stephholtnh.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity. TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄

submitted 8 days ago • 221 comments

This little volume in the @orieloxford.bsky.social archives contains Gilbert White’s accounts for his bachelors and masters degrees. Notes like these provide a fascinating insight into the day to day life of a person, and how they change 🎓📝🧾🍷🍓🍋📚🐴🐶 #HistoricalResearch #HistoryOfNaturalHistory

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Ernst Haeckel, German biologist, philosopher & artist, was born on #OTD in 1834. ”Kunstformen der Natur” (Art forms of Nature) was his master work. master work #sciart #histsci wp.me/p3ihHu-1fa

submitted 15 days ago • 2 comments

Your donations enable us to continue discovering more about bats, take action to protect them, educate people about bats and their environment along with enabling more people to get involved in bat conservation. Every donation makes a difference: https://buff.ly/3fyG3uW

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Look at this amazing cartoon sketched while I was filming an interview with the Royal College of Art!

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Yesterday was my first Oriel Talks session as convenor for the MCR. We had 2 great talks from Orielenses researching at CERN, absolutely fascinating! Our next is on the 26th! @orieloxford.bsky.social

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Today is #InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience #IDWGS2025. I get to work with many amazing women in #science & #HistSci I’m on my research today though, so here are some of the women in #GilbertWhite’s life: gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk/women-gilber... #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #HistoricalResearch

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

For #WomeninScienceDay, here's a listicle of women linked to @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social collections and stories #histstm www.nms.ac.uk/discover-cat...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

This week's #BookOfTheWeek is one rather close to my nerdy little heart as it's all about notebooks! As an essential tool for both a naturalist and a researcher, I've usualy got at least one somewhere about my person. uk.bookshop.org/a/14242/9780...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

On Friday during a tour for @ox.ac.uk #HistoryOfMedicineScienceAndTechnology masters students we were shown what I think is the oldest herbarium in @nhm-london.bsky.social. Dating from 1603, the state of preservation is incredible! #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #HistoryOfBotany

submitted 22 days ago • 2 comments

📢 CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS 📢 [Please Share Widely!] Picturing Pennant is a new crowdsourcing project to "tag" the illustrations in Thomas Pennant's eighteenth-century Tours of Wales and Scotland. Can you help us identify the places, people, and much more in these wonderful illustrated volumes?

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

Botanist and entomologist Georg Dionysius Ehret was born #OTD in 1708. Born in Germany, Ehret collaborated with many scientists across Europe, including Linnaeus and Sloane, and produced hundreds of botanical illustrations 🌱🌷🌴 The genus of flowering plants Ehretia was named in his honour 🌿

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

If you're an early-career researcher outside the UK and want to come work with my at the @nhm-london.bsky.social node of @adriftlab.bsky.social, consider applying for the Royal Society's Newton Fellowships! Deadline 17 March. Get in touch! royalsociety.org/grants/newto... #ornithology

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Unable to get tickets to our event The Jurassic Highway? Don't worry! Hear from researchers who recently uncovered over 200 fossil footprints in a quarry in Oxfordshire, that form the largest known dinosaur trackways site in the UK. This event will be live streamed on YouTube: youtu.be/qYB0f5GS0cE

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

Don't forget... The Call for Proposals deadline for the Gilbert White and his Contexts conference is next Monday, 3 February. The conference is in June at White's own house in Selborne, Hampshire. Find out more and submit your proposal on the conference website! gilbertwhite.org.uk

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

The video of the UK Moth Recorders meeting is now available, grab yourself a brew and watch it here - https://buff.ly/3PTy9RB There are talks on day flying moths and fascinating research into why flying insects are drawn to and circle lights, and what we can do about it #UKMRM

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

We have our Postgrad Researcher Symposium today, great to see @edwinrose.bsky.social speaking on his work in the @NHM collections & archives, including on @curioustravellers.bsky.social @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social

submitted 33 days ago • 1 comment

we've done positivity, now time to feed the part of your soul that lives in a hut on chicken legs in the deep forest punishing the arrogance of man 1 like = 1 curse

submitted 33 days ago • 24 comments

New in the bookshop & today's #BookOfTheWeek! A Culture of Curiosity by Leonie Hannan is a fascinating insight into the home as a centre of scientific research in the 18th Century. Buy it from my @bookshop_org_uk affiliate bookstore here: uk.bookshop.org/a/14242/9781... (link also in bio)

