Fancy a bit of light relief in the run up to Christmas? Team ScienceBL challenge you to our 12 days of Christmas quiz - with a science theme of course.

List your answers in the comment section below or reply on Twitter – no cheating! Answers will be revealed later today.

(N.B. These questions first appeared in last week’s TalkScience Christmas quiz – our yuletide extravaganza of festive science puns and unashamed geekery)

Update: 11am; 18/12/15. Answers added below. Scroll down to find out the correct answers.

A Partridge in a pear-tree - Which ester is used to give pear drops their distinctive pear flavour?

2 Turtle doves - Is the dove heart smaller or larger in proportion to body size than the human heart is?

3 French hens - What name is given to an adolescent female chicken?

1. Wattle
2. Pullet
3. Spur
4. Capon            

4 Colly birds (or Calling birds) - What type of bird is a colly bird? 

5 Gold rings - What is the atomic number for gold?

1. 72
2. 77
3. 79
4. 80 

6 Geese-a-laying - What is the main protein constituent of the white of an egg?     

7 Swans-a-swimming - The Athena SWAN Charter to support women in science was established in what year?   

8 Maids-a-milking - What is the name of the family of proteins that make up 80% of all the protein in cow’s milk?

9 Ladies dancing - How many bones are there in the human foot and ankle?       

10 Lords-a-leaping - The International Telecommunication Union announced the decision to ditch “leap seconds” will be delayed until what year?             

11 Pipers piping - Which of these pipes will produce the highest note? (see image above)

12 Drummers drumming - A decibel is one tenth of one bel. Who is this unit named in honour of?  

(All images Public Domain - from Pixabay)

 

ANSWERS

1. Ethyl acetate/ethanoate gives the pear flavour. Isomyl acetate/ethanoate gives a banana flavour.
2. Larger. this enables the bird’s cardiovascular system to support the high metabolic needs required for flying
3. b) Pullet. Capon is a castrated male. Wattles are flaps of skin under the beak. The spur is the horn-like protrusion on the leg
4. Blackbird. Colly is an Old English term for 'black,' from the word 'colliery,' meaning coal mine 
5. c) 79
6. Albumen (or Albumin/Ovalbumin) Egg white is ~90% water, most of the remainder is albumen.
7. The Athena Swan charter was established in 2005. More details here: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/
8. Caseins
9. 26 (or 28 if you include the sesamoid bones at the base of the big toe)
10. The decision has been delayed until 2023
11. The answer is A. The shorter the tube, the higher the note.
12. The bel is named after Alexander Graham Bell – more commonly known for inventing the telephone

Last month we took our successful TalkScience series on the road to Leeds Central Library. Here Ruth Amey  (PhD student at the University of Leeds) shares some of the highlights of the event.

The GM crop era may seem like a golden age of technofixes, but in a recent ‘TalkScience’ discussion in Leeds the panel explored some of the less obvious risks associated with this technology. It is commonly stated that GM crops can ‘help feed the world’, but the speakers challenged this idea and considered issues of control, ecological harm and the unknown dangers from altering genetic code.

This is the first TalkScience event to be held outside of the British Library’s London’s site, organised by the West Yorkshire branch of the British Science Association in collaboration with the national British Science Association, British Library and Leeds Central Library.

Panellists (left to right): Professor Jurgen Denecke, Andy Goldring, Liz O’Neill and chair Dr. Alice Owen listen to the final speech from Martin Coates. Photo credit: Jing An

What are GM Crops?

Genetically Modified (GM) crops are plants which are grown for food and have had their genetic code altered. This is often done to introduce a trait to a crop that does not occur naturally, by modifying DNA. For example, rice could be cultivated to produce vitamin A, or crops are altered to produce a small amount of toxin that is harmful to the insects that would eat them.

Can GM Crops really feed the population?

It is a phrase commonly heard that GM crops will ‘feed the world’, and yet Professor Jurgen Denecke from Leeds University pointed out that we already grow enough food to feed more than the population. The problem is not in the amount produced, Jurgen argued, but instead the issue is in limited energy for transportation and Liz O’Neill, director of GM Freeze, argued that starvation is a socioeconomic problem – ‘people starve because they are poor’. GM crops aren’t a quick-fix for world hunger. The problem is in politics and not production.

