commune nature » à l’UT2J ! Nous discuterons des usages de l’eau dans différents contextes géographiques autour de la Méditerranée. Un lien de connexion est disponible, n’hésitez pas à m’écrire !

This stuck out to me on my last trip to Busan: a fantastically illustrated 1962 poster from the South Korean central fisheries experiment station asking ordinary fishers to send in any tagged horse mackerel, mackerel, or squid specimens they managed to catch.

Excited to be working with Norton on two new histories of Japan! I have my work cut out for me for approximately the next decade!!

🏺 🗃️ Archaeologists/Historians - please shoot me your favourite examples & sources on ancient named animals, the older the better! Prefer farm animals but others also welcome 🐏 🐂 🐖 🫏... 🐕 #histsky (I already have Bramati 2025, & Alivernini & Bramanti 2023)

Chuck Groenink@cgroenink.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Finally found this list of 15th century Italian names for cows I had saved ages ago and lost, but don't remember where I first got it from.

Please send your brilliant Tamil instructors our way! networks.h-net.org/jobs/70482/u...

Calling all early-career professionals interested in scholarly publishing! We are now accepting applications for an Acquisitions Fellow. This 12-month entry-level role offers hands-on experience evaluating, developing, and acquiring manuscripts. Apply by October 15, 2026: bit.ly/uwapressfellowship

This #NotesandRecords special issue demonstrates the complexity of plant studies, as early modern scholars conceived plants not only as a subject of botanical studies, but also as a laboratory object that mediates the study of nature: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsnr/issue/7... #HistSci #HistSTM

Those precious moments on the final day of NHK's sumo coverage when they play the synthed-up and riff-filled ending theme song. youtu.be/V6uFeYm-llA

THE千秋楽 (大相撲中継エンディングテーマ)

YouTube video by HAKONE SPIRIT 2

youtu.be

2yrs after I finished my MA History at Goldsmiths, my research rights were bought and I was hired to work as historical consultant on this TV show. It's had BAFTA and International Emmy nominations. I got a book deal, too. Goldsmiths: "No point in MA History, let's fire everyone and delete it."

Sarah Elizabeth Cox@oispooky.bsky.social · 3w ago

It's a Best Drama nomination for #AThousandBlows at the International Emmys! 🥊 www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/2...

Anth of Asia job for a non-Korean at SNU Anthropology. Check it out. Deadline is normally this short. Poor advertising is normal in Korea. There is no inside candidate, I know this department well, if you have the qualifications you'll have a fair shot. www.anthropology.or.kr/04_notice/no...

Japanese used bookstores are reporting a massive uptick in bulk purchases of used Japanese books by overseas buyers, seemingly without any regard to their contents. The only logical conclusion is that these books are being stripped, scanned, and discarded to train AI models.

📣Out now on #firstview! Jeremy Schneider @cornelluniversity.bsky.social and Siyakha Mguni (University of Cape Town) on 'Should the Lithosphere Tell Our Stories?' #Earth #Fossils #Culture #Knowledge #Indigenous #Western #Ancient 🌍🏔️🗃️ 👉Read open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I normally drink my coffee black, but I make an exception for a tiny metal pitcher of milk.