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Reposted

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Psalter of Oswald, aka the Ramsey Psalter:
I challenge anyone to find a finer B.
From my copy of John O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (1868). Close to the largest book in my personal library, thus the pencil for scale rather than the usual coin.
#booksky #medievalsky

A page from a mid 19th century book by English entomologist, archaeologist, illuminated manuscript lover, and artist John O. Westwood. This is a detail of a chromolithograph after his painting of “The Ramsey Psalter, BL Harley Ms 2904, Initial B, folio 4, probably designed for the use of Oswald, Archbishop of York, 972-992.”

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 2h

“But in May, the E.P.A. revoked the grant, which was issued at the end of the Biden administration, saying it was ‘no longer consistent” with the agency’s priorities’.”

bbny.bsky.social @bbny.bsky.social · 2h

Gift article 🎁
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

www.nytimes.com

Reposted

bbny.bsky.social @bbny.bsky.social · 2h

Gift article 🎁
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

www.nytimes.com

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 2h

'Metall' #FotoVorschlag
My 📷

A photo of an abstract metal statue of a figure looking up at someone riding a horse. In the background is a tree framed against a blue sky. Photo taken in Germany.

🇩🇪

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Reposted

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 12h

📢 Check out all the BHL presentations at #LivingData2025!
On #Day1, our Communication Director @nicolekearney.bsky.social will provide a crucial update about BHL's Transition from the #Smithsonian to an autonomous & sustainable global consortium. www.livingdata2025.com/program.html... 🌱 📖 🌏

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 12h

“It was used by First Nations for food, but digging it for such purposes today is not recommended because the plant is scarce.”

Sad, but unsurprising. Thank you for sharing.

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 13h

Benjamin Smith Barton’s mother, Esther Rittenhouse, was astronomer, clock maker, and surveyor David Rittenhouse’s sister 👇

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 16d

A post for #SciArtSeptember day 28: scientific art is not just biological (imo). There is beauty in this depiction of the trajectory of a comet by American astronomer David Rittenhouse based off his 1770 observations.
From my 1789 copy of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 🔭

A fold out diagram on browning laid paper depicting astronomical observations of a comet in what was assumed to be an assumed a parabolic trajectory, later corrected to an elliptical trajectory by Johan Lexell. The Sun has a face and looks like the emoji.

#Astronomy #HistSci #HistStem

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 13h

‘Medeola virginica’

An engraved plate from my 1827 copy of Elements of Botany by botanist Benjamin Smith Barton, one of the first professors of natural history in the United States who built the largest collection of botanical specimens in the country & wrote the first U.S. textbook on botany. 🌱 🐡

A plate from an over 200 year old 18th century book. Description by the author:
“PLATE XIV.
THis plate represents the Medeola virginica, common called Indian Cucumber, from the taste of its root, or bul which is very similar to that of a cucumber. It is a very con mon plant in many parts of the United-States, growing in we tish woods. —The leaves are beautifully verticillate (vertic lata). There is no calyx in the language of Linnaus, but a c rolla (which Jussieu calls the calyx), which is six parted ( partita), and revolute (revoluta).——A. A single stamen.
The three styles. C. The fruit, which is a berry (bacca), co taining three seeds (3-sperma). D. One of the seeds.
This plant is a good illustration of the class Hexandria, a
the order Trigynia.”

#c18th #c18 #18c #Botany #histsci #sciart

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 13h

#womeninstem #booksky 📚💙

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d

From my 1649 copy of the first Latin translation of Descartes’ Geometria by Dutch mathematician Frans van Schooten. Like Descartes in his Principia Philosophiae, Van Schooten dedicated the book to Elisabeth of Bohemia, who helped him get hired, expanding the reach of Descartes’ analytical geometry.