 The issue of control

‘No-one should own genetic code’ posed Liz O’Neill. If a company can patent a crop, then they can charge royalties and control who can buy that crop. Andy Goldring, CEO of the Permaculture Association network, invited us to imagine a future in which a handful of companies control the world’s food supply, and require you to buy only their crops, and puts people in jail for using traditional crops. ‘This is almost like a James Bond film!’ jested Andy – but with GM Crops could this be the future? GM crops gives the potential for companies to have complete control of a seed, and consequently complete control of our food. Martin Coates, Managing Director of Agrantec, explained how complex the food chain is and without transparency GM crops are potentially an opportunity for companies to exploit this complexity - ‘Anyone working with genetic modification needs to recognise that GM Crops are not just about science, but also about political and corporate power’.

Ecological harm

Andy Goldring particularly highlighted the ecological problems. Certain GM Crops can produce toxins harmful to non-target insects, such as butterflies. Planting different crops also affects crop rotations and affects biodiversity, which are particular issues to Permaculture’s aim to create a sustainable society from ‘permanent agriculture’.

Fear of the unknown

We can’t predict the long-term effects of GM crops. Ecosystems are complicated, crops are hard to contain and cross-contamination can occur.  ‘DNA is not lego!’ proclaimed Liz O’Neill – altering genetic code is complicated, there’s a lot that can go wrong.

Take-home messages

The closing remarks all followed a broadly similar theme. Jurgen Denecke maintained that every method that increases knowledge is a good thing and Martin Coates suggested we should be supportive of research that makes us understand GM crops better. Andy Goldring too urged us to keep an open mind about science, all of which answered a question from the floor about our society’s responsibility to pursue the potential of GM Crops. But ultimately the panel agreed with Liz O’Neill’s caution to separate the scientific potential of GM crops to how GM crops are being produced now. Andy Goldring stressed that we should follow the money and make sure crops aren’t about making shareholders wealthier. Ultimately, it seems there is a political issue behind GM crops that perhaps, currently, is bigger than the science.

We invited the audience to share with us their views on GM Crops before and after the debate; the audience overwhelmingly voted with a positive opinion of GM Crops.

Photo credit: Anna Woolman

The panel included:

• Liz O'Neill from GM Freeze, the UK umbrella campaign for a moratorium on GM in food and farming.
• Professor Jurgen Denecke from Leeds University - Professor for Plant Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biological Sciences
• Andy Goldring from Permaculture, the national charity that supports people to learn about and use permaculture – ‘Permanent Agriculture’
• Martin Coates from Agrantec - an all-in-one cloud based data management system to meet the needs of the food industry.

Chair:

• Alice Owen from Leeds University – Lecturer in Business Sustainability & Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment

Alexander Brown reflects on the recent Memory Matters event in collaboration with UCL Neuroscience.

If I wanted to define ‘Memory Matters: The Art and Science of the Brain’ with a quote, it would be the words of Lewis Carroll’s White Queen in “Alice Through the Looking Glass”: ‘It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.’ In short, it was too fine an evening to be terse about.

The Memory Matters event programme

In the erudite setting of the British Library, sheltered from familiar London screeches, the event appropriately began with an example of procedural memory, the tango. The passionate and strangely grave dancers were scientist and artist collaborators Nicky Clayton and Clive Wilkins, whose theme was mental time travel. Clive introduced memory as a subjective yet shared experience allowing exploration of the past, prediction of the future, and the envisioning of imaginary worlds. Nicky then spoke of mental time travel in science. The hippocampus, the hub of declarative memory, was introduced, and the consequences of its destruction portrayed through a heartrending video interview of musician and amnesiac Clive Wearing. With only a moment-to-moment consciousness, the absence of the permanent marker of the past abandoned his present to mere thoughts, passing away one by one into oblivion. This man, who had no memory of having eaten, tasted or touched, nevertheless stated: “consciousness has to involve me”. This was followed by the story of a study on caching food in that remarkable bird, the jay. When left in either a ‘breakfast room’ or a ‘hungry room’ over a series of nights, the jay was five times more likely to store food in the ‘hungry room’ the next morning.  This demonstrated the jays ability to plan for the future, bettering small children in that activity.

Clive then spoke on the role of mental time travel for the artist. As Carroll alluded to, humans are the only species that allow time to move in two directions, via thought. This process is coloured by our culture, history, and mistakes.  Sir Frederick Bartlett, experimenting on subjects asked to recall fragments of Canadian Indian folklore, revealed how our memories can rewrite history according to self-serving preconceptions. The Moustachio Quartet, a tetralogy of novels penned by the speaker himself, mines mental time travel for ‘tools in the artist’s toolkit’. The four books can be read in any order, giving the reader power to distort and reinterpret the action of the novels just as our imagination or the order of events might reshape our reality. This phenomenological approach to memory, in which phones and teacups are mere extensions of our being, is both individualistic and also shared, and from it spring the ideas (and prejudices) of society. Memory becomes our social organization. As was discussed following an insightful question from the audience, this collective vision is one of many possible visions, equally as subjective as the individual one, and certainly less sincere.

