-
Ferryman between two cultures: The calling of a historian of science Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Klaas van Berkel
In well-established disciplines like history it is not common to find professionals who admit that they are driven by a “calling” or who say they have a “mission” to fulfill. In emerging disciplines, however, the situation is different: in order to gain recognition these new disciplines need highly driven practitioners, who’s calling enables them to overcome opposition or neglect from the side of the
-
Physics and the quest for transcendence: A Durkheimian approach Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Frans H. van Lunteren
This essay aims to shed some light on the still common sense of a vocation among scientists. Taking its cue from Paul Forman’s analysis of twentieth-century disciplinary science and Emile Durkheim’s social view of religions, it suggests that modern scientific communities resemble religious communities in their penchant for transcendence. The essay aims to illustrate this perspective by looking at some
-
Virtues and vocation: An historical perspective on scientific integrity in the twenty-first century Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 B, e, r, t, , T, h, e, u, n, i, s, s, e, n
According to the Dutch chemist Gerrit Jan Mulder (1802–1880), the principal aim of university education was character building and moral edification. Professional training was of secondary importance. Mulder’s ideas about the vocation and moral mission of the university professor can serve as a historical counterpart to later Weberian, Mertonian, and contemporary ideas on the ethos of science. I argue
-
A Book Review of Elixir: A Story of Perfume, Science and the Search for the Secret of Life by Theresa Levitt, Basic Books, 2023, 314 pp., £20.00, and Molecular World: Making Modern Chemistry by Catherine M. Jackson, MIT Press, 2023, 444 pp., $75.00. | A Book Review of Elixir: A Story of Perfume, Science and the Search for the Secret of Life by Theresa Levitt, Basic Books, 2023, 314 pp., £20.00, and Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-27 Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Abstract not available
-
Constructing the “home-side” of a scientific legacy: Mary Everest Boole, pedagogy, and domesticity Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-10 David E. Dunning
The Victorian writer Mary Everest Boole (1832–1916) developed an idiosyncratic pedagogical treatment of arithmetic, algebra, and logic. Her pedagogy favored active, child-directed learning, and is now generally admired as ahead of its time, though it must be deciphered through fairly eccentric delivery. A recurring theme in Mrs. Boole’s prolific writing is the misunderstood legacy of her late husband
-
Bringing the history of mathematics home: Entangled practices of domesticity, gender, and mathematical work Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 David E. Dunning, Brigitte Stenhouse
Although much scholarship on nineteenth and twentieth century mathematics has focused on processes of professionalization, historical mathematicians themselves rarely experienced their lives as neatly divisible into the professional and the private. Taking marriage as a focal point, this introduction brings the fruitful historiography of gender, collaborative couples, and domesticity in science into
-
Justin Garson//Madness. A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford University Press (2022). 312 pp., £ 56.00 Hardback, ISBN: 9780197613832 Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Matteo Colombo
Abstract not available
-
The problem and probability of marriage for alumnae in Progressive Era United States Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Jemma Lorenat
When Bryn Mawr College opened in 1885, then-president James Rhoads highlighted the precautions taken to ensure that the young women students would remain healthy, in reaction to the publicized warnings of Scottish physician Thomas S. Clouston, M.D. Dr. Clouston’s concern that girls’ higher education would damage their health epitomized a growing anxiety around the status of wives and mothers at a time
-
“All manner of gymnastic evolutions” for science: Dorothea Klumpke (1861–1942) and a life in astronomical research Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Eva Kaufholz-Soldat
In this article, the extraordinary life of the astronomer Dorothea Klumpke (1861–1942) is described in detail for the first time, focussing on the four phases of her career, in which she researched various astronomical questions both as an amateur and as an employee of an observatory and as one half of a couple in science. For this reason, Klumpke's biography provides insights into the cornucopia of
-
History in the pub: The historiography of J.D. Wetherspoon Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-05 Nathan Smith
