The "Table of mineral classification" by Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogy and medicine in Brazil.

Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa was a scientist and teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whose work spanned engineering, medicine, the social sciences, and law. This paper presents and discusses a manuscript entitled "Table of mineral classification," which he appended to his dissertation Da receptividade mórbida , presented to the Faculty of Medicine in 1889. The foundations and features of the table provide a focus for understanding nineteenth-century mineralogy and its connections in Brazil at that time through this scientist. This text was Gouvêa's contribution to the various mineral classification systems which have emerged from different parts of the world.

The "Table of mineral classification" by Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogy and medicine in Brazil / A "Tabela de classificação mineral", de Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa: mineralogia e medicina no Brasil

Abstract Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa was a scientist and teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whose work spanned engineering, medicine, the social sciences, and law. This paper presents and discusses a manuscript entitled "Table of mineral classification," which he appended to his dissertation Da receptividade mórbida , presented to the Faculty of Medicine in 1889. The foundations and features of the table provide a focus for understanding nineteenth-century mineralogy and its connections in Brazil at that time through this scientist. This text was Gouvêa's contribution to the various mineral classification systems which have emerged from different parts of the world.

Resumo Oscar Nerval de Gouvêa foi um cientista e professor no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, cuja obra abrange engenharia, medicina, ciências sociais e direito. Este artigo apresenta e discute o texto intitulado "Tabela de classificação mineral", que ele anexou a sua tese Da receptividade mórbida, apresentada na Escola Superior de Medicina, em 1889. Os fundamentos e características da tabela propiciam a compreensão da mineralogia do século XIX e suas conexões no Brasil à época por intermédio desse cientista. O texto foi a contribuição de Gouvêa aos diversos sistemas de classificação de minerais originados de diferentes partes do mundo.

Mineral and mineralogy in late Qing China: translations and conceptualizations, 1860s-1910s.

This article critically examines the translations of two terms - mineral and mineralogy - in modern China. The last decades of the Qing dynasty (1860s-1910s) witnessed a transition in the terminological usage of the Chinese equivalents of mineral and mineralogy from jinshi (metals and rocks) and jinshi xue (a study of metals and rocks) to kuangwu and kuangwu xue. A scrutiny of this transition raises questions regarding not only the exchanges in scientific knowledge between China, the West, and Japan since the nineteenth century, but the changes in the understanding of natural things in China. This article locates the translation of the terms within the scope of cultural translation and the history of science. It sheds new light both on the confrontations between languages and knowledge systems, which led to the re-conceptualization of natural things in China and Japan, and on the interplay between various domestic and transnational forces that shaped the intellectual landscapes in China. Through the confrontations and interplay, mineralogy eventually projected minerals into the domain of science and modern science claimed the authority over understanding these natural things.

Charles Darwin did not mislead Joseph Hooker in their 1881 Correspondence about Leopold von Buch and Karl Ernst von Baer.

While Joseph Hooker was considering his upcoming presentation on the geographical distribution of species, he asked Charles Darwin for help with some references. During the ensuing exchange of correspondence, Darwin seems to have contradicted himself, regarding his being aware of Leopold von Buch's observation that distributed varieties become species, prior to writing On the Origin of Species. Literalists and conspiracists have interpreted this apparent self-contradiction as a sign of duplicity and fraud. However, when the correspondence and Hooker's address are analysed in context, there is a more compelling explanation. Simply that, in response to direct questioning by Hooker, Darwin conflated the two names of Von Baer and Von Buch, and made an honest mistake.

Microbial Life in Impact Craters.

Asteroid and comet impacts are known to have caused profound disruption to multicellular life, yet their influence on habitats for microorganisms, which comprise the majority of Earth's biomass, is less well understood. Of particular interest are geological changes in the target lithology at and near the point of impact that can persist for billions of years. Deep subsurface and surface-dwelling microorganisms are shown to gain advantages from impact-induced fracturing of rocks. Deleterious changes are associated with impact-induced closure of pore spaces in rocks. Superimposed on these long-term geological changes are post-impact alterations such as changes in the hydrological system in and around a crater. The close coupling between geological changes and the conditions for microorganisms yields a synthesis of the fields of microbiology and impact cratering. We use these data to discuss how craters can be used in the search for life beyond Earth.

Neogene cooling driven by land surface reactivity rather than increased weathering fluxes.