Interval activities at Memory Matters event

Three breakout rooms were on show during the interval. The first, ‘Perceptions of Dementia’, hosted by the Alzheimer's Society challenged assumptions. Film and discussion provided the opportunity to step into the shoes of someone with dementia, enduring the difficulty of making a cup of tea and desperation on busy London streets. The second, ‘Forgetting to Fly’, celebrated the fruit fly in modern neuroscience, displaying common tests of locomotion and one using the flies’ moreish tastes for cider vinegar and rotting banana to test its memory. This room was hosted by early career researchers from UCL's Institute of Healthy Ageing. The third, ‘Voices of Science’, provided an online collective, subjective memory of oral histories from past greats from British science and technology.

On returning to the lecture theatre, ‘I Remember Things’ showcased the talents of Chris Rawlins, who, treating memory as a ‘muscle’ to be trained, was able to recall street names and places in London based only on map grid references given to him by members of the audience. He followed this with a demonstration of a memory-improving technique, and some fantastic feats of photographic memory.

Memory Matters performers (L-R: Hugo Spiers, Chris Rawlins, Nicky Clayton and Clive Wilkins)

Finally Hugo Spiers brought us back ‘from tap dancing to facts’, giving an overview of the ‘abnormal’ brains of London taxi drivers, whose posterior hippocampus swells as they commit London’s many streets to memory. We learnt that the posterior hippocampus is more active the greater its options, such as when stepping out onto a sunlit courtyard without anywhere in particular to go. A very elegant experiment on rats was described, where the rodents were shown rice beyond a barrier in a particular inaccessible location. Following sleep, they tested the frequency at which they later made the correct turning towards the area with the rice, now available. The results showed that rats - quite splendidly - appear to dream of the future, emphasizing the role the past plays in planning ahead. The rat creates a map of the future with echoes of the past, simulating its future journey, like London cabbies, in the hippocampus.

The amnesiac Clive Wearing obsessed over possessing ‘the captured thought’, among the many that forever evaded his consciousness. In Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée, across an oneiric sequence of black-and-white stills, the main character rejects the ‘real’ world in favour of a memory with the woman of his dreams. Without spoiling a wonderful film further, I wondered how different and yet how identical the two wishes were, and how bound we are to memory and identity, which, if not entirely mythological beasts, transcend our reason and science. Making these connections was of course why we all presented ourselves at the doorstep in the first place. I congratulate the British Library, UCL Neuroscience and all involved on a very exciting effort at bridging art and science.

Alexander F Brown (PhD student, Department of Molecular Neuroscience, UCL Institute of Neurology)

PS. If you missed out on this event then stay tuned! A highlights video will be available soon

Related articles

Counting Sheep: The Science of Sleep

Here we share some of the highlights from our most recent TalkScience event.

The topic under discussion at the 30^th TalkScience event was the future of secondary science education. We welcomed  Ed Dorrell (Times Educational Supplement) to chair a panel of expert speakers including Professor Louise Archer (Kings College London), Peter Finegold (Institution of Mechanical Engineers), and David Perks (East London Science School).

The panel gave a wide-ranging introduction referring to the skills shortage and the economy, science in society, and social justice. These broad issues framed the discussion of more specific points about the nature of the science curriculum (baccalaureate or ‘traditional’ academic science education), CPD for science teachers and the concept of ‘science capital’. The introduction was followed by a lively discussion between the audience and the panel.

Take a look at the highlights video here:

 

You might also be interested in this blog post where you can find out more about the range of resources relating to science education that are on offer at the British Library.

And if you missed out on this event - fear not! There is still one more TalkScience event at the British Library this year - the Christmas Quiz! Tickets are available via the British Library box office and cost £10 per team (up to 5 people).

Katie Howe

Related articles

Science education: A short guide to resources at the British Library

Tonight we host our 30^th TalkScience event, ‘Science in schools.’ Here we outline a range of British Library resources that may be useful for science education researchers. The guide is by no means exhaustive but will give you a flavour of the resources held across the Library’s collections.

 Educational Research

Our collection of academic monographs and peer reviewed journals, including key titles such as Science Education, as well as literature produced by membership organisations such as the British Educational Research Association and the Association for Science Education, contain a wealth of practical and theoretical research into science pedagogy.

Bibliographic databases, such as The British Education Index, Australian Education Index, Web of Science, and SCOPUS[1] can be used in our Reading Rooms to find references to a range of content related to science education, including books, journal articles, conference papers, and research reports across various disciplines.

