I september 2007 havde den danske lydkunstner Jacob Kirkegaard premiere på sit spektakulære værk ‘Labyrinthitis’ på Medicinsk Museion.

Værket var bestilt af Medicinsk Museion, og blev opført i auditoriet søndag den 2. september 2007. Senere har Jacob fremført ‘Labyrinthitis’ i Museum of Jurassic Technology i Culver City, September 2008.

Nu kan du købe ‘Labyrinthitis på CD fra TouchShop. Læs mere om værket på http://www.corporeality.net/museion/2008/10/25/music-from-the-inner-ear-2/

Jacob Kirkegaard’s spectacular sound work ‘Labyrinthitis’ — originally commissioned by Medical Museion, first performed in the anatomical theatre at Medical Museion on Sunday, 2 September 2007, and again at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, September 2008 — is now for sale on CD. You can order it from TouchShop. Read more below:

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The ‘Material Worlds’ conference at the University of Leicester, 15-17 December 2008 — marking Susan Pearce’s long and distinguished contribution to the field of material culture studies, museum studies and archaeology — will take a broad look at material culture and theoretical approaches to it. Themes include how to deal with museums and heritage, the roles and values of objects, designing and making, objects in museums, representing and interpreting culture, collectors and collecting, etc. The draft program is very rich and varied, with plenty of sessions and discussion panels of interest for medical museum people.

In her short obituary of George E. Palade — who was the first to identify what was later called ribosomes (thus a shared Nobel prize in 1974) — Andrea Gawrylewski, staff writer at The Scientist, refers in passing to something that Palade wrote in his autobiographical essay:

My father had hoped I was going to study philosophy at the University, like himself, but I preferred to deal with tangibles and specifics, and – influenced by relatives much closer to my age than he was – I entered the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest (Romania) in 1930.

Interesting opposition between philosophy and medical science as dealing with ‘tangibles’ and ‘specifics’. Wonder if this is valid for historians too? Is there an opposition between being interested in the philosophy of history and preferring to work with historical tangibles and specifics, as we do in museums?

I for my part believe it is possible to embrace both (but maybe I’m just naïve). In fact, most people I know are either philosophically minded or tangible-oriented. Does this have anything to do with personality structure? Or is it an institutional thing?

The emergence of evidence-based medicine is one of the most interesting issues in the history of contemporary medical history. Wish I were in Stockholm on Monday 3 November when Ingemar Bohlin from the STS Section at the University of Gothenburg will speak about evidence-based decision making in a science-based society and the origin, distribution and limits of the ‘evidence movement’ in an afternoon seminar at the Nobel Museum. Ingemar will reconstruct four strands of historical development that together led to current evidence-based medicine, and describe the relations between them in order to throw light on procedures for contemporary knowledge production. Write to bokning@nobel.se if you want to participate; a background text is available. More info from Paul Sjöblom, paul.sjoblom@nobel.se.

The next issue of the Vienna science magazine heureka! will feature an overview of the most evil, base, fraudulent and slimy scientists in history — a Hall of Shame — “um das breite Spektrum an ethisch verwerflichen und fragwürdigen Motivationen abzubilden”.

Not only Nazi scientists, but all kinds of “Menschenhasser und skrupellose Experimentatoren, die übelsten Plagiatoren und Betrüger, die größten Neider und die hoffnungslos Verblendeten” (sounds much better in German than in English, especially when you read it out loud!).

The inclusion of “hoffnungslos Verblendeten” is probably a mistake, because if this criterion is taken literally, heureka! will be thicker than Who’s Who in Science. But otherwise, send your suggestions (with short motivations) to the editor, Oliver Hochadel (hochadel@falter.at) before Friday 24 October.

The initiative has already given rise to protests: Stuttgart professor in history of science and technology, Klaus Hentschel, finds it “HÖCHST fragwürdig” because he believes it feeds into a public tendency “zur Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei”, like in “US-Cowboy-Filmen” (from today’s Oldenburg-list).

Some time ago, the National Library of Medicine opened a new exhibition called ‘Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health’ in the library foyer on NIH campus, Bethesda. Featured stories include the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the US, the Chinese barefoot doctor movement, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the WHO smallpox eradication program.

I haven’t seen the physical exhibition, only the web version. Admittedly, public health is probably one of the most difficult topics for exhibitions (physical or web-based). But given NLM’s huge economic ressources, one could expect something much better. For example, take a look at the online games on the Online Activities & Resources page. If you haven’t seen a late-1990s interactive website before, here’s your chance; it’s against the odds.

A laudable aim — to illustrate “the importance of clean water, safe housing, nutritious food, affordable healthcare, and protection from violence in fostering health and wellbeing” — is lost in a pretty boring web product.

I wonder if this video will attract that many postgrads to “research training, career development and mobility schemes allowing researchers to be truly mobile both internationally and between commercial and non-commercial sectors”? (the European Union Marie Curie Actions programme).

That said, the retro style is obviously inspired by the classic ‘Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level’ (1971) (cf. the upper video with the one below).  

[biomed]HDw4gk5pYl8[/biomed] [biomed]u9dhO0iCLww[/biomed]

(thanks to Jessica for the EU video tip) 

Just a few years ago, this museum with its old buildings, rich collections, and esoteric research projects was one of the best preserved secrets in the Danish museum world. Few members of the public knew about our existence.

But now we are gradually opening up the place, with new temporary exhibitions, expanded regular opening hours, etc. Part of the visibility strategy has been to put up a banner on the front facade. Which hasn’t been easy, because you are not allowed to put anything on our classified buildings (or on the interior walls, for that sake) without the permission of The Heritage Agency of Denmark. So we’ve spent years (literally) on correspondence forth and back to satisfy the agency’s strict aesthetic requirements.

Please don’t ask how many hours we’ve spent negotiating the colour, size and font of this piece of plastic (some things in museum life do not always come easily, and heritage agencies aren’t among the most creative government bodies when it comes to design restrictions).

But, at last, here it is — Medical Museion’s first banner (the ‘drops’ at the bottom is the logo of the Faculty of Health Sciences).

(see also Bente’s post on Museionblog here)

Today’s poetic quote on science blogging from Deepak Singh:

I think all of us have bemoaned the lack of depth in mainstream scientific coverage, in the shallowness of press releases. One of the roles we [i.e., science bloggers] can play/should play is bringing reality to the science many of us love and breathe. To highlight the beauty and power of what we do and its fragility. To explain the potential of scientific discoveries, yet keep them real and not make them sound like a silver bullet to solve all ills

That’s why I think (again and again) that In the Pipeline is such an excellent science blog, because it brings the reality — both the beauty and the fragility — of the lab into life. The power of plain talk.