Erica Fischer

Webinar: Pursuing a research degree in the history of STM A webinar to orient prospective students on pursuing an MA and PhD in the history of STM, and how to apply to the Hans Rausing Scholarship.

📣Interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree in the history of STM? Wishing to apply to our Hans Rausing Scholarship? Then this webinar is for you!

Pursuing a research degree in the history of STM
Thursday 12 March
17.00-18.00 (GMT)

Register via Eventbrite ⬇️

#histsci #histtech #histmed #histstm

Poster advertising the for applications to Hans Rausing Scholarship 2026/2027 at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at King’s College London. Indicates the call closes by 17 April 2026.

Applications are open until 17 April to our Hans Rausing Scholarship to enter an MA+PhD or PhD-only to study the history of science and/or technology
from October 2026.
Contact a prospective supervisor and find out more about the schemes here: tinyurl.com/mw84w7py

Between you with the two liter and me with the ever-present copy of House of Leaves sitting together in the front row.........

Tell me five classes you took in college:

Social Problems
Natural History of Invertebrates
Religion & the Sciences of Origins
Environmental Microbiology
History of Science

Fun thing about teaching at my alma mater: my students have the profs I had a decade ago, so I get to tell STORIES in lab.

Definitely would require some digital infrastructure. :)

Hi John! All of my TMG vinyl used to come with a download code which was very appreciated. Was that done away with since starting your own label and leaving Merge?

There's also the bee Andrena w-scripta, which is forever messing with my name parsing code.

Comic. [Building with large sign in front of it[ SIGN: Welcome to the *Biology Department* It has been [changeable sign: 3] days since we discovered something existentially horrifying about bugs that makes you question your whole reality

Biology Department

xkcd.com/3140/

Another mass shooting at a school.

At this point, following decades of failures to achieve real gun regulation even with popular support, it's obvious the root cause is the corrupt and sociopathic American ruling class, which plays gun games in a culture war to give themselves ever more power.

Illustration from the 1898-1920 "Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum" showing 32 detailed, colored moth specimens. The moths vary in size, wing shape, and pattern, with colors ranging from browns, yellows, oranges, and creams. Each moth is numbered, with wings either fully spread or partially folded, highlighting diverse textures and markings. The image is a scientific plate with clear, precise depictions emphasizing the anatomical differences among species. The background is a plain beige paper, typical of vintage entomological catalogs.

🦋 Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British museum
London: Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1898-1920

[Source]

NONE in Life science?! NONE?!

Happy to pass the chapter along, if you want it!

I think this is the sampling bias + roads paper I was thinking of: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Some folks did do a thing comparing locality data to road maps and essentially proved that roads horribly bias occurrence data, but I'm blanking on the name of the paper.

I did localities + letter writers' addresses for specimens and letters at NHM London, but it needs editing from a PhD chapter 😅

scan of a color book plate, illustration of an insect vivarium, shallow water bottom with aquatic vegetation and dry soil with flowers behind, housing several species of insects in various life stages including butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and beetles visible inside

“THE VIVARIUM; OR, INSECT-HOME.
FOR OBSERVING THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS, AND OTHER INSECTS.”
Plate I in _The butterfly vivarium; or, Insect home_ by Henry Noel Humphreys (London, 1858)
via BHL:
www.flickr.com/photos/biodi...

Two paper-cut butterflies pinned to the wall of the exhibition room. Above is the Adonis blue (Lysandea bellargus, dorsal view) and below is the Spanish greenish Black-tip (Euchloe bazae, ventral view).

General view of one of the exhibition walls. The density of pinned specimens intends to create a vertical gradient. The bottom represents the past few decades and baseline abundance, while the top represents the recent decrease in their population.

A detailed view of one of the room's columns. There are paper replicas in many different colours and sizes. They all depict emblematic or endangered species of moths (such as Graellsia isabellae) and butterflies (such as Parnassius apollo).

A first-person view of one of the exhibition's pieces: a container housing together host plants of certain species of Lepidoptera.

'En extinción. Lepidoptera', by Toya Legido, starts tomorrow at RJB-CSIC.

It features more than 4,000 paper-cut butterflies belonging to 50 species, representing their own decline ✂️🦋

Butterflies once again bridge the gap between #science 🧪 and #art 🎨!

Oh look! Me and @nhcooper123.bsky.social have done a podcast!

For each episode we scour the @nhm-london.bsky.social's collections for weird and fun specimens that fit the theme, and then ramble to each other about them.

So if that's your bag, give it a listen! 🎉

USGS Bee Lab at the Eastern Ecological Science Center The USGS Bee Lab supports research on native bees. As part of that program we and our co-located USFWS partners develop identification tools and keys for native bee species, take public access hi reso...

The legendary USGS Bee Lab is being shut down. The 2026 budget proposal defunds the Ecosystem Mission Area, which supported the lab. If their science helped your work, there’s still time to make your voice heard. Read below. (1/4)
🧪 #pollinators #Pollinators #USGS #Entomology #Hymenoptera 🪲🪳

A quick and typed-on-my-phone-riddled-with-typos thread about why I think people need to support NPR/PBS, even though they did post that one interview you didn't like:

Butterfly heist 70 years ago is still causing flutter Braby has spent thirty-odd years researching butterflies and moths, so when alarm bells start ringing follows up

When lepidopterist Michael Braby spotted something odd on a rare butterfly specimen, an old case was re-opened: a heist involving Scotland Yard & a forgery that created a flutter throughout the taxonomic world.

cosmosmagazine.com/nature/butterfly-heist-70-years-ago-is-still-causing-flutter/

Just a reminder:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lacks formal education or professional credentials in critical scientific fields such as biology, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, immunology, virology, epidemiology, genetics, pharmacology, or medicine.

We are risking plunging the United States into a dark age of entomology next week. USDA programs are facing massive lay-offs next week and the public should be aware of the impact. If you care about food systems, forests, invasive species, this thread is for you. Read Below: 🧪 #entomology #science

Cultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminated Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

The nicest apology I've ever received! What a lovely moth.

how DARE you accuse me of being a coleopterist? 😆

There's one at Cambridge, too, in the Whipple Museum.

DOGE Has Decimated the Institute of Museum and Library Services DOGE has eliminated the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), placing all its employees on administrative leave.

RIP, Institute of Museum and Library Services. My latest for artnet. news.artnet.com/art-world/do...

the PhD has officially arrived in the post, so this was very well timed on my part!

Stay tuned for the papers that come out of my thesis :)