We collect curriculum resources,including textbooks and other teaching aides,[2] giving an insight into the content of school science lessons, while popular science titles and children’s science books offer a wider context for gauging scientific literacy.

 Education policy

Debates over education can be traced through a range of official publications from Parliament, ministerial departments and agencies. Hansard, the report of proceedings of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, is available to browse in the Social Science Reading Room, and full text searches of Parliamentary papers can be conducted via the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database.

Changing practices of inspection and assessment in the UK can be charted through the reports of regulatory bodies such as Ofsted and Ofqual, and research published by international agencies such as UNESCO[3] provides a global context for understanding legislative change in the UK.

Digital documents

The online resources described in this section allow full text reports to be downloaded remotely for free.

The Management and Business Studies Portal contains documents such as research reports, briefings, case studies, and working papers produced by research institutes, professional societies, government bodies, and trade unions, which have been curated into subject areas; ‘Technology, Innovation and Change’, and ‘Accounting, Finance and the Economy’ are particularly relevant to science education.

The Social Welfare Portal offers information on all aspects of social welfare in the UK and overseas, including education from early years to postgraduate level. Research reports, consultations, and policy proposals issued by think tanks, universities and campaigning charities among others, are selected for inclusion by the Library’s social policy curators.

EThOS facilitates free access to the full text of 160,000 digitised UK doctoral theses and can be searched for titles relating to science education.

Contemporary commentary

Commentary on educational change in the UK can be traced through our newspaper collection, which spans the national as well as regional and local press. The British Newspaper Archive contains 12 million fully searchable pages, and we subscribe to a range of newspaper electronic resources, including key titles such as The Times, the Daily Mail, and The Guardian.

Our Broadcast News service has more than 40,000 news programmes recorded since 6 May 2010, many of which can be searched by subtitle. International comparisons can be made by searching the online resource NewsBank: Access World News, containing full-text newspaper articles from over 12,000 newspapers worldwide. In addition, titles from the professional press including the weekly Times Educational Supplement and Times Higher Education are available in our Reading Rooms.

The UK Web Archivesecures permanent online access to key UK websites and has been organised into searchable special collection and subject areas, including ‘Education & Research’.

 Life stories

The British Library Sound Archive contains a huge collection of recorded sound and video. Interviews with scientists and engineers recorded as part of the Oral History of British Science initiative can be accessed on site and are searchable through the Sound and Moving Image catalogue.

The Voices of Science web resource offers curated access to audio and video highlights from the interviews, organised by theme, discipline and interviewee. Many of the interviewees reflect on their education, giving a fascinating insight into their experience of school science.

Science at the British Library

The British Library holds most of the scientific monographs published in the UK, a large proportion of the English-language journals published in Europe and North America, and an extensive collection of both peer-reviewed journals and professional journals, which can be accessed in our dedicated Science Reading Room. We are developing collaborations with UK universities and Higher Education Institutes, and our events programme engages the public with topical scientific issues. Follow us on Twitter and read our blog to find out more!

@ScienceBL

Learning at the British Library

Our collection is at the heart of our schools programme. Led by our team of specialist educators, the programme combines a skills-based approach centred around critical thinking, research, and visual, verbal and digital literacy together with opportunities to encounter original and rare objects both onsite, online and nationally. Teaching resources and thousands of high resolution collection items, current academic research, films and animations can be accessed on our website.

@BL_Learning

 

Getting Started

• Use our library website to find out about our collections, online service, and what’s on in the Library.

• Use Explore the British Library to find details of books, reports, journal titles, newspapers and many more parts of the Library’s collections.

• Find out about services in our Reading Rooms, and pre-register for a Reader Pass.

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[1] Find these on the catalogue by searching for the title then selecting ‘Databases’ under ‘Material Type’ on the dropdown menu to the left.

[2] The best way to find them is by conducting an advanced search in the main catalogue. Use ‘science’, or a particular subject word such as ‘physics’ or ‘chemistry’ as a keyword in the ‘Main title’ search field, then use the exact phrase ‘study and teaching’ in the  ‘Subject’ search field. You can then further refine your results using the drop-down menu to the left of the results list.

[3] Search for UNESCO in the ‘Author’ field and education in the ‘subject’ field

On Ada Lovelace Day, Alexandra Ault explores the British Library's collection of correspondence between Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage.                    