J. D. Wetherspoon is a popular pub chain in the United Kingdom. Despite its prominence in British cultural life and active and deliberate engagement with history, it has received scant academic attention. Here, this engagement with history is explored with a particular focus on how Wetherspoon approaches the history of science. This paper highlights the focus of Wetherspoon on local history and, in
-
John and Eliza Ware Rotch Farrar: A dual-career marriage in sickness and in health—but mostly sickness Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Amy Ackerberg-Hastings
The story of John Farrar (1779–1853) and Eliza Ware Rotch (1791–1870) is neither a tale about a female mathematician nor one of the “making” of a mathematical career. Rather, the productivity of John, who is known to historians of American mathematics for the Harvard College series of mathematics and natural philosophy textbooks that bears his name, had already begun to decline by the time he married
-
“On the ruins of seriality”: The scientific journal and the nature of the scientific life Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-18 Dorien Daling
Twenty-first-century discourse on science has been marked by narratives of crisis. Science is said to be experiencing crises of public trust, of peer review and publishing, of reproducibility and replicability, and of recognition and reward. The dominant response has been to “repair” the scientific literature and the system of scientific publishing through open science. This paper places the current
-
-
Colima volcano’s archive of observations: The invention of a geological history from Johann Mortiz Rugendas to Paul Waitz Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-10-06 Omar Olivares Sandoval
In 1936 the Austrian geologist Paul Waitz published a seminal bibliographical, historical essay on Colima volcano, Mexico. His article exemplifies well the paths by which geology became what Lorraine Daston has termed sciences of the archive, that is, the manner in which scientific disciplines became concerned with archival work. Waitz's historical description of studies of Colima volcano built a genealogy
-
Long life: Aging and the anxieties of longevity from the premodern to the present Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Caroline Wechsler, Hannah Marcus
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed concerns around life span and aging, but these tensions and anxieties around longevity are not new. Physicians, scientists, and philosophers have been meditating on the idea and consequences of life extension for many centuries. In this short article, we put into conversation some of the ways that people have understood longevity from the early modern period to the
-
“In the shape of a cooking pot over the fire”: Records of solar prominences in the 1180s Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Giles E.M. Gasper, Brian K. Tanner
The second half of the 1180s witnessed an unusual number of solar eclipses visible within Europe in quick succession. These were recorded or referenced in a wide range of sources, from chronicles in Latin and Old Church Slavonic to the earliest epic poem from the medieval Rus’. A comparison between key elements of these accounts reveals several notable features. First, the identification of solar prominences
-
The reductionism of genopolitics in the context of the relationships between biology and political science Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-19 Mateusz Wajzer
The past two decades have seen an increase in the use of theories, data, assumptions and methods of the biological sciences in studying political phenomena. One of the approaches that combine biology with political science is genopolitics. The goal of the study was to analyse the basic ontological, methodological and epistemological assumptions for the reductionism of genopolitics. The results show
-
Why Barbie and not Oppenheimer: A Film Review of Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2023 Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Robert Luke Naylor
Abstract not available
-
-
A Book Review of The Astronomer’s Chair: A Visual and Cultural History by Omar W. Nasim, The MIT Press, 2021, 295 pp. $60.00. Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Emily Winterburn
Abstract not available
-
Garland E. Allen, III (1936–2023): Endeavour editorial board member, historian of biology, activist, and mentor Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-09 Donald L. Opitz
Abstract not available
-
Telegraphic code for fingerprints: How justice was denied to the innovator who helped ameliorate the criminal justice system Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-06-25 Jasjeet Kaur, Gurvinder S. Sodhi
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, an Indian officer of the Bengal Police, sub-inspector Hem Chandra Bose (1867–1949) invented the telegraphic code system for fingerprints and published it in 1916. Sir Charles Stockley Collins of Scotland Yard, who is worldwide recognized as the originator of fingerprint telegraphic technique, published his findings in 1921—five years after Bose’s publication
-
