Working in a museum presents all sorts of opportunities you never thought possible. But I imagine few curators have uttered the sentence: “I’m just off to Holland to pick up Napoleon’s toothbrush.” This is exactly my task next week. It’s been on loan to the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden and is normally on display at the Wellcome Collection. Regular readers of this blog will know we like an anniversary and it just so happens that Napoleon died on 5th May 1821, […]
We sometimes find that objects in our collections suddenly become newsworthy because of events beyond the Museum. This beautiful, but small and unassuming, object on display in Cosmos & Culture is now one of them. It’s a prototype gyroscope from the Gravity Probe B experiment, which has been testing predictions made by Einstein’s general theory of relativity: that a massive body such as the Earth should warp and twist the space-time around it. Four spheres like this one – among the most […]
The 3rd May marks the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. The Festival celebrated the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Crystal Palace as well as advances in British science, technology, manufacturing and art. You won’t be surprised to hear that some of our objects were displayed there. On first look, these fabric samples appear to be simple circular designs. To the trained eye however, the pattern is based on the structure of haemoglobin produced by x-ray […]
Meet Jon, the man tasked with making Lates great.
He’s been working away on the programme for this month’s Space-themed Lates (Wednesday 27 April 6.45 – 10pm) but he’s taken a break to tell us what he’s got in store…
How do you develop a new medical tool? Many of the objects in the Science Museum’s collections are the finished article. You rarely see the hours of perspiration or the moment of inspiration that led to the tool being made in the first place. This is why I really enjoy looking at and researching prototypes. Developed by Kenneth Dobbie in the 1960s, these saws were the first step towards creating a power-operated saw for use during hip replacement surgery. He was working as an Electrical Safety […]
The recent pronouncements by Scott Springer – Borough President of Manhattan – about the rat problem in New York received international attention. While they may have been motivated as much by politics as public health concerns, they once again highlighted our fractious relationship with these particular rodent. Few animals have attained such universal levels of loathing, although more than one friend of mine has enjoyed keeping pet rats – ‘Dave’ being one still remembered with great fondness. But even the […]
We left him in orbit but now it’s time to come back to Earth. Our own version of Yuri Gagarin is back to finish the story of his historic space flight.
Fifty years ago today Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Our version of the great man is here to blog about that life-changing lift-off…
We spend most of our daily lives surrounded by things. Many of which we barely notice. They’re always just there. Lampposts, telephones, pens, kettles, books… They may change in appearance, but certain stuff always seems to keep hanging around. Until, those times you realise that you can’t recall the last time you actually saw one of these ubiquitous items. Typewriters anyone? I’m fascinated by how objects make that transition from commonplace and everyday to banishment, and the ranks of the ‘disappeared’. Fashions change and technological advances […]
In the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the first man in space the Science Museum’s Yuri Gagarin (drama character) has kindly agreed to blog about how he was selected and trained for his mission to space.
Ah Lates – the one night a month we stay open till ten and welcome crowds of the young and fun for a strangely successful blend of science and socialising. And silent disco of course…
Wrapped up beneath these bandages is a mummified animal. How did it die? What material is it wrapped in? Are there amulets we can’t see inside? Is it an animal at all – could they be human remains? To answer question like these and more, the Science Museum is collaborating in a new nationwide project analysing the remains of ancient Egyptian animals. Led by researchers at the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, the Ancient Egyptian Animal Biobank project is aiming to scan, sample […]