Jon Agar

@jonagar.bsky.social

7.8K followers 590 following 670 posts

historian of modern science and technology

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Philosophy 28%

Physics 19%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Steven French, Jon Agar, Aileen Fyfe , and 1 more Steven French, Jon Agar, Aileen Fyfe, Massimiliano Simons

BSHS @bshsnews.bsky.social · 6d

Nominations are open for the BSHS Pickstone Prize 2026, recognising the best scholarly English-language book in the history of science.
📆 Deadline: 31 Jan 2026.
Anyone may nominate (self-nominations welcome).
Submit via our online form on the BSHS website www.bshs.org.uk/the-bshs-pic...

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 6d

Snow sleet and rain in London

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 7d

Can confirm

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 7d

Shown to me, swept from chalk grassland on Box Hill a week or so ago: purseweb spiderlings (Atypus affinis): the UK’s only wild tarantula close relative

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you brain for waking me up and shouting ‘Toyah Willcox is German for Expensive Wants Cook’s’

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 10d

Moral guidance needed.

My son was in Brick Lane and assembled this: The Doner Bagel

Says it was delicious

But is this right? Should I intervene?

Reposted by Tim Bale

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 11d

The deprivation results for my little slice of Hackney are quite stark.

The one outlier (education and skills, near the least deprived) is making me reflect

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 11d

Here’s your official standards guidance for what colour your under pavement pipes should be

A table from an official guidance document, telling you what colour pipes and cables under city streets should be eg blue polymer for water

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 11d

It’s raining. Should I take my 9am Thinking about Technology class out of the classroom to inspect the revealed infrastructure of Euston Road/Gordon Street?

Pavement taken up to reveal green, orange, white and black pipes and cables on a street corner near UCL

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 12d

Going to a lecture about Denisovans. Quite excited. Topic has been a minor obsession

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 14d

Today at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed a chapter in Richard Whatmore's The End of Enlightenment, ‘Chapter Three: Shelburne, his circle and the end of Britain’, Penguin, 2023. (Suggested by Frank James) www.penguin.co.uk/books/444281...

The End of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment is popularly seen as the Age of Reason, a key moment in human history when ideals such as freedom, progress, natural rights and constitutional government prevailed. In this radical r...

www.penguin.co.uk

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 14d

On 28th October at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we chatted about David Stack's ‘Alfred Russel Wallace’s Darwinian Opposition to Eugenics’, Journal of the History of Biology (2024) 57, pp. 557–579 doi.org/10.1007/s107... (suggested by Norberto Serpente)

Alfred Russel Wallace’s Darwinian Opposition to Eugenics - Journal of the History of Biology

This article revisits the question of Alfred Russel Wallace’s relationship to eugenics and explores the basis of Wallace’s consistent rejection of attempts to label him a eugenicist. Whereas some scho...

doi.org

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 16d

Nettle-leaved Bellflower (under the box woods) and Clustered Bellflower (in the chalk grassland at the top), still flowering, on Box Hill.

Interesting bellflower seed heads too #wildflowerhour

Nettle-leaved bellflower. It’s purple and slightly hairy

Clustered bellflower. Four purple flowers in a cluster in grass (on the chalk grassland at top of Box Hill)