@bhgross144
John Merritt Associate Director for Research Services at the Harry Ransom Center; Author of The TVs of Tomorrow-How RCA's Flat-Screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs (Chicago 2018). Posting in a personal capacity.
Big news for fans of research that makes you LAUGH, then THINK!
“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country. We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the USA this year.” #IgNobel #scicomm
Picture of women on a beach John Leech, ‘The mermaids' haunt’. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1854 - 1869. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.
Call for Papers: Women’s Fieldwork and the Making of Nineteenth Century Natural History Collections
We seek articles to complete a special issue on women’s field collecting, and contributions to nineteenth century natural history for Nuncius.
#Histsci #NaturalHistory #WomensHistory #Fieldwork
The O. Henry Museum and its associated historical marker. O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, Sept. 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910) Born in Greensboro, N.C., moved to Texas in 1882, and lived on a ranch near Cotulla. Came to Austin in 1884, and in addition to writing, worked as a pharmacist, musician, draftsman, and bank teller. His first nationally published short story appeared in 1897. Porter began writing under the name O. Henry during three years spent in prison. The 381 stories published while in New York, 1902-10, won him international fame. O. Henry's collected works have been translated into 10 languages. This mid-1890s home of Porter, his wife Athol, and their daughter, opened as a museum in 1934.
Illustration made by O. Henry for Joseph Dixon’s unpublished memoir “Carbonate Days” The caption reads: Bill the “Bonanza King” welcomes his old “compadre” Zeke on his arrival at Santa Fe.
O. Henry’s fedora and shaving kit.
A nice set of O. Henry’s books with some thematically appropriate bookends.
Some friends came to visit me in #Austin this weekend. Before they left we decided to visit the O. Henry Museum.
The author of “The Gift of the Magi” & “The Ransom of Red Chief” lived in this house between 1893 & 1895.
(It’s also the site of the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships!)
#booksky 📚 🗃️
“The whole Solar System is here represented, the comparitive Distances and Magnitude of every Planet & their Satellites, and all their true Motions made by turning a small crank in the manner a Man turns a Grind stone..."
More info: penntoday.upenn.edu/news/rittenh...
#histSTM #histsci #astronomy
To Colonel Aldrin In the hope that he will catch up with my output and think enough of it for us to have that drink still in New York. Cheers Norman Mailer Nov 1970
Also, if anyone knows Buzz Aldrin, could you please let him know that we have his copy of Norman Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_a_Fi...
#Apollo11 #SpaceHistory
Johannes Kepler’s Platonic solar system from the 1621 edition of Mysterium cosmographicum.
Giovanni Domenico Cassini’s 1679 moon map next to James Nasmyth and James Carpenter’s The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite (1874).
An autographed photo that Wernher Von Braun gave to Gloria Swanson. (“To Gloria Swanson with esteem and affection—-Wernher von Braun”)
The plate used to print a lunar map during the New York Journal-American’s coverage of NASA’s Ranger 7 mission.
Today I had the privilege of sharing some of @ransomcenter.bsky.social’s history of science holdings with members of The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and Department of #Astronomy Board of Visitors. Here are a few highlights!
#histsci #histSTM #histastro 🔭 🤘
The cover of the May 1948 issue of Amazing Stories, promoting "Armageddon," a novella by Craig Browning. The cover illustration features a fleet of battleships, a ballistic missile speeding toward the ocean, and a Moorish (?) warrior in the background.
And now for an update about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East we turn to this issue of Amazing Stories from 1948...
#scifi
If you're interested in learning more about the history of magic, be sure to check out @ransomcenter.bsky.social's upcoming exhibition exploring the treasures of Houdini's library!
Further details: www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/...
#speccolls #rarebooks
#Houdini #BookCollecting 🗃️📜
Theodore Hardeen (right) poses with his brother Harry Houdini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hardeen#/media/File:Houdini_brothers_1901.jpg
Ferenc Dezső Weisz was born #OnThisDay in 1876. Weisz followed in the footsteps of his older brother Erik and became a magician & escape artist.
