Shells and Pebbles
Interesting finds on the shores of the history of science and the humanities
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The Riddle of the Phantom Island
By Daniel Stinsky Maps contain lots of information in a condensed and abstract visual format. We trust maps to depict reality, and we trust that they are produced with scientific rigor. But as the fairly recent case of a “phantom island” in the Coral Sea shows, maps can contain false information, even in the age…
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Purity or performance
By Bert Theunissen Of all sports horses competing at the most recent Olympic Games, 30 % were Dutch-bred. And of the ten gold medals available, five were awarded to horses from the Netherlands. This is a remarkable achievement, considering that the Dutch do not have a long tradition in horse breeding like the Germans, the…
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Embedded in History. An interview with Professor Norton M. Wise.
By Jorrit Smit On the Sunday before Christmas, I bike to the UCLA campus in Westwood for the last time. Out of breath and full of sweat after climbing the hill in a boringly radiant sun, I find professor Norton Wise waiting for me outside Bunche Hall. With a special key he activates the elevator,…
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Grote dikke boeken
Door Floris Solleveld “Goedemiddag, ik had zeven boeken aangevraagd, ik weet niet of ze er al zijn?” “Jaaaa”, zei de bibliothecaris grinnikend, “die zijn er al”, en keek naar de kar waarop de Description de l’Egypte lag opgestapeld, zeven dozen van 100×70 cm, een stapel van zeker een halve meter hoog. En dit waren dan…
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The case of the cat in court
By Noortje Jacobs and Steven van der Laan Do animals carry legal obligations? To the twenty-first century reader of Shells & Pebbles this question might appear to be odd. Surely, only in fables pigs are summoned to appear before a judge to be held accountable for any misdemeanour. Not quite. In past centuries, animal trials…
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A Rambo Trilogy in Early Modern Europe
An Interview with Professor Margaret Jacob, by Jorrit Smit On one of those sunny, warm, Californian fall afternoons, I meet professor Margaret Jacob in the Herbert Morris Seminar Room on the first floor of Royce Hall in the middle of the UCLA campus. The well-known early-modern scholar has just entertained a crowd of scholars, students…
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The Subtle Spiral of Life & Death.
By Fedde Benedictus Buried beneath spirals Ever since humans began using stone slabs for the decoration and demarcation of their gravesites, masonry has been employed to show the social status of the deceased individual. In this tradition, the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli chose the figure of a logarithmic spiral to be carved onto his gravestone.…
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Bell Rock lighthouse
Door Daan Haalboom De Inchcape, of Bell Rock, een rots voor de kust van Schotland, is eeuwenlang het toneel geweest van talloze scheepsrampen. Het bij laagtij nét boven de waterspiegel uitstekende rif werd zo gevreesd door zeelieden dat zij vaak de zekerheid van een razende Noordzee en het gevaar van een stranding op de nabije…
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A short introduction to the history of Teylers museums online collection
By Fransje Pansters Teylers Museum is the best preserved public institute for art and science of the 18th century world. The founders wanted to bring together all available knowledge about arts and sciences, as a microcosm of the world. It opened its doors to the public in 1784. People could come to the museum to…
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Amsterdam’s dinosaur population
By Ilja Nieuwland Amsterdam may be known for a lot of things, but dinosaurs aren’t usually among them. However, take a walk along the central Plantage Middenlaan in Amsterdam’s Plantage (‘plantation’) district and you will be confronted by two unlikely-looking creatures in the city zoo’s gardens: one is instantly recognizable as Stegosaurus, the other is…
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Manfred Reichel’s Archaeopteryxes and the origin of feathered dinosaurs
By Ilja Nieuwland While the rest of the world was dedicating way too much time and resources to exterminating one another, Switzerland remained a relatively tranquil spot in 1941 Europe. In that year, the micropaleontologist Manfred Reichel published an article outlining his views on the ‘first bird’, Archaeopteryx lithographica. Reichel’s text but particularly his illustrations…
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The Cult of the Kraken
By Robert-Jan Wille In 2010 a new novel by China Miéville was published with the thrilling title Kraken. Miéville is a writer of “weird fiction” whose novels try to move fantasy from the age of Tolkien to the age of steam punk and beyond. The book is a clear example of this. The main character of Kraken is a twenty-first century curator of…
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Jurassic Park, Botany and Women
By Robert-Jan Wille Classic dialogue in the classic movie Jurassic Park. The mathematician Ian Malcolm is rambling about the consequences of Jurassic Park and about the cloning of dinosaurs. At a certain moment he says: “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.” The witty palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler…
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How old is nanotechnology?
By Koen Beumer Nanotechnology is new. And yet discussions about nanotechnology feature numerous references to artifacts from ancient times. Nanotechnology is said to be present in anything from stained glass in Medieval European churches to blades of eighteenth century Indian warriors. How can we make sense of these historical references?
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Wie heeft de grootste?
Door David Baneke De geschiedenis van de moderne sterrenkunde wordt vaak beschreven aan de hand van een opeenvolging van steeds grotere telescopen. Niet zelden lijkt het zelfs op een wedstrijd: wie heeft de grootste? Ook astronomen zelf spreken vaak in die termen – kijk maar eens op de website van enkele grote astronomische organisaties (ESO,…
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4 new posts from naturalhistories
For today, instead of publishing a new article, we have brushed up some older ‘shells and pebbles’ from a friendly blog: Ilja Nieuwland, Robert-Jan Wille and Andreas Weber, the authors of naturalhistories.net, are moving their and our favorite posts to ShellsAndPebbles. You can find the first batch of posts (4 in total) below. Have fun!
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New dinosaurs, old animals
Review of: John Conway, C.M. Kosemen & Darren Naish (2012). All Yesterdays. Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals. London: Irregular Books. Price: (Amazon Kindle E-book) or (Printed version via Lulu.com). By Ilja Nieuwland ‘Paleo-art’, or the art of restoring extinct life, has experienced a number of paradigmatic changes during its two-hundred-or-so-years…