Escaping Nazi Germany: Jewish refugee dentists and their post-emigration careers in the United States of America Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-05-20 Lena Norrman, Dominik Gross
This study is the first to examine the collective of dental lecturers and scientists who emigrated from Nazi Germany to the United States of America. We pay special attention to the socio-demographic characteristics, emigration journeys, and further professional development of these individuals in the country of immigration. The paper is based on primary sources from various German, Austrian, and United
-
A book review of Realism for Realistic People. A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science by Hasok Chang. Cambridge University Press, 2022, £ 75.00 Hardback, ISBN: 9781108470384. Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Matteo Colombo
Abstract not available
-
Spatio-temporal patterns in the history of colonial botanical exploration in India Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-05-09 Rajasri Ray, Madhupreeta Muralidhar
A study of Indian botany during the colonial period provides us with an interdisciplinary sphere covering science, politics, sociology, economics, and other associated domains. The presentation of this rich legacy to general readers often restricts itself to the descriptive accounts of explorers with little analysis of the intermingling of socio-political dynamics, landscape, and geography. We attempt
-
A book review of The Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology by Gregory J. Morgan. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022, 373 pp., $50.00. Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-08 Daniel J. Kevles
Abstract not available
-
-
Francisco Sánchez and the Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum: A sceptical approach Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Helbert E. Velilla-Jiménez
In this paper I analyse Francisco Sánchez’s role in the Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum debate. Despite some studies on the philosophical and medical scepticism of Sánchez and, his extant letter with Christopher Clavius, a participant in the debate, we have few analyses about Sánchez’s position regarding the certainty of mathematics. Sánchez discussed some problems that Clavius analysed in his
-
-
Rhythmic history: Towards a new research agenda for the history of health and medicine Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 Kristin D. Hussey
Rhythm characterizes life on Earth. Daily physiological rhythms of eating and fasting, sleeping and waking, moving and resting, are common to almost all life forms which evolved under the solar light–dark cycle. Despite their ubiquity, historians of health and medicine have yet to grapple with the lived experiences of these daily rhythms in the past. This paper presents a potential new research agenda
-
Fake cells and the aura of life: A philosophical diagnostic of synthetic life Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-10-01 Daphne Broeks, Yogi Hendlin, Hub Zwart
Synthetic biology is often seen as the engineering turn in biology. Philosophically speaking, entities created by synthetic biology, from synthetic cells to xenobots, challenge the ontological divide between the organic and inorganic, as well as between the natural and the artificial. Entities such as synthetic cells can be seen as hybrid or transitory objects, or neo–things. However, what has remained
-
-
The foundations of Israel’s ongoing love affair with science Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Nurit Kirsh
During the last two decades, the history of science in Israel has attracted much scholarly attention. Historians of science, science and technology studies (STS) scholars, and Middle East/Israel studies experts have focused on specific scientific disciplines or periods, analyzing the uniqueness of science and technology in Israel. This article explores what characterized Israel’s scientific activity
-
The energy glitch: Speculative histories and quantum counterfactuals Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-13 Scott W. Schwartz
Energy (in all its conceptualizations and connotations) is a glitch, a bug, an error. Energy is presented here as a roadblock in efforts to articulate and formulate a coherent physical model of the universe, as well as an impediment to achieving just and equitable social relations. Energy broke physics and broke society. This article traces conundrums and uncertainties that prevail in physics today
-
Public history, personal pseudohistory, and VirtHSTM Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-01 Edward Guimont, Megan Baumhammer
In summer 2021, the Virtual History of Science, Technology, and Medicine group hosted two online panels on pseudoscience topics including Flat Earth, Hollow Earth, geohistory, alternate evolution, and forgeries. The panels discussed the roles of such theories in the history of science, as well as the public’s understanding of both history and science.