Page from a 17th century book in Latin: ELISABETHE,
FRIDERICI BOHEMIE REGIS, Comitis Palatini, & Electoris Sacri Ro-mani Imperii, filia natu maxima.
SERENISSIMA PRINCEPS,
CUm ea Celfitudinis tuæ fit claritas, ut ma-ximorum hominum monumenta , tanti nominis fplendore
illuftrata, in lucem jam pridem prodierint; quid mirum,fi & ego lucubrationes hafce Celfitudini tux confecrandas efle duxerim?
Nam, ut reliquas virtutes, qua in Te eximie funt, taceã, tantâ cum prudentia fingularis ingenii…”

#womeninstem #adalovelaceday

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Reposted

Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 14h

Velvet Ants are not ants, but solitary wasps. Only males fly; females like this one are wingless. They run almost nonstop, looking for burrows of other ground-nesting wasps and bees, which they parasitize. They can sting but are not aggressive. She was small, under 1 cm. Pryor Mountains, Montana 🐙🌿

A macro photo of a female velvet ant (a type of fuzzy, wingless wasp) on pale orange sand. The insect's main color is dark orange above, with dark legs and black sides & belly.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

I suspect @rmathematicus.bsky.social may be able to point you in the right direction.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Embellished a bit by Westwood of course.

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Here you go..

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Psalter of Oswald, aka the Ramsey Psalter:
I challenge anyone to find a finer B.
From my copy of John O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (1868). Close to the largest book in my personal library, thus the pencil for scale rather than the usual coin.
#booksky #medievalsky

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Helicopters don’t like high altitudes.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 14h

Psalter of Oswald, aka the Ramsey Psalter:
I challenge anyone to find a finer B.
From my copy of John O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (1868). Close to the largest book in my personal library, thus the pencil for scale rather than the usual coin.
#booksky #medievalsky

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 19h

Something wrong with the link

Reposted

Michael Shallcross @michaelshallcross.bsky.social · 1d

An unhinged literary opinion needs to be like Muriel Spark believing T.S. Eliot was sending her coded messages through his plays, not 'hear me out, I don't like Dickens'. That is simply a literary opinion. The hinges are very much intact.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 23h

Tolkien was a eugenicist?

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 23h

The rotor is drooping.*

*this happened about 13K MSL in the Hindu Kush

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 5d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Reposted

Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 5d

It's also not "just another" extinction, it's the first from mainland Europe in centuries. CENTURIES.

And there will be others within our lifetime.

That's biodiversity loss.

We'll never hear this sound, ever again xeno-canto.org/398794

XC398794 Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris)

Awful wind noise in the original! See sonogram and notes of the recording circumstances on p12 of Gretton A. (1991) The ecology and conservation of the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris). ...

xeno-canto.org

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Reposted

Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 5d

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

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Reposted

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 3d

It's #WorldAlgaeDay! Japanese algologist Kintaro Okamura (1867-1935) provided taxonomies & descriptions in English & Japanese for his monumental work "Nihon sorui zufu" / "Icones of Japanese Algae" (1907-1942). Find it in #BHLib via
#MBLWHOILibrary
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography... 🧪

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d

Three typos, three reposts. The moral of the story? Don’t post anything before your second cup of coffee.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d

Princess Elisabeth is more well known for her contributions to philosophy, but she also corresponded with Descartes about his mathematical work. In addition helping Van Schooten, English mathematician John Pell enlisted her help in understanding Descartes’ Geometry.
#AdaLovelaceDay #womenInSTEM

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d

From my 1649 copy of the first Latin translation of Descartes’ Geometria by Dutch mathematician Frans van Schooten. Like Descartes in his Principia Philosophiae, Van Schooten dedicated the book to Elisabeth of Bohemia, who helped him get hired, expanding the reach of Descartes’ analytical geometry.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 1d

From my 1649 copy of the first Latin translation of Descartes’ Geometria by Dutch mathematician Frans van Schooten. Like Descartes in his Principia Philosophiae, Van Schooten dedicated the book to Elisabeth of Bohemia, who helped him get hired, expanding the reach of Descartes’ analytical geometry.