Did you know that the British Library holds an incredible set of letters from Ada Lovelace to Charles Babbage? Dating between 1836-1851, the letters from the mathematician and only daughter of Lord Byron to the inventor of the first successful automatic calculator, record a working relationship and friendship between two great minds. Despite Lovelace’s young age when she began writing to Babbage who was twenty-four years her senior, her letters reveal not only an incredible mathematical talent but an organised sensibility.

Letter from Ada Lovelace to Charles Babbage, 10 July 1843, Add MS 37192.

Add MS 37192 contains 29 letters from Lovelace to Babbage which sit with letters to Babbage from other great Victorian inventors, writers and politicians including Charles Dickens, Sir Robert Peel,  Michael Faraday and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Looking at excerpts from letters written by Lovelace to Babbage in 1843, it is possible to see not just collaboration between the two mathematicians, but a friendship whereby Lovelace chastised and encouraged Babbage:

On 19 (?) July 1843 Lovelace wrote

“My dear Babbage, It is quite evident to me that you have been looking over the superseded sheet 4, instead of the corrected one.”

And on the 13 July 1843:

“Will you come at mine on Saturday morning and stay as long as we find requisite. I name so early an hour because we shall have much to do I think. And it certainly must not be later than ten o’clock”. 

Ada Lovelace by William Henry Mote, after Alfred Edward Chalon, published 1839, National Portrait Gallery NPG D5123 

 In her letters, Lovelace displays both a keen sense of humour and dedication to mathematical investigation. On 10 July 1843 she wrote:

“Mr Dear Babbage, I am working very hard for you; like the Devil in fact (which perhaps I am). I think you will be pleased. I have made what appears to me some very important exclusions and improvements”.

21 July (?) 1843:

“My Dear Babbage, I am in much dismay at having got into so amazing a quagmire and botheration with these numbers”.

In this letter Lovelace signs herself off as “Your puzzle-mate” showing both the professional and friendly nature of their relationship.

The British Library has featured one of the Lovelace Letters on their Treasures Page:  http://www.bl.uk/highlights/articles/science

Alexandra Ault, Curator, Modern Archives and Manuscripts 1601-1850.

On 28th September the British Library hosted the 10th Annual Sense About Science lecture entitled "The Ugly Truth" and delivered by Sense About Science director Tracey Brown. The British Library's mission is to make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research, inspiration and enjoyment. This key purpose aligns with that of Sense About Science who are making research accessible by equipping people to make sense of science and evidence. In this guest post, Voice of Young Science member Sheena Cowell summarizes the lecture highlights.

Tracey Brown and chair Adam Rutherford. Photo: Richard Lakos

Towards the end of my PhD I was often asked by interested friends and family “So, what have you found out then?” I knew this question was innocent enough, but in the complexity of my project and the stress of trying to write up, I would often revert to something along the lines of “we had this nice idea, but in the end it didn’t quite work”. This was not the truth. I was distilling my results, removing the nuances of my research and giving an answer that was simpler, easier. Science rarely has definitive answers. Scientists spend their days finding evidence to support or disprove arguments and hypotheses within their fields. Uncertainty is accepted. Probabilities and error bars are scrutinised alongside results. But, when it comes to explaining a body of scientific work to a wider audience, this uncertainty is often left out. Evidence is simplified. Results and outcomes are over or understated in order to get a point across. But what harm does this do?

 On Monday 28^th September at the Sense About Science Annual Lecture, Tracey Brown gave a talk exploring just that; the difficulty of telling the whole ‘truth’ or challenging ‘truths’ in the public arena. As scientists or even as advocates of evidence, we can sometimes alter the evidential ‘truth’ in favour of a simplified explanation or an uncomplicated argument. However, in her talk, Tracey argued that evidence should be presented warts and all, including the uncertainty and unknowns that it can expose. “The Ugly Truth” explored the concept that the oversimplification of evidence and the lack of critical scrutiny of established claims, can be detrimental to public accountability and to the scientific community itself.

At the beginning of her lecture, Tracey Brown quoted Henning Mankell’s book ‘The White Lioness

“The truth is complicated, multi-faceted, contradictory. On the other hand, lies are black and white.”

This quote to me, sums up the messy nature of scientific ‘truths’. We do not live in a world of black and white, but one of endless shades of grey, where what we know as ‘true’ is constantly changing as science advances and technology evolves.

Tracey explored the many reasons that evidence can be overstated or uncertainties ignored. Often the truth can be difficult. If we look for instance at clinics offering miracle cures for cancer as Tracey did in her talk, we can see that the evidence for these ‘cures’ may be limited. In reality however, it is hard to question these ‘cures’ and destroy the hope they can provide. Other times it may appear in the public’s interest to simplify the evidence to make a point. This is often the case for many public health campaigns. Who cares about the evidence if the outcome is positive? For example the ‘5 A DAY’ campaign, where numbers touted may vary from country to country, but we can all agree that eating more fruit and vegetables is a good thing. And finally, it may be that a ‘fact’ or claim is so well established we don’t even think to question it, or put it under critical scrutiny.

