The Giant’s Shoulders Blog Carnival Is Here!

Welcome to the 47th edition of the Giant’s Shoulders Blog Carnival! We’re delighted to have this opportunity to showcase the latest and greatest online writing (and talking!) on a variety of topics including 20th century literary figures, astronomy, alchemy, geography, publishing, and letter-writing.

In alpha order by blogger’s last name (or first name or blog name if that’s all we could find!), then, and divided only by media type, here is your recommended reading list:

Brandon of Siris is following up alchemy in Some Points about the Four Elements.

Ben Breen of Res Obscura shows us views of the New World in Images of a New World: the Watercolors of John White.

Our very own Blog Carnival ringmaster ThonyC of the Renaissance Mathematicus lets us in on the politics behind the knighting of Sir Isaac Newton in A Knighthood for Science?, tells us about selenography in Who Put the Names on the Moon?, gives us a date to celebrate for Paracelsus in What’s In a Name?, and talks about the divide — or not — between science and religion in A Mathematician Who Became Pope.

Richard Carter of The Red Notebook reviews the recent Aardman Animation film Pirates! for us ( and gets in a Doctor Who reference while he’s at it.)

Richard Carter of Gruts walks us through some translation work in Wittgenstein’s Drachenflugexperiment.

Dan of AmericanScience brings us into the intersection of capitalism and the history of science (medicine, technology, etc.) with (Capitalist) Numbers to Narratives.

Emma Davidson of the Royal Society’s Repository blog points us to some wonderful medical art about Eggs.

Maria Dolan of the Smithsonian.com History and Archaeology site tells us about medical cannibalism in a review of two books on the subject: The Gruesome History of of Eating Corpses as Medicine.

Ian Hacking of the Los Angeles Review of Books offers up a selection from his introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Darin Hayton of the PACHSmörgåsbord asks about professional historians and boredom in Is Professional History Boring? and tells us about 17th century “disease mongering” in A Scurvy Epidemic in 17th-century England.

Rebekah Higgitt of teleskopos tells us about Dorset’s Cabinets of Curiosity. She also goes over to the Board of Longitude Project Blog to talk about Nevil Maskelyne and the history of longitude in Speaking at the Royal Society: Maskelyne’s Reputation and “the powder of sympathy” and the use of psychics in finding the lost Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin in Long-Distance Longitude.

Paul Holden of paulholden02 shares his work on the Lanhydrock Atlas in ‘A masterpiece of the estate surveyor’s work’: The Lanhydrock Atlas c.1694-6

Kristin Hussey at the Science Museum of London blog talks about the labelling of 19th century drugs in C.OPII: Drugs in the 19th Century Pharmacy.

Lucy Inglis of Georgian London gives a snapshot of Lady Mary Montagu (possibly best known for introducing innoculation more widely into Western Europe) in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Destroying Angel.

Tim Jones of the Zoonomian talks about the shadow side of John Hunter in The Darker Side (of some) Scientists.

Michael Kay of Thinking Through My Fingers talks about when deforestation was a good thing (quite awhile ago, it turns out!)

Then Lee of AmericanScience introduces us to talks about H.P. Lovecraft’s fascination with science in Lovecraft, Science, and Epistemic Subcultures.

Nick Lomb of Transit of Venus gives us an overview of the voyages of Captain Cook in Cook’s Three Voyages.

Gavin Lucas of the Creative Review illustrates how to measure the universe in Measuring the Universe.

Lukas of AmericanScience talks about the convergences of environmental history and the history of science in Environmental History & the History of Science: The New Synthesis?

Maxwell’s Demon gives us some food for thought: Have We Ever Lost Mathematics?

Greg Meyer of Why Evolution is True discusses the history of falsifiability in The Discovery of Neptune and Falsifiability.

Michael Meyer of the Periodic Tabloid Blog talks about Newton and alchemy in How to Make HIstory of Science Interesting: Part I.

Christian Perfect, Peter Rowlett, and Katie Steckles of the Aperiodical play Aladdin for Felix Klein in Klein: Outside the Bottle.

The Physician’s Palette gives us 5 Lessons Learned from Laennec.

Susana Polo of The Mary Sue tells us about Albert Einstein’s correspondence with a South African girl about science in Albert Einstein’s Letter to a Little Girl who Loved Science and Hated Being a Girl.

John Ptak of Ptak Science Books tells us about the relations between children and astrology in Renaissance Engravings of the Influences of Planets.

Mike Rendell of the Georgian Gentleman blog meditates on the fifty pound note in Matthew Boulton–the Ultimate Man of Power and tells us about the life (and death) of John Goodricke in Signing Off: John Goodricke, Astronomer, Died 20th April 1786.

Steven van Roode of Transit of Venus takes us on a not entirely astronomical Stroll Through Aiken’s Woods.

The Royal Society’s Science News offers up thoughts on the Newton publication snafu in The Fishy Blunder That Nearly Prevented Newton’s Masterpiece from Being Published.

Michael J. Ryan of Palaeoblog tells us about the history of Canadian geology in Born This Day: Sir William Logan.

Ian Sample of The Guardian’s Science section discusses the vagaries of 17th century scientific publication in How A Book About Fish Nearly Sank Isaac Newton’s Principia.

Amy Shira Teitel at soapboxscience discusses the US and Russian attempts to explore Mars in Exomars and the History of Mars Exploration — Can Russia Help?

Will Thomas of Ether Wave Propaganda discusses Robert K. Merton and the Dictionary of Scientific Biography in Merton, the DSB, and the Failed Digital Humanities of the 1960s.

Chris Vallance of BBC News Technology covers the GCHQ release of the Alan Turing Papers on Code Breaking.

Romeo Vitelli of Providentia covers The Great New York Starvation Challenge, an investigation into the effects of fasting.

Kirsten Walsh of the Early Modern Experimental Philosophy blog works on a logic problem in Is Newton’s Explanation of Gravity a Hypothesis?

Andrea Wulf writes in the Wall Street Journal Books section about the upcoming transit of Venus in How the Transit of Venus Sparked a Scientific Revolution and, in Transit of Venus, compares attempts to observe the 1769 transit in Out of Diaries: 28 April 1769.

William Zeitler chimes into the transit discussion with Franklin and the Transit of Venus.

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We would love to be able to offer you in-post viewing and listening for all these great a/v resources, but that would overwhelm our humble blog! So keep following those links, folks…

Leonardo: Anatomist.

The Long History of Dietetics: Thinking about Food, Expertise, and the Self.

The Royal Society’s Picture Library.

The Jacobean Space Programme – Wings, Springs, and Gunpowder: Flying to the Moon from 17th Century England.

Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), the Father of Flight.

The Day the World Discovered the Sun.