["In der Jungfernheide hinterm Pulvermagazin frequens"].

Journal ArticleWe provide a detailed description of an interleaved and heavily annotated copy of Florae Berolinensis Prodromus, a flora of Berlin published by the German apothecary and botanist Karl Ludwig Willdenow in 1787, which today is preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. We demonstrate that this is the copy that the author himself used and carried with him during his botanical excursions in and around Berlin to prepare a second edition of the work. By analyzing this document as paper technology, we reveal that even seemingly trifling aspects of its material organization enabled far-reaching biological research agendas that were not originally intended. The hybrid form of manuscript and printed book, used in field excursions, enabled a kind of natural-historical observation that was at once detailed and bound by strict (Linnaean) convention, a combination that inadvertently opened new research questions and suggested new objects of research. We thereby contribute to an understanding of the history of natural history that goes beyond the history of ideas and the intended uses of techniques, giving an example of how routine work on paper within a scientific tradition could generate innovation

How the Great Chain of Being Fell Apart: Diversity in Natural History 1758-1859

PublishedArticleIn the historiography of the life sciences, the period around 1800 plays a crucial role as a watershed moment that saw the transition from natural history, which was focused on the description and classification of organisms, to the history of nature, which studied the temporal development of life on earth. In this essay, I will argue that this period saw crucial changes in the practices and institutions devoted to collecting information on plants and animals, changes that led to the demise of the ancient idea that nature’s products could be arranged on a scale of perfection from the lowest, most deprived forms of life to the highest, most complex and autonomous beings – a “Great Chain of Being,” as the historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy put it. Instead, the diversity of life forms was increasingly perceived as fragmented and contingent, thus creating the conditions for the temporalization of life. The following essay attempts to outline some of the major conceptual developments in the history of natural history – the old-fashioned name for what today is hailed as “biodiversity research” – in the wake of the thorough reform to the way organisms were named and classified that was initiated by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778). The paper presents first thoughts on this subject, and it is hence structured in a rather aphoristic manner. Section i presents some reflections on the concept of diversity and formulates the claim that diversity, as we know it today, includes the curious idea that it is something that can be measured or quantified. Sections ii to v then make some very general and sometimes perhaps overly apodictic claims about what I think happened in natural history around 1800. What follows (sections vi to ix) is a detailed case study drawn from this period in support of these claims. The last section (x) offers some tentative conclusions

La rupture de la « grande chaîne des êtres » : la diversité en histoire naturelle, de 1758 à 1859

ArticleDans l’historiographie des sciences de la vie, le tournant des années 1800 représente un moment charnière, où l’histoire naturelle, centrée sur la description et la classification des organismes vivants, céda le pas à l’histoire de la nature, soit à l’étude de l’évolution temporelle de la vie sur terre. Dans cet article, je ferai valoir que cette période fut le théatre de changements cruciaux dans les pratiques des organismes voués à la collecte de renseignements sur les plants et les animaux, changements qui conduiserent à l’abandon de l’ancienne idée voulant qu’on puisse classer les éléments naturels sur une échelle hiérarchique de la perfection, des formes de vie les plus simples et limitées jusqu’aux plus complexes et autonomes, en vertu d’une «grande chaîne des êtres», selon l’expression de l’historien des idées Arthur O. Lovejoy. La diversité des formes vivantes fut de plus en plus perçue comment étant fragmentée et circonstancielle, ce qui ouvrit la voie à une temporalisation de la vie. Le présent article expose les grandes lignes des avancées conceptuelles en histoire de l’histoire naturelle – aujourd’hui appelée «recherche sur la biodiversité» - dans la foulée des importantes réformes dans la dénomination et la classification des organismes amorcées par le naturaliste suédois Carl von Linné (1707-1778). Puisqu’il s’agit de premières réflexions sur le sujet, elles sont structurées d’une manière quelque peu aphoristique. La section i contient des remarques sur le concept de diversité et s’interesse à l’idée plutôt curieuse selon laquelle la diversité, telle que nous la concevons aujourd’hui, peut-être mesurée ou quantifiée. Les section ii à v présentent des observations personnelles très générales ( et peut-être excessivement apodictiques) sur les changements survenus dans le domaine de l’histoire naturelle vers les années 1800, justifiées aux sections vi à ix par une étude de cas détaillée tirée de cette période. La dernière section (x) propose des conclusions provisoires

Linnaeus and the Four Corners of the World

This chapter by Staffan Müller-Wille [2015] is from "The Cultural Politics of Blood, 1500-1900", edited by Kimberley Anne Coles, Zita Nunes and Carla L. Peterson, Palgrave Macmillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here:http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/978113733821

Heredity Explored Between Public Domain and Experimental Science, 1850-1930

PublishedInvestigations of how the understanding of heredity developed in scientific, medical, agro-industrial, and political contexts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

X-ray resonant photoexcitation: line widths and energies of K{\alpha} transitions in highly charged Fe ions

Photoabsorption by and fluorescence of the K{\alpha} transitions in highly charged iron ions are essential mechanisms for X-ray radiation transfer in astrophysical environments. We study photoabsorption due to the main K{\alpha} transitions in highly charged iron ions from heliumlike to fluorinelike (Fe 24+...17+) using monochromatic X-rays around 6.6 keV at the PETRA III synchrotron photon source. Natural linewidths were determined with hitherto unattained accuracy. The observed transitions are of particular interest for the understanding of photoexcited plasmas found in X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei.Comment: Revised versio

Classificatory Theory in Data-Intensive Science: The Case of Open Biomedical Ontologies

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleThis is the author's version of a paper that was subsequently published in International Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Please cite the published version by following the DOI link.Knowledge-making practices in biology are being strongly affected by the availability of data on an unprecedented scale, the insistence on systemic approaches and growing reliance on bioinformatics and digital infrastructures. What role does theory play within data-intensive science, and what does that tell us about scientific theories in general? To answer these questions, I focus on Open Biomedical Ontologies, digital classification tools that have become crucial to sharing results across research contexts in the biological and biomedical sciences, and argue that they constitute an example of classificatory theory. This form of theorizing emerges from classification practices in conjunction with experimental know-how and expresses the knowledge underpinning the analysis and interpretation of data disseminated online.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)The British AcademyLeverhulme Trus

The landscape of a Swedish boat-grave cemetery

This is the published PDF version of an article published in Landscapes© 2010. The definitive version is available at http://www.maneyonline.com/toc/lan/11/1The paper integrates topographical and experiential approaches to the mortuary landscape of a Viking period inhumation-grave excavated in 2005 within the cemetery at Skamby, Kuddy parish, Östergötland province, Sweden. We argue that the landscape context was integral to the performance of the funerary ceremonies and the subsequent monumental presence of the dead in the landscape. We offer a way to move beyond monocausal explanations for burial location based on single-scale analyses. Instead, we suggest that boat-inhumation at Skamby was a commemorative strategy that operated on multiple scales and drew its significance from multiple landscape attributes.British Academ