The long-term cooling, decline in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide, and the establishment of permanent polar ice sheets during the Neogene period1,2 have frequently been attributed to increased uplift and erosion of mountains and consequent increases in silicate weathering, which removes atmospheric carbon dioxide3,4. However, geological records of erosion rates are potentially subject to averaging biases5,6, and the magnitude of the increase in weathering fluxes-and even its existence-remain debated7-9. Moreover, an increase in weathering scaled to the proposed erosional increase would have removed nearly all carbon from the atmosphere10, which has led to suggestions of compensatory carbon fluxes11-13 in order to preserve mass balance in the carbon cycle. Alternatively, an increase in land surface reactivity-resulting from greater fresh-mineral surface area or an increase in the supply of reactive minerals-rather than an increase in the weathering flux, has been proposed to reconcile these disparate views8,9. Here we use a parsimonious carbon cycle model that tracks two weathering-sensitive isotopic tracers (stable 7Li/6Li and cosmogenic 10Be/9Be) to show that an increase in land surface reactivity is necessary to simultaneously decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide, increase seawater 7Li/6Li and retain constant seawater 10Be/9Be over the past 16 million years. We find that the global silicate weathering flux remained constant, even as the global silicate weathering intensity-the fraction of the total denudation flux that is derived from silicate weathering-decreased, sustained by an increase in erosion. Long-term cooling during the Neogene thus reflects a change in the partitioning of denudation into weathering and erosion. Variable partitioning of denudation and consequent changes in silicate weathering intensity reconcile marine isotope and erosion records with the need to maintain mass balance in the carbon cycle and without requiring increases in the silicate weathering flux.

Holocene evolution of Portus Pisanus, the lost harbour of Pisa.

The ancient harbour of Pisa, Portus Pisanus, was one of Italy's most influential seaports for many centuries. Nonetheless, very little is known about its oldest harbour and the relationships between environmental evolution and the main stages of harbour history. The port complex that ensured Pisa's position as an economic and maritime power progressively shifted westwards by coastal progradation, before the maritime port of Livorno was built in the late 16th century AD. The lost port is, however, described in the early 5th century AD as being "a large, naturally sheltered embayment" that hosted merchant vessels, suggesting an important maritime structure with significant artificial infrastructure to reach the city. Despite its importance, the geographical location of the harbour complex remains controversial and its environmental evolution is unclear. To fill this knowledge gap and furnish accurate palaeoenvironmental information on Portus Pisanus, we used bio- and geosciences. Based on stratigraphic data, the area's relative sea-level history, and long-term environmental dynamics, we established that at ~200 BC, a naturally protected lagoon developed and hosted Portus Pisanus until the 5th century AD. The decline of the protected lagoon started at ~1350 AD and culminated ~1500 AD, after which time the basin was a coastal lake.

Intraoceanic subduction spanned the Pacific in the Late Cretaceous-Paleocene.

The notorious ~60° bend separating the Hawaiian and Emperor chains marked a prominent change in the motion of the Pacific plate at ~47 Ma (million years ago), but the origin of that change remains an outstanding controversy that bears on the nature of major plate reorganizations. Lesser known but equally significant is a conundrum posed by the pre-bend (~80 to 47 Ma) motion of the Pacific plate, which, according to conventional plate models, was directed toward a fast-spreading ridge, in contradiction to tectonic forcing expectations. Using constraints provided by seismic tomography, paleomagnetism, and continental margin geology, we demonstrate that two intraoceanic subduction zones spanned the width of the North Pacific Ocean in Late Cretaceous through Paleocene time, and we present a simple plate tectonic model that explains how those intraoceanic subduction zones shaped the ~80 to 47 Ma kinematic history of the Pacific realm and drove a major plate reorganization.

Tracings of the north of Europe: Robert Chambers in search of the Ice Age.

Scottish publisher and naturalist Robert Chambers pursued an amateur interest in geology through much of his life. His early measurements of raised beaches in Scotland earned him membership in the Geological Society of London in 1844, a recognition much appreciated by the anonymous author of the 'scandalous' Vestiges published the same year. Although familiar with emerging ice age theories, Chambers remained with most British geologists a sceptic through the 1840s, even after a trip to the glaciers of the Alps in 1848, which nevertheless prepared him for the turning point, which came in 1849 during an extensive field trip in Norway and Sweden. Here a wealth of observations left him in no doubt that vast glaciers had formerly covered Scandinavia, polishing cliffs, scouring striations, depositing old moraines and erratic boulders. This also led him to a new glacial reading of the British landscape, and with the ardent conviction of a fresh convert he became one of the most vocal supporters of glacial theory in Britain in the 1850s at a time when the iceberg drift theory for boulder transport was still favoured by most prominent British geologists. While Chambers through his popular Chambers's Edinburgh Journal communicated his travels and ice age vision to a wide audience, and also pointed out ice age evidence on guided excursions around Edinburgh, he did not enter this new vision into subsequent editions of Vestiges, probably in order not to reveal its author. This paper explores Chambers's contributions to the ice age debate, his field trips and the genesis of his convictions, and evaluates his impact on the scientific debate.

James Parkinson and his essay on "shaking palsy", two hundred years later.

In 1817, British physician James Parkinson published a 66-page document entitled "Essay on the Shaking Palsy". This brief text became a classical and fundamental piece in the history of medicine and, in particular, of neurology. The authors of this article wish to pay tribute to this great pioneer of neurology, 200 years after the publication of his findings, which would, in turn, immortalize his name and give rise to the renaming on the entity in 1860 by Professor Jean Martin Charcot, father of neurology. It would be known, henceforth as Parkinson's disease.

A frosty disagreement: John Tyndall, James David Forbes, and the early formation of the X-Club.

