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Today, Reiner Matysik’s exhibition ‘Biofakte–Organismen der Zukunft’ [Biofacts-Organisms of the Future] opens in Bonn. When I wrote about the project in an earlier post in February, I thought the Bionten were small creatures, the size of a walnut or something:   And then Reiner sent me this photo from the installation work — they are huge! (couldn’t get through the doors […]

For someone like myself who has spent much time writing biography and reflecting on the genre of biography, there has never been much doubt about the central role of the individual subject as a key for understanding scientific practice, including all possible aspects of contemporary biomedicine. In other words, the idea of the decentered subject of poststructuralism and postmodernism has never resonated […]

I’ve always been pro-EU, mainly because I believe national borders and national sovereignty is an 18-20th century anachronism. The only thing that can raise second thoughts in my mind about the blessings of the Europan Union is the lack of transparency of its administrative system. Consider this one: I’ve just been invited to serve as a reviewer of research applications to […]

… in the humanities as Adam wrote in the introduction to his thesis. And they are also in the mind. ‘Embodied knowledge’ is a much discussed notion of science studies nowadays. And therefore the Institute for the History of Science and Technology’s Graduate Student Society at the University of Toronto is organizing its fourth annual one-day conference on the theme ‘Embodied Knowledge and […]

Each month I’m eagerly waiting for my copy of The Scientist to appear in my mail box, because the magazine runs a page on an idea, invention or object that has been significant in the history of 20C life sciences (a kind of nostalgia page for scientists — very sweet). In the last issue staff writer Bob Grant presents an EL307 microplate reader […]

The fourth (and final) five-minute episode from Medical Museion on the history of medicine made by a crew from Swedish TV was sent tonight. See it here (run the clip 7’40” into the programme). For the first episode in the series, see here (run the ‘tape’ forward until about 8’40”); for the second episode, se here (6’30” into the programme); and for third see here (22’50” into the programme). […]

Yesterday, Camilla posted an excellent review of the recently opened “BODIES – the exhibition” (Edit: it is in fact “Bodies revealed” that is currently on display in Tivoli). I was lucky enough to see it as well, and I agree whole-heartedly with Camilla’s opinion of the exhibition. Like her, I was struck by how lacklustre […]

The third five-minute episode from Medical Museion on the history of medicine made by a crew from Swedish TV was sent tonight. See it here (run the clip 22’50” into the programme). For the first episode in the series, see here (run the clip forward until about 8’40”), and for the second episode, se here (run the clip approx. 6’30” into the programme).

”BODIES – THE EXHIBITION” [sorry, BODIES – REVEALED, cf. comment below] has arrived in Copenhagen, with the ensuing marketing push and massive media attention. The exhibition, which shows plastinated bodies and body parts, opened on 18 April in the H.C. Andersen Castle in Tivoli where the usual wax figures have been switched with real dead Chinese bodies. […]

The old réfectoire at the Les Cordeliers campus of University of Paris 6 has been used for a variety of activities in the last centuries—housing, among other tings, a print shop for Banque de France, the workshop of the painter Jean-Baptiste Regnault, and Guillaume Dupuytren’s museum of pathological anatomy (between 1835 and 1939). Now owned by the […]

The second five minute report from Medical Museion on the history of medicine made by a crew from Swedish TV was sent last Monday (7 April). See it here (run the clip approx. 6’30” into the programme). For the first programme in the series, see here (click “Fråga doktorn 080331″ and run the clip forward until about 8’40”). […]

What role do the senses have in contemporary medicine and how can museums that wish to exhibit the material and visual world of biomedicine make use of sensorial approaches? These are questions that touch upon epistemological and phenomenological questions as well as matters of display and pedagogy. In order to find intellectual inspiration and sharpen […]