Blog

If I were in Durham (UK) on the 15th of October, I would definitely take the opportunity to hear Andreas Musolff (UEA) speak about “Selfish genes, nasty parasites and helpful stem cells – metaphors in the public perception of genetic research” in the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease’s seminar series. Here’s the abstract: […]

I always feel somewhat uneasy in mood when I’m together with medical scientists. They’re so serious. They see science as a contest for excellence and authority, rather than as a playground for grownup kids. I came to think about this when I read today’s news that the 2010 Nobel prize winner in physics, Andre Geim, “once published a scientific paper […]

De seneste dage har vi alle her på Medicinsk Museion glædet os over, at udstillingen Del og hel. Brudstykker fra biomedicinens tid har fået den prestigefyldte Dibner Award for Exellence in Museum Exhibits 2010. Her til morgen landede prisen så helt fysisk på museet, da Sniff Andersen Nexø kom forbi og aflevede denne glastingest. Hun […]

We’ve just set up the installation ‘An Ageing World’ in the main lobby of the Faculty of Health Sciences here in Copenhagen. The installation has been made to mark the IARU-conference on Ageing, Longevity and Health that takes place 5-7 October, organised by the Center for Healthy Ageing. The simple idea was to make a […]

Back in 2006, I, for one, was unreservedly enthusiastic (here) about XVIVO‘s animated ‘The Inner Life of the Cell’. Originally made for use in undergraduate life science teaching at Harvard, it became immensely popular on the internet. It was magic — as  Jim Endersby said , it was like “Terminator 2 meets a biology textbook”. Since […]

Today, the wonderfully informative mailing list of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge (which refuses to turn into blog format) reminded me about the fact that in some parts of the world the humanities are still subjects of love and devotion. Latin aficionados at the HPS department have a “a fun […]

I aftes, lokal tid, modtog teamet bag Medicinsk Museions udstilling Del og hel. Brudstykker fra biomedicinens tid årets Dibner Award for Excellence in Museum Exhibits for ”outstanding museum work”. Prisen blev overrakt ved en festbanket på det årlige møde i The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), der denne weekend er blevet afholdt i Tacoma, lige syd for […]

Last night, the curatorial team behind the exhibition Split+Splice: Fragments From the Age of Biomedicine received the Dibner Award for Excellence in Museum Exhibits 2010 for ”outstanding museum work”. The award was announced at the banquet of the annual meeting of The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), which is ending today in Tacoma, […]

Last autumn I wrote about Donald Blaufox’s online collection of historical medical artefacts (MoHMA): Nicely and competently curated and beautifully represented in images, the MoHMA website is yet another example of how important private collectors have been, and still are, for the preservation and communication of the material medical heritage. Dr. Blaufox has now reviewed the site, record by […]

One of my British colleagues just mailed me: I feel, sadly, that over here museological thought is constrained by narrow social and pedagogical objectives. Couldn’t agree more. Didactics is a death kiss to museums!

I går torsdag blev det nye vartegn for den kommende IARU-kongres 5.-7- oktober sat op i vandrehallen i Panumbygningen. Vartegnet er en svævende, blågrøn skive, med et pixel-agtigt verdenskort printet på. Det utraditionelle verdenskort har Asien i midten, for —med Thomas’ ord— ”vi skal vænne os til at Europa og USA ikke er verdens centrum […]

Taking our Twitter session at the EAMHMS conference two weeks ago (“a qualified kind of success”) as his point of departure, Danny Birchall (Museum Cultures) summarizes his view of the pros and cons of conference-tweeting: On the negative side conference-tweeting tends to be personally distracting (and possibly insulting to a speaker forced to regard an audience […]