Open Access?
Posts by one of the major scientific publishers appearing recently on LinkedIn make the claim that it publishes papers Open Access without demanding Article Processing Fees. Is this really true?
Eugène Chaigneau: an unlucky life
In October 1827, a brief note appeared in the Bulletin de la Société de géographie, informing its readers of the contents of a letter, dated 17 January 1827 sent from the survey ship belonging to the Honourable East India Company. However, the 26-year-old author of the letter, Eugène Chaigneau, was French. How did he come to be on board?
Rand versus Trump
It seems highly improbable that any of the people posting the thoughts of Ayn Rand on LinkedIn would have voted for Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Some may have remained true to their libertarian principles and declined to vote at all, but many will have lined up behind Donald Trump. How is that working out for them?
VH-GEO and Renison Bell
In 1964, low level aeromagnetic surveys at Renison posed challenges not encountered in previous such surveys by the Bureau of Mineral Resources. Magnetic anomalies of hundreds and even thousands of nanotesla were much larger than any previously measured, and none of the topography previously flown was as extreme as that typical of western Tasmania.
The House of the Mad
There are plenty of places where it is recorded that Jacques Arago spent some time in the mental hospital run by Esprit Blanche and his wife in Montparnasse. That, however, is as far as the information goes. We do not know why he was consigned to the hospital, when this happened or how long he remained incarcerated. But we do, al least, have his own account of the experience.
Arago’s madness
In 1932 Jacques Arago wrote an account of his time in the mental hospital of Dr Esprit Blanche for the short lived journal Paris ou le Livre des Cent-et-Un (v.4, 197 – 226,). The original text reproduced hereis followed by an English translation