How do glaciers move? This seemingly straightforward question provided the backdrop for a heated debate between the physicists John Tyndall (1820-1893) and James David Forbes (1809-1868) in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Forbes described the motion of glaciers as that of a viscous fluid. After visiting the Alps, Tyndall proposed an alternative theory that combined fracture and regelation. The glacial controversy ensued. Yet the debate was never simply about whether glaciers moved like honey, or if they moved by continuously breaking and re-attaching. This paper shows that the glacial controversy formed an important prelude to the strategies used by the X-Club in reforming science and establishing cultural authority. There was a central difference in the way Forbes and Tyndall presented their scientific arguments. Tyndall and his allies used the changes in the periodical press as part of their strategy for establishing and maintaining cultural and scientific authority. By contrast, Forbes and his supporters, including the North British physicists, were not as quick to make use of this new medium. This paper, therefore, examines in detail the significance of these two publishing strategies in shaping the nature and results of the glacial controversy.

James Parkinson and his essay on "shaking palsy", two hundred years later / James Parkinson y su ensayo sobre la "parálisis agitante", doscientos años después

ABSTRACT In 1817, British physician James Parkinson published a 66-page document entitled "Essay on the Shaking Palsy". This brief text became a classical and fundamental piece in the history of medicine and, in particular, of neurology. The authors of this article wish to pay tribute to this great pioneer of neurology, 200 years after the publication of his findings, which would, in turn, immortalize his name and give rise to the renaming on the entity in 1860 by Professor Jean Martin Charcot, father of neurology. It would be known, henceforth as Parkinson's disease.

RESUMEN En 1817 el médico británico James Parkinson publicó un documento de 66 páginas titulado "Ensayo sobre la parálisis agitante". Este breve texto es de una gran importancia en la historia de la medicina y en particular de la neurología. Los autores desean rendir homenaje a este gran pionero de la neurología al cumplir doscientos años la publicación que inmortalizaría su nombre y que dio origen a la primera descripción de la entidad que desde 1860, a propuesta del profesor Jean Martin Charcot, el padre de la neurología, se denomina Enfermedad de Parkinson. (James - Hierons).

The letter, the dictionary and the laboratory: translating chemistry and mineralogy in eighteenth-century France.

Eighteenth-century scientific translation was not just a linguistic or intellectual affair. It included numerous material aspects requiring a social organization to marshal the indispensable human and non-human actors. Paratexts and actors' correspondences provide a good observatory to get information about aspects such as shipments and routes, processes of translation and language acquisition (dictionaries, grammars and other helpful materials, such as translated works in both languages), texts acquisition and dissemination (including author's additions and corrections, oral presentations in academic meetings and announcements of forthcoming translations). The nature of scientific translation changed in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. Beside solitary translators, it also happened to become a collective enterprise, dedicated to providing abridgements (Collection académique, 1755-79) or enriching the learned journals with full translations of the most recent foreign texts (Guyton de Morveau's 'Bureau de traduction de Dijon', devoted to chemistry and mineralogy, 1781-90). That new trend clearly had a decisive influence on the nature of the scientific press itself. A way to set up science as a social activity in the provincial capital of Dijon, translation required a local and international network for acquiring the linguistic and scientific expertise, along with the original texts, as quickly as possible. Laboratory results and mineralogical observations were used to compare material facts (colour, odour, shape of crystals, etc.) with those described in the original text. By providing a double kind of validation - with both the experiments and the translations - the laboratory thus happened to play a major role in translation.

An Amphibious Being: How Maritime Surveying Reshaped Darwin's Approach to Natural History.

This essay argues that Charles Darwin's distinctive approach to studying distribution and diversity was shaped by his face-to-face interactions with maritime surveyors during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836). Introducing their hydrographic surveying methods into natural history enabled him to compare fossil and living marine organisms, to compare sedimentary rocks to present-day marine sediments, and to compare landscapes to submarine topology, thereby realizing Charles Lyell's fanciful ambition for a superior form of geology that might be practiced by an "amphibious being." Darwin's theories of continental uplift, coral reef formation, and the origin of species all depended on his amphibious natural history. This essay contributes to our understanding of theorizing in nineteenth-century natural history by illustrating that specific techniques of observing and collecting could themselves help to generate a particular theoretical orientation and, indeed, that such practical experiences were a more proximate source of Darwin's "Humboldtian" interest in distribution and diversity than Alexander von Humboldt's writings themselves. Darwin's debt to the hydrographers became obscured in two ways: through the "funneling" of credit produced by single-authorship publication in natural history and the "telescoping" of memory by which Darwin's new theories made him recall his former researches as though he had originally undertaken them for the very purpose of producing the later theory.

Albert Heim (1849-1937): The Multifaceted Geologist Who Influenced Research Into Near-death Experiences and Suggestion Therapy.

Swiss geologist Albert Heim is well known for his pioneering contributions to several aspects of geology, and for his role in establishing the breeding of different kinds of Swiss mountain dogs. In the field of near-death research, it is also recognized that he performed a pioneering study into near-death states of falling mountaineers. It seems hardly known, however, that Heim also influenced suggestion therapy significantly-in particular, the treatment of warts by suggestion. This article provides an overview of Heim's contribution in the latter field of study.