Tracey Brown. Photo: Richard Lakos

While these reasons can be compelling, they can become problematic. If uncertainty and accountability for evidence is not present at every level of public life, how can we introduce it in more nuanced scientific areas? By denying people the opportunity to understand scientific uncertainty, we can become trapped by our oversimplifications. We are left with the fear that uncertainty will be misused by critics and we begin to dread the question “But, are you sure?”

In the end Tracey’s argument comes down to mutual trust. The public needs to be trusted with uncertainty. As a scientific community we must be trustworthy and present the uncertainty that accompanies our work. We need to give the public the tools to ask for and demand evidence and accountability. There will be missteps and misunderstandings along the way. Opinion and motive will always find a way to clash with evidence. But by promoting the true nature of scientific evidence, people will be free to make fully informed decisions in a world where evidence and accountability cannot be ignored.

To listen to Tracey Brown’s talk in full (without any oversimplifications) visit the Guardian website or download the podcast here. To learn more about Sense About Science, or get involved in their Ask for Evidence campaign visit http://www.senseaboutscience.org/.

Sheena Cowell recently completed her PhD at Imperial College London in Medicinal Chemistry and Cancer Imaging. Sheena is a member of Voice of Young Science, a programme to encourage early career researchers to play an active role in public debates about science.Sense About Science is a charity that works with scientists and members of the public to change public debates and to equip people to make sense of science and evidence.

Applications for collaborative PhD research around the British Library’s science collections are now open to UK universities and other HEIs

The British Library is looking for university partners to co-supervise collaborative PhD research projects that will open up unexplored aspects of its science collections.  Funding is available from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships programme, through which the Library works with UK universities or other eligible Higher Education Institutes around strategic research themes.

Our current CDP opportunities include a project to examine the culture and evolution of scientific research, drawing on scientists’ personal archives, and another project to develop digital tools for the investigation of scientific knowledge in the 17^th and 18^th centuries:

The Working Life of Scientists: Exploring the Culture of Scientific Research through Personal Archives

This project will involve a detailed mapping of the key personal relationships of 20th century British scientists to shed light on the nature, communication and reception of scientific research. It will draw on the Library’s Contemporary Archives and Manuscripts collections, which include personal archives and correspondence from the fields of computer science and programming, cybernetics and artificial intelligence, as well as evolutionary, developmental and molecular biology. As well as being situated within social and cultural history, particularly the history of science and the history of ideas, this cross-disciplinary project is applicable to research in areas such as social anthropology, sociology and social network analysis. It will open up a nuanced understanding of the BL’s collection of the personal archives of twentieth century British scientists. It will enable us to better exploit these valuable collections to research audiences across a number of disciplines.

Hans Sloane’s Books: Evaluating an Enlightenment Library

This Digital Humanities projectwill evaluate the library of Hans Sloane (1660-1753): physician, collector and posthumous ‘founding father’ of the British Museum. For over sixty years, Hans Sloane was a dominant figure on London’s intellectual and social landscape. At the heart of his vast collections stood a library of 45,000 books, which – alongside his voluminous correspondence and thousands of prints, drawings, specimens and artefacts – bears witness to his central position in a globalised network of scientific discovery. The CDP project will apply digital techniques to exploit the raw data on over 32,000 items in the Sloane Printed Books Catalogue, and will break new ground by developing digital tools to cross reference, contextualise and analyse the data. This will forge fresh insights into how medical and scientific knowledge was gathered and disseminated in the pre-Linnaean period, with relevance to the history of science, medicine and collecting.

 

Moving beyond our science collections, there is also a third CDP opportunity for a project on ‘Digital Publishing and the Reader’. This will investigate the changing nature of publishing in digital environments to consider how new communication technologies should be recorded or collected as part of a national collection of British written culture.

Applications are invited from academics to develop any of these research themes with a view to co-supervising a PhD project with the British Library from October 2016. Our HEI partners receive and administer the funds for a full PhD studentship from the AHRC and, in collaboration with the Library, oversee the research and training of the student. We provide the student with staff-level access to our collections, expertise and facilities, as well as financial support for research-related costs of up to £1,000 a year.

View further details and application guidelines.

To apply, send the application form to [email protected] by 27 November 2015.

