February 2006

Tim Boon, Science Museum, is organizing a session on “Science and documentaries” at the 2006 Film and History League Conference (“The Documentary Tradition”), November 8-12, 2006, www.filmandhistory.org. Here’s his call for papers:
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Who feels inspired to take Paul Miller and James Wilsdon (eds.), Better Humans? The politics of human enhancement and life extension (London, Demos 2006; ISBN:1841801550) as his/her point of departure for a seminar and/or (web) exhibition about the history, presence and future of bodily self-improvement?
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This call for papers has just arrived from BIOS, LSE:
The BIOS Centre is organizing an international conference on 7-9 September 2006 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The aims of the conference are to provide a comparative and global perspective on present forms of practice in the life sciences. The Organizing Committee welcomes proposals for individual papers which seek to make conceptually innovative contributions to the exploration of the character and genealogy of transformations in health, illness, vitality, and pathology. We are particularly (though not exclusively) seeking abstracts which relate to following themes:
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The LabLit.com-website is a “labor of love” website/netzine edited by Jennifer Rohn, who has worked for 15 years in virology, cell biology, cancer research and gene therapy and has, as she says “an incurable addiction to science-related literature”. The site is

“dedicated to real laboratory culture and to the portrayal and perceptions of that culture – science, scientists and labs – in fiction, the media and across popular culture. The site is intended for non-scientists as well as scientists, and the goal is to inform, entertain and surprise”.

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The Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge has launched a new internetbased teaching aid for school children, called Gallery Challnge. See http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/gallerychallenge. They invite to a reception on Tuesday 14th February, 1-3pm, in the Whipple Museum Main Gallery, Department of HPS, Free School Lane, Cambridge.

TALKING EMBRYOS: Interdisciplinary conversations exploring the social roles of the embryo. A one-day conference, 9.30am – 5.30pm, Friday 5th May, 2006, King’s College, Cambridge. Held with support from CRASSH (Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge).

This conference brings together leading academics from a variety of disciplines to discuss contemporary social debates surrounding the human embryo. Our aim is to create new networks, with the hope of sparking productive conversation and collaboration, unconstrained by traditional disciplinary boundaries.

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Sage Ross, a graduate student and blogger at Yale University’s Program in History of Medicine and Science, has distributed the interesting message below through the H-Sci-Med-Tech-list. Sage’s point is that historians of science (and medicine) would get much out of engaging more with Wikipedia, and that writing Wikipedia-entries could also be used as a teaching tool in history of science (medicine) courses.
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In a post from 6 December I marvelled at the fact that there were about 22,4 million blogs registered by the Technorati search machine. Today, two months later, there are 27,1 million blogs, i.e., an increase of more than 75.000 blogs every day! Read more here.
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We’ve just missed the NEUROfest in New York

where some 100 artists in 70 events over 3 weeks presented performances inspired by various neurological conditions. Ended last weekend, unfortunately …

SUTURE: ARTWORK WITHOUT ANAESTHETIC, 14 January – 31 March 2006, Old Operating Theatre Museum

SUTURE is a two part exhibition of works, made in response to the The Old Operating Theatre Museum’s collection of medical artifacts. Following the relocation of the Museum from the Garret to the Crypt of St Thomas’ Church, SUTURE PART 2 presents new works by Richard Squires and Phillip Warnell.
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