When I began writing these columns I had no idea how they might develop. I had accepted the invitation thinking that I would have time on my hands that I could devote to the written word. Part of my intention was to produce pithy, well-chosen comments on contemporary biological research, and to use the opportunity to say all the things one wants to say, but that are excluded from papers by refe...

For centuries, the plague caused fear and panic. The term “bubonic plague” relates to ulcerated lymph nodes (the buboes) observed in the groin, armpit, or neck of the infected person. The plague was transmitted from rodent to rodent—and to humans— by fleas. Today, bubonic plague is treatable if diagnosed early, but the pulmonary (pneumonic) form of the infection still carries a very high risk o...

ion theorem, these operators can be lifted to _+ and _for arbitrary domain cat-egories E ; i.e. _+ and _are binary operators on the category Fun . They are, in fact,the coproduct and the product in Fun : by the parameterised limit theorem it followsthat (F _+G;inlF ;G;inrF ;G ) is the coproduct of F and G , where (inlF ;G)x = inlF:x;G:x andsimilarly for inrF ...

MARIE-CHRISTINE POUCHELLE, The body and surgery in the Middle Ages, transl. Rosemary Morris, Cambridge and Oxford, Polity Press, 1990, 8vo, pp. vii, 276, illus., £35.00. The original edition of this book appeared first in 1983. This English translation follows that of Jacquart's book on sexuality in the Middle Ages: clearly Polity Press have found a niche in the English-reading market. Ultimate...

Today, a successful career in science makes one international or global. People move laboratories and change countries. Researchers collaborate and interact around the globe. The notion of the international nature of science was prominent in the recent BBC program “Desert Island Discs,” in which the guest was Sir Andre Geim, a physicist and the winner, with Konstantin Novoselov, of the 2010 Nob...

MARIE-CHRISTINE POUCHELLE, The body and surgery in the Middle Ages, transl. Rosemary Morris, Cambridge and Oxford, Polity Press, 1990, 8vo, pp. vii, 276, illus., £35.00. The original edition of this book appeared first in 1983. This English translation follows that of Jacquart's book on sexuality in the Middle Ages: clearly Polity Press have found a niche in the English-reading market. Ultimate...

THE WATERS ABOVE FIRMAMENT: An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict by Dino Boccaletti. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020. 136 pages. Hardcover; $99.99. ISBN: 9783030441678. Paperback; $69.99. 9783030441685. *The Waters Above the Firmament is a fascinating tour through exegetical history an offbeat subject: waters above firmament. In both popular and scholarly conversations about science rel...

How does mediated time become human (historically, affectively)? What can the results of an attention to ‘new’ mediation tell us about duration as embodiment and about becoming human in time? This essay approaches the question of when we become post/human through an exploration of anatomical images that mark the connection between bodies/embodiment and the historical reproduction of knowledge. ...