-
Engineering the public-use reinforced concrete buildings of Ankara during the Early Republic of Turkey, 1923–1938 Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-08-29 Gokhan Tunc, Tanfer Emin Tunc
Today, reinforced concrete (RC) is the most commonly used construction material in Turkey. It first emerged in Europe in the 1850s and was adopted in a number of Late Ottoman period structures, mostly in İstanbul, during the first two decades of the twentieth century. During the Early Turkish Republic (1923–1938), RC appeared in public-use buildings in Ankara, such as the Ethnographic Museum, which
-
-
Neck of the woods: Microbes, memory, and resistance Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-07-07 Adam Dickinson
Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is a key mechanism allowing bacteria to enact genetic changes in response to shifting environmental conditions. The swift lateral movement of genes makes possible antibiotic resistance, which is an increasing medical and ultimately cultural problem. There is evidence that HGT also takes place between species. Bacterial DNA appears in the human mitochondrial genome of
-
Hypersymbiotics™: An artistic reflection on the ethical and environmental implications of microbiome research and new technologies Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-23 Anna Dumitriu
This essay describes my ongoing series “Hypersymbiotics™,” which began in 2012 and explores the potential ways in which our microbiome, genetics, epigenetics and even our environment could potentially be enhanced to turn us into human ‘super-organisms.’ The series includes performances and installations involving BioArt, as well as photographic documentation of ephemeral artworks and takes the form
-
Microbes before microbiology: Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Berlin’s infusoria Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Mathias Grote
Naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg pioneered research on living and fossil infusoria (including protists and bacteria) since the 1830s by collecting samples from all over the world, thus describing numerous microbes and discussing their effects for the planet and for humankind. This article introduces Ehrenberg as a natural historian of microbes and situates his work in the nineteenth century
-
Living through multispecies societies: Approaching the microbiome with Imanishi Kinji Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-10 Laÿna Droz, Romaric Jannel, Christoph D.D. Rupprecht
Recent research about the microbiome points to a picture in which we, humans, are ‘living through’ nature, and nature itself is living in us. Our bodies are hosting—and depend on—the multiple species that constitute human microbiota. This article will discuss current research on the microbiome through the ideas of Japanese ecologist Imanishi Kinji (1902–1992). First, some of Imanishi’s key ideas regarding
-
Introducing the microbiome: Interdisciplinary perspectives Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-03 Davina Höll, Leonie N. Bossert
Abstract not available
-
“Love is a microbe too”1: Microbiome dialectics Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-27 Hub Zwart
Whereas the Human Genome Project was an anthropocentric research endeavour, microbiome research entails a much more interactive and symbiotic view of human existence, seeing human beings as holobionts, a term coined by Lynn Margulis to emphasise the interconnectedness and multiplicity of organisms. In this paper, building on previous authors, a dialectical perspective on microbiome research will be
-
Looking through the microscope: Microbes as a challenge for theorising biocentrism within environmental ethics Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-28 Anna Wienhues
While in the humanities and social sciences at large we can observe posthumanist developments that engage with the microbiome, microbes are still not a major topic of discussion within environmental ethics. That the environmental ethics literature has not engaged extensively with this topic is surprising considering the range of theoretical challenges (and opportunities) it poses for environmental
-
Dis-ease and epidemics: Shock and modern-era perceptions of contagion Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-20 Ian Morley
Abstract not available
-
Corrigendum to “‘The moon quivered like a snake’: A medieval chronicler, lunar explosions, and a puzzle for modern interpretation” [Endeavour 44(4) (2020) 100750] Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-11 Giles E.M. Gasper, Brian K. Tanner
Abstract not available
-
A film review of Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know, directed by Peter Galison. Collapsar, Sandbox Films, 2020. Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Grace Field, Emilie Skulberg
Abstract not available
-
What faces reveal: Hugh Diamond’s photographic representations of mental illness Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Sara Wetzler
Hugh Diamond was a psychiatrist, antiquarian, and photographer, who was the first person to take photographs of female asylum patients. These photographs, using the newly invented technology of the camera, were intended to be objective and accurate visual indicators of mental illness. Considering Diamond’s overlapping interests, his project must be understood within the larger cultural and historical
-
Celestial and mythical origins of the citadel of Bukhara Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-02-27 Jafar Taheri
Narshakhī's The History of Bukhara, an account from the tenth century AD that has been narrated as a mythical and strange story about the formation of the citadel of Bukhara, has received scanty scholarly attention. This study addresses some of the unknown semantic and symbolic origins of Iranian citadels and fortresses through an analysis of documented legends and other classical sources. This analysis
-
Editorial: Highlighting Endeavour's In Vivo Section. Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-12-13 Kate MacCord
