Dr Surekha Davies<p>It was a pleasure to chat with <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@sixteenthCgirl" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>sixteenthCgirl</span></a></span> on the podcast "Not Just The Tudors" from <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://bird.makeup/users/historyhit" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>historyhit</span></a></span> about HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY, my new book from @uc_press on the history of the idea of "human" from antiquity to the present.</p><p>We focused on monsters of the early modern period - the era of European oceanic exploration & it's mind-bending effect on ideas about humans and animals - and also talked about the roots of European monster theory in the ancient world. 1/</p><p><a href="https://historians.social/tags/history" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>history</span></a> <a href="https://historians.social/tags/histsci" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>histsci</span></a> <a href="https://historians.social/tags/histmed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>histmed</span></a></p>
#histsci
10 posts6 participants2 posts today
Happy birthday to British-born, American #astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge (1919-2020) who was one of the people instrumental in building our understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis, how nuclei are produced in stars & you and I are all stardust! She was the 1st author of a monumental scientific paper Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, which became known as B2FH from the initials of its authors: Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge (her 
A fundamental historical truth that is too often ignored #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/08/09/conflict-what-conflict/
The Renaissance Mathematicus · Conflict what Conflict?Originally posted as a comment on a Facebook post, a wonderful truth expressed in a few words by the man who was responsible for me starting this blog, historian of biology John Wilkins. As I ha…
Phrenology and IQ tests: the far-right revival of discredited race science
Resurging interest in theories of racial exceptionalism is turbocharged amid nuance-light world of social media
#HistSTM #HistSci #Slavery
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/28/phrenology-and-iq-tests-the-far-right-revival-of-discredited-race-science
Edinburgh University had ‘outsized’ role in creating racist scientific theories, inquiry finds
Exclusive: Investigation finds one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious universities benefited from transatlantic slavery and was haven for white supremacist theories
#HistSTM #HistSci #Slavery
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/27/edinburgh-university-outsized-role-creating-racist-scientific-theories-inquiry
Key people in Edinburgh University’s slavery and colonialism inquiry
including George Combe "One of the most prominent advocates globally of the racist science of phrenology, which wrongly linked skull shape with intelligence" who sold thousands more copies of his book than Darwin's Origin of Species.
#HistSTM #HistSci #Slavery
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/27/edinburgh-university-slavery-colonialism-inquiry
Dog breeds & human races: critique of a false analogy, by Jerry Phillips
#HistSTM #HistSci
https://www.animals24-7.org/2025/07/04/dog-breeds-human-races-critique-of-a-false-analogy-by-jerry-phillips/
The Guardian view on the legacies of slavery: the response to Edinburgh’s report must go beyond academia
#HistSTM #HistSci #Slavery
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/28/the-guardian-view-on-the-legacies-of-slavery-the-response-to-edinburghs-report-must-go-beyond-academia
07-Aug: On this day in 1838, Charles Darwin described his first ever railway journey. He was not overly impressed. #HistSci https://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/darwin-takes-the-train/
The Friends of Charles Darwin07-Aug-1838: Darwin takes the trainOn 7th August 1838, Charles Darwin described his first ever railway journey. He was not overly impressed.
Continued thread
simple substances should have simple names & compounds should have compound names designating their parts. A 19th century painting of them notably includes both Picardet & Mme Lavoisier who deserve to be remembered.
#linocut #printmaking #sciart #womenInSTEM #histsci #mastoArt
https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/1856856615
5/5
Happy birthday to Claudine Picardet (1735-1820) #chemist, #mineralogist, meteorologist & perhaps most importantly, translator of latest science from Swedish, English, German, Italian & possibly Latin to French at the height of the chemical revolution.
She married barrister & member of the Académie royale des sciences, arts, et belles-lettres de Dijon, Claude Picardet in 1755, her entry into the high society scientific
#sciart #printmaking #histsci #womenInSTEM #linocut #chemistry #mastoArt
Book Review: Benjamin Wardhaugh "Counting: Humans, History and the Infinite Lives of Numbers" #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/a-book-you-can-count-on/
05-Aug: On this day in 1832, in what he described as ‘an eventful day’, Charles Darwin and his HMS Beagle shipmates helped put down an armed insurrection in Argentina. More here… #HistSci
https://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/darwin-under-fire/
The Friends of Charles Darwin05-Aug-1832: Darwin under fire (get used to it, Charles!)On 5th August 1832, in what he described as ‘an eventful day’, Charles Darwin and his HMS Beagle colleagues helped put down an armed insurrection in Argentina.
Theologian, historian, jurist & philologist, Joseph Justus Scaliger, to whom we owe the Julian Day Count used in astronomy was born 5 August 1540 #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/counting-the-days/
The Renaissance Mathematicus · Counting the days.All calendars are conventions and a compromise. The natural measures of time the day, the (lunar) month and the year are incommensurable, a long mathematical word meaning you can’t measure the one …
Happy birthday to trailblazing American computer scientist Frances Elizabeth Allen (1932 – 2020) who made foundational contributions to optimizing compilers, optimizing programs and parallel computing. She was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, where she worked from 1957 to 2002 and as an emeritus fellow afterwards. She was the first woman to win the Turing Prize.
IBM Research was recruiting teachers 1/n
This week's #NewBooks at the library: Three very different books. I won a copy of #Fantasy Miniatures at auction. I adopted a damaged copy of #ForensicEntomology. And I bought a second-hand copy of Volume 1 of The Correspondence of #CharlesDarwin.
#Warhammer #Wargaming #GamesWorkshop #Insects #Entomology #Evolution #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon
Happy birthday to #geologist & oceanographic #cartographer Marie Tharp (1920-2006), whose pioneering, thorough & complete ocean floor maps with Bruce Heezen, made using realms of echo sounder data, revealed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
After studying #geology & math, Maurice ‘Doc’ Ewing at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia hired her to draft 1000s of echo sounder profiles. Women were still not allowed to participate in