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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 5h

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

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Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 4h

📢 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 · 3h

“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 · 5h

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. 🔭

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 5h

‘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 · 5h

#womeninstem #booksky 📚💙

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 16h

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 · 6h

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 · 6h

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 · 6h

Embellished a bit by Westwood of course.

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 6h

Here you go..

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 6h

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 · 6h

Helicopters don’t like high altitudes.

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 6h

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 · 11h

Something wrong with the link

Reposted

Michael Shallcross @michaelshallcross.bsky.social · 19h

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 · 15h

Tolkien was a eugenicist?

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 15h

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 · 4d

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 · 4d

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 · 2d

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 · 16h

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

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 16h

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 · 16h

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 · 16h

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.

bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 17h

Thanks for that

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Reposted

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · Aug 11

I'll make a 🧵 of my notes on this book here. To get us started:

"There's no such thing as the scientific method, and there never was.

And yet, 'the scientific method' is alive and well. […] Why? Because 'the scientific method' is a myth—and myths are powerful things."

🧪#metasci #philsci #STS

Cover of the book The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey
by Henry M. Cowles

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 17h

quacking humbugs needs more play in today’s vernacular

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · Sep 18

James on Herbert Spencer: "Of all the incoherent, rotten, quacking humbugs & pseudo-philosophers which the womb of all-inventive time has excreted [Spencer] is the most infamous."

Wow tell us how you really feel, Bill 👀