 

Alice Kirke investigates the facts behind the fiction of the British Library’s Animal Tales exhibition.

The Animal Tales exhibition at the British Library explores what our portrayal of animals within literature tells us about ourselves. The natural environment and its inhabitants have inspired generations of writers, but how do some of our favourite, anthropomorphised fictional creatures compare to their real-life counterparts? I set out to discover what the science says about the creatures lurking among the pages.

Cats: aloof and independent?

Valued for their companionship, skill in hunting vermin, and role in numerous ‘funny cat videos’ on YouTube, the domestic cat was first classified as ‘Felis catus’ by the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. The exhibition features French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s Essays,[1] in which he famously asked ‘When I am playing with my cat, how do I know she is not playing with me?’ People have kept cats as pets for thousands of years. Though they are commonly thought to have first been domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians, who considered them to be sacred, there is evidence of earlier domestication dating from around 9,500 years ago.[2] There are many theories and misconceptions about the behaviour of these enigmatic pets. As predators, cats are very focussed on their environment leading to the common misreading of their behaviour as aloof, and although they are seen as ‘independent’ they are in fact social animals. Cat communication includes a variety of vocalizations as well types of cat-specific body language.[3]

 

Snakes: slithering and sinister?

A 17th century depiction of Lamia from Edward Topsell's The History of Four-Footed Beasts L.R.301.cc.3.

Snakes have a sinister reputation in literature and culture. In ancient Greek mythology Lamia, the mistress of Zeus was transformed into a terrifying serpentine demon by Zeus’ jealous wife Hera. In Keats’ poem Lamia[4], displayed in the exhibition, the protagonist appears in her beautiful human form before being transformed back into a serpent at her wedding feast. To an extent, this was a comment on science itself; knowledge of the natural world destroyed its beauty.

 

 

 Snakes are perhaps so often portrayed as evil in literature because some species are dangerous to humans, but snakes are diverse creatures- there are over 3,000 species of snake in the world, with at least one type of snake on every continent except Antarctica. There is debate among evolutionary psychologists over whether the fear of snakes is innate. Since those with a phobia of snakes would be more likely to stay away from them and avoid the dangers of being bitten, they had a better chance of surviving and passing on their genes. Recent research suggests that although the fear of snakes is a learned behaviour, people do have a knack for spotting them; when shown images of snakes surrounded by objects of a similar colour babies and young children detected snakes faster than other objects.  

Spiders: creepy crawlies?

Frequent scare stories in the UK press about invasions of deadly spiders prey on a common fear of arachnids. There are over 40,000 different species worldwide, and although the vast majority are venomous most are not dangerous to humans. Arachnologists, experts who study spiders emphasise their diversity in terms of their appearance, habitats and behaviour.

Due to their wide range of behaviours, they have become symbolic of various attributes, including patience, cruelty and creativity in art and mythology.  The character of Anansi, a spider who often acts and appears as a man in West African and Caribbean folklore, has taken on a variety of different traits over time. Anansi Company,[5] featured in the exhibition, is a modern version of tales about Anansi and his friends which are central to Caribbean culture.

Crow: cruel or cunning?

The Crow and the Pitcher, illustrated by Milo Winter in 1919

In common English, corvids including crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and magpies, are all known as ‘the crow family’.  Ted Hughes’ Crow draws on mythology surrounding the much maligned creature, which is often connected with death.[6] In Irish mythology, crows are associated with Morrigan, the goddess of war and death, and the collective name for a group of crows is a ‘murder’. However, they have also been linked with prophesy, cunning and intelligence. In one of Aesop’s fables, a thirsty crow spied a pitcher containing a small amount of water, which was out of reach of its bill. The crow began dropping pebbles into the pitcher one by one, thereby raising the level of water and enabling it to drink. A 2009 study published in Current Biology which replicated Aesop's fable, found that four captive rooks used stones to raise the level of water in a container, allowing a floating worm to move into reach, showing that the goal-directed behaviour of Aseop’s crow is reflected in actual corvid behaviour. European magpies have demonstrated self-awareness in mirror tests, and crows and rooks have been shown to have the ability to make and use tools, previously regarded as a skill specific to humans and a few other higher mammals. This scientific research suggests that crows are one of the most intelligent animals in the world.

Animal Tales showcases many more familiar yet enigmatic creatures. The wealth of material in the Library collections can be used to trace animals in literature as well as the latest scientific research about their characteristics- come and see the exhibition and follow up with some research into your favourite fictional beasts!

