A medieval hunt for the “brownfish, or baleen.” Centuries before we got our light and energy by burning petroleum, we got it from whales.
This illustration comes from a series of books considered “the basis of modern zoology,” despite having mermaids and the Beast of Revelation among the squid and whale-hunters.
A color plate from the BioDiversity Library’s edition of Our Freshwater Fish, first published in Leipzig in 1913.
Heinrich Harder, as well as illustrating natural history books, displayed landscape paintings in galleries in his home city of Berlin. He also painted dinosaurs. Lots of them. There’s something primordial about this catfish, isn’t there? I suppose [...]
This funny looking can with the tower on top was America’s first ride into space. Wasn’t very big. Didn’t have a lot of electronics. Not so many moving parts. But it worked.
Thanks, NASA.
If you click the picture, you’ll see the little squiggles on the photo are actually the autographs of the people who [...]
This wasn’t a machine for giving new students tests. It was a machine for testing how strong materials were.
My understanding is that no new students were ever tested in this machine. Not in that way.
More from The New Students’ Reference Work is available on Wikisource.
From the NOAA Photo Library, Historic Fisheries Collection, in the somewhat questionably titled ” Natural History of Useful Aquatic Animals” section.
Are manatees useful? I mean, I’m glad they exist. And I’m sure they do things and have manatee agendas with manatee priorities and manatee action items. But I’m not sure they’re all that useful. What [...]
From a series of zoological wall hangings (you remember these from classrooms, don’t you?) found on Scientific Illustrations.
Viennese teacher Dr. Paul Pfurtscheller did many large-scale illustrations of living things, inside and out. Originally, they were just for the benefit of his own students – but they caught on.
“Only when creative people take ownership of cosmic discovery will society accept science as the cultural activity that it is.”
- Neil deGrasse Tyson answering the question, “What is your opinion of the Symphony of Science videos?”
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