This portrait shows the two Weisz boys, who were better known by their stage names-Harry #Houdini (Erik) & Theodore "Dash" Hardeen (Ferenc).
#magic 📜🗃️🪄
Top-down view of a Chicago-style deep dish pizza--half mushroom, half sausage--prepared in my trusty cast iron skillet! (The serving knife was in the staff kitchen.)
Serving the pizza cold allowed me to capture its internal stratigraphy.
Some of our research fellows had never tried a Chicago-style deep dish pizza…so I made one! 🍕
🎶 Little Johnny Jones he was a U.S. pilot,
And no shrinking vi'let was he.
He was mighty proud when World War Three was declared.
He wasn't scared,
No siree!
And this is what he said on
His way to Armageddon... 🎶
#TomLehrer #comedy
Aspect of an Eclipse of the Sun by the Earth as it Would Appear as Seen From the Moon Plate XXIV from James Nasmyth & James Carpenter, The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite (1874) Harry Ransom Center University of Texas at Austin
Remember: While you're watching tonight's total #LunarEclipse, a viewer on the surface of the moon would see a total #SolarEclipse.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_e...
#astronomy #eclipses #sciart
🌗🌎☀️ 🔭
Portrait of Michel de Montaigne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne#/media/File:Portrait_of_Michel_de_Montaigne,_circa_unknown.jpg
Title page from the first edition of Montaigne's Essais, 1588 Heribert Tenschert Booksellers https://www.heribert-tenschert.com/inventory-printed-books-1/montaigne-essais-first-edition-1588
"The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor causes a war betwixt princes."
A timely quotation from Michel de Montaigne, born #OnThisDay in 1533.
#philosophy #essays
#philsky #booksky
@presvillain.bsky.social is on Bluesky but has not posted since November 2024. Perhaps that will change given recent events...
I fear I may have posted the wrong #MarxBrothers clip yesterday...
#DuckSoup #comedy
Reading this thread, I'm reminded of a scene from Animal Crackers...
("What do you get for not landing on the moon?"
"You couldn't afford it...")
#MarxBrothers #comedy
When Katharine Burr Blodgett discovered nonreflecting glass, the General Electric Company’s public relations machine made her a star
"There's nothing we want to watch on TV tonight, but we're still gonna watch something great..."
(Happy birthday to the RCA #VideoDisc, which was introduced to the public 45 years ago today!)
#histtech #histSTM #OnThisDay
#electronics #RCA #CED
#MoviesAreBetterOnVinyl
Mmm…extruded cornmeal with the delicious flavor of onions!
-Corny
-Salty
-Fried
-Crunchy
-Brittle
-Empty
-Artificial
Thank you for tuning in for this year’s State of the Funyuns.
🤡 🧅
Thank you for writing a great book!
One of the best #histSTM books I've read this year!
(Granted, it's only February, but you should still pick up a copy of Sisters in Science if you're interested in #physics, #histsci, or #WomenInSTEM!)
www.harpercollins.com/products/sis...
Godzilla—Rings of the Monsters!
Portrait of W.H. Auden W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden Literary File Photography Collection Harry Ransom Center University of Texas at Austin
"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade..."
September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden, born #OnThisDay in 1907.
Full poem: poets.org/poem/septemb...
(Portrait HT @ransomcenter.bsky.social)
#poetry #literature #booksky 📖🗃️📜
UT's "controversial topics" policy has received more attention, but yesterday the Board of Regents also approved a new computing school that will merge the Department of Computer Science, Department of Statistics and Data Sciences & the School of Information.
(Details via the Daily Texan)
reminder that Miles Macleod, @federicoboem.bsky.social @yjerden.bsky.social & I have a call for papers out for a special issue on scientific "bubbles" with Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. nominal deadline July 15, plus or minus.
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
This is an educational catastrophe designed to weaken the humanities at University of Texas.
One week after UT Austin announced the consolidation of its ethnic & gender studies departments, the Board of Regents has approved an initiative to limit "controversial topics" in the classroom.
More info via @kutnews.bsky.social: www.kut.org/education/20...
The Third Mahna Mahna
Das Zoot