-
The dinosaur from 600 BCE! Interpreting the dragon of Babylon, from archaeological excavation into fringe science Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-02 Eva Miller
In 1918, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, excavator of Babylon, Iraq, observed that the depiction of the fantastical “dragon of Babylon” on the sixth century BCE Ishtar Gate must reference a real animal whose closest relatives would be dinosaurs like the iguanodon. Though ignored within archaeology, Koldewey’s comments were taken up in German-American popular science writer Willy Ley’s “romantic
-
The playful unliving: Creativity and contingency in scientific practice Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-08-18 Juan Felipe Guevara-Aristizábal
Standing apart from Martin Heidegger’s 1929–1930 metaphysical lessons is his description of a photograph taken by Josef Maria Eder, for Sigmund Exner, using the lens of a glow worm’s eye. Since the technical details of the production of such a photography are not readily available, I will reconstruct the experimental setting. Paying attention to the technical details opens up a venue for historical
-
Ivan Sokolov and his post-mortem studies of the “Hairy Woman” Julia Pastrana and her son Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-08-05 Suslov Andrey Vladimirovich, Nikolenko Vladimir Nikolaevich, Chairkin Ivan Nikolaevich, Chairkina Natalya Viktorovna, Shepetovskaya Maria Davidovna, Kozhemiako Anastasia Sergeevna
In this article we document the role of Ivan Matveevich Sokolov, anatomy professor at Moscow University, in the mummification of Julia Pastrana, born in Mexico (afterwards an American citizen by marriage), and her son. Sokolov had investigated and described the corpse of this famous “hairy woman” as an example of a congenital anomaly of the genus Homo. Due to the art of Sokolov’s embalming, the mummies
-
Animals, vaccines, and COVID-19 Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-20 Anita Guerrini
Animals, especially mammals, have played a critical role in the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 virus originated in animals, and the virus can jump back and forth between humans and animals. Moreover, animals have been central to the development of the various vaccines against the virus now employed around the world, continuing a long history. The interrelationships between animals and humans in both
-
“Even in the most insignificant publication, there must be plan and order”: On natural history as a theme and genre in Danish-Norwegian parish topographies of the late eighte enth century Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-05-21 Signe Mellemgaard
Like the rest of Scandinavia, Denmark and Norway have a strong tradition of comprehensive topographical descriptions, often written by local clergymen. Physical-economic descriptions of small areas, most often parishes, emerging in the middle of the eighteenth century soon formed a model that remained strikingly uniform until around 1820, when the topographies changed once again. In the Dual Monarchy
-
Uncertainty and the inconvenient facts of diagnosis Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-04-01 Annemarie Jutel
One common contemporary usage of the term “diagnostic uncertainty” is to refer to cases for which a diagnosis is not, or cannot, be applied to the presenting case. This is a paradoxical usage, as the absence of diagnosis is often as close to a certainty as can be a human judgement. What makes this sociologically interesting is that it represents an “epistemic defence,” or a means of accounting for
-
Truth in numbers? Emancipation, race, and federal census statistics in the debates over Black mental health in the United States, 1840–1900 Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-04-01 Élodie Grossi
To the keen observer of American political and medical history, a disturbing set of debates surrounded the sanity of free Black residents of the United States of America after the publication of the controversial 1840 census returns on race and insanity. This article analyzes how the census became a battlefield where physicians and other commentators fought over—and thus shaped—various political meanings
-
Recommended for “frequent perusal” and “improving the science of medicine”: Benjamin Rush’s American editions and the circulation of medical knowledge in the early Republic Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-26 Sarah Elizabeth Naramore
Between 1809 and 1813 leading American physician Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) devoted a significant portion of his time to the production of “American Editions” of four British and colonial medical texts by Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), Sir John Pringle (1707–1782), William Hillary (1697–1763), and George Cleghorn (1716–1789). This occurred during a period where Rush might have written a textbook detailing
-
Lost and found: The Nooth apparatus Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-27 Thomas J.J. McCloughlin
John Mervin Nooth, military surgeon, correspondent of Joseph Priestly and Benjamin Franklin, and noted inventor and scientist has been lost and found several times, through his eponymous invention: the Nooth apparatus. A large glass apparatus superficially resembling a Kipp’s gas generator was used originally for carbonating water during the “fizzy water” craze in the eighteenth century, only to be
-
With strings attached: Gift-giving to the International Atomic Energy Agency and US foreign policy Endeavour (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-05 Maria Rentetzi
In 1958 the United States of America offered two mobile radioisotope laboratories to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as gifts. For the USA, supplying the IAEA with gifts was not only the cost of “doing business” in the new nuclear international setting of the Cold War, but also indispensable in maintaining authority and keeping the upper hand within the IAEA and in the international regulation