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[1] Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne. (Paris, 1602) C.28.g.7

[2] Vigne JD, Guilaine J, Debue K, Haye L, Gérard P (April 2004). "Early taming of the cat in Cyprus". Science 304 (5668): 259

[3] Dennis C. Turner, and Patrick Bateson, The domestic cat: the biology of its behaviour. (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000) m00/46105

[4] John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes & other poems. (Waltham St. Lawrence, 1928) C.98.gg.16

[5] Ronald King & Roy Fisher, Anansi Company. (London, 1992) C.193.c.8

[6] Ted Hughes & Leonard Baskin, Crow: from the life and songs of the Crow (London, 1973)

Performer and entertainer Christopher Green's new book "The Science & Showbiz of Hypnosis" is published by British Library Publications on 16^th October 2015. In this blog post Christopher explores the intriguing history of hypnosis and investigates some of the science behind this curious practice. Hear more from Christopher at the launch event at the British Library on 13^th October. Tickets are available here.

What we call hypnosis now has been going on in our brains since we were first human, and it will carry on until there are no more humans.  At this stage of our cultural development we happen to call it hypnosis.  It also happens to be regarded by the vast majority of human beings as something of a joke, by many others as irrelevant and, even those of us who are fascinated tend to focus more on the big moustaches and kitchsy, campy, quirky notions of the big-mouthed practitioners of the subject.  But it belongs to all of us.  It’s a human process.  What exactly is going on chemically, biochemically and bioelectrically isn’t known, but we are fools if we think it’s just the preserve of fellas in spandex shirts.  It’s the people in the white coats that we should be interested in.  Especially in our age of increasing mental dis-ease.  These days, it’s much more acceptable to alter your brain chemistry using powerful drugs in the hope that a tiny percentage of it’s efficacy will help with lifting your mood.  And yet, harnessing what is after all a perfect natural human process – one person simply helping another to experience something – is thought of as a bit sinister and weird.  So I salute the neuro-hypnotism research.  I suspect in a few hundred years when some irreverent and light-hearted comedian writes a round up of their thinking of hypnosis using books from our time, that they look at this and say “Christopher was over-focused on type-face, bill matter and moustaches, but he was right about the neuro-science.  It was, after all, what they called hypnosis back then, that proved the turning point in helping human beings fight back from the damaging mental ill-health caused by fighting the squishing effects of capitalism on a daily basis”.  I can dream, can’t I?

Christopher's second favourite old-time hypnotist 'Karlyn'

This stuff might only be taken seriously once we move on from the word ‘hypnosis’.  It needs serious rebranding.  I think that’s a shame, because as you see from this book, I celebrate all the bright shouts and all the dark shameful whispers in the history of the hypnosis, but to the average person it’s too bleedin’ confusing.  Could it be time to change the name?  A modern day hypnotic hero is Dr Amir Raz.  He started off as a magician while studying to be a doctor.   He says “Magic taught me a lot about psychology in terms of attention, directing attention and how the mind works. At one point I started reading about hypnosis and decided to marry the two."  But he acknowledges the need for the rebrand and I like his solution, although it’s a bit worthy and not spunky enough. 

"Hypnosis is tricky because it has such a checkered history. Many people feel uncomfortable with it, even within the scientific community, because they think it's not something that a serious scientist should get involved in. Part of the reason it has this bad reputation is because of things like stage hypnosis, where you see a bunch of people clucking like chickens."  Dr Raz suggests ditching "hypnosis" in favour of "focused attention" or "susceptibility to suggestion”.

This is not a million miles away from the term coined by James Coates in 1905 “suggestive therapeutics” though as I’ve pointed out in my book, this is likely to get people in cahoots with pimps rather than psychiatrists.  But though his new names don’t zing, Dr Raz makes a rallying cry for the future of the subject.  "I don't consider myself a hypnosis researcher. If anything, I'm more of a neuroscientist with an interest in attention. I see hypnosis as an interesting tool for illuminating interesting scientific questions about consciousness, volitional control and authorship”

Of course, I want to challenge myself and think of a new term for hypnosis that takes all of the history and all the modern neuroscience into account.  I want to be a 21st Century rebranding Braid.  But then he cocked up with the name Hypnosis, introducing all sorts of notions of sleep etc that have misled people ever since.  I’m sure I’ll do the same.  But I’ll have a go.  Please contact me with your own suggestions and let’s solve this one, fam.

Suggestnosis

Relaxed wakefulness

Suggest-Ability

Attention Therapy

…. or following in the footsteps of the arch egotist hypnotist Walford Bodie who coined the term Bodic Force, I suggest calling it after myself - Green Power.

Oh dear!  Your turn!

Christopher Green