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

📢 Calling all historians and researchers! The Women's History Network is now accepting abstracts for its 33rd Annual Conference, themed "Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Archives, Libraries, Museums, and Personal Collections." More info: womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-c... #WomensHistory #GLAM

submitted 38 days ago • 4 comments

A recent search through the collections revealed a couple of specimens that are definitely worth sharing: two hadal amphipods - Bathycallisoma (Scopelocheirus) schellenbergi from an unbelievable 10,047m (32,949 ft) depth in the Kermadec Trench: @nhm-london.bsky.social @stephholtnh.bsky.social

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

These were great to find in the collection. Andy's collection is an absolute treasure trove, but that these are from over 10km below sea level is truly amazing! 🦐🌊

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

We don't want our project on Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant to be a catalogue of species lost to Wales

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

In our first research blog of 2025, @edwinrose.bsky.social tells the story of his efforts (across multiple time zones) to secure one of Thomas Pennant's own copies of his 'Arctic Zoology' for the National Library of Wales curioustravellers.ac.uk/the-downing-...

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

Backstage at the V&A today getting to use this rather brilliant bit of kit for an exciting project with @linneansociety. More on that another time. 🩻 (OK, didn’t actually get to use the kit, the excellent Sarah at the V&A did that). #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #MuseumTechnology #MuseumResearch

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Yesterday morning was spent in a basement studio in @royalcollegeofart.bsky.social working on Nestor Pestana’s brilliant project New Dark Aesthetic: The Bat Project. I love working with Nes, he makes collaborating across art & science so enjoyable 🦇 #Art&Science #ArtOfNaturalHistory

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Most people know that peat free compost is a good thing & hopefully seek it out. But peat is still part of the food & horticulture supply chain @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social have done great work on 'hidden peat' This campaign is seeking clearer labelling. www.yppartnership.org.uk/blog/lyndon-...

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

📢 Rediscover natural history! The Linnean Society of London invites historians, archivists, curators, and artists to (re)visit natural history. 🗓️ Tuesday, February 11 · 9:30am - 7pm GMT - London www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/symposium-... Supported by BSHS through a small events grant! 🌟

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Delighted that our @nhm-london.bsky.social #NaturallyCurious course on #Bats is now available! 🦇 Subscribe for £14/month for access to all our courses on everything from the Deep Sea & Rocks in Space to Fascinating Flies & Brilliant Beetles.🐙 🐟 🦀 🚀 💫 🦟 🐞 naturallycurious.nhm.ac.uk/course/bat-b...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

It's Monday of Week 1 of Hillary Term at @oxforduniversity.bsky.social and time for me to plunge into the depths of my Transfer of Status 😬. As I'm thinking all things historical, today's #BookOfTheWeek is one of my favourite #HistoryOfNaturalHistory books. 📚 uk.bookshop.org/a/14242/9780...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Postdoctoral Research Associate (Inclusive Histories - 12 Months) Royal Holloway, University of London - Department of History #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLI088/p...

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Junior Research Fellowship in Manuscript and Text Cultures- University of Oxford - The Queen’s College #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLK331/j...

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

I’ve got my ticket, you should come along too! #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #HistoricalResearch #EarlyCareerResearcher #DoctoralStudent

submitted 46 days ago • 1 comment

Oh this looks like an excellent conference at @royalsociety.org! Sadly I have to be in a completely different part of the country for #BritishScienceWeek, but you should absolutely go if you can (and tell me all about it!) #CareerTravels #WanderingResearcher #TooManyConferencesTooLittleTime

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

This was a fascinating talk, do go and have a watch #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #HistoryOfBotany #ArtOfNaturalHistory

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Delighted to have been invited to join the steering group for @cieem.bsky.social's #GreenJobsForNature. Fascinating & inspiring first meeting with representatives from across the sector. Check out the website to find out more and get involved. #GreenCareers #WorkingInNature greenjobsfornature.org

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Had a great evening with Oxford Mammal Group at @morethanadodo.bsky.social 🙂 #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #SciComs #PublicLecture #18thCStudies

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

With my Gilbert White's mammals talk tonight at @morethanadodo & @oxfordshire_mammal_group I'm restarting 'Book of the Week' with The Urchin Book....sorry, The Hedgehog Book, by the excellent naturalist, author, and fellow Oxfordian @hedgehoghugh.bsky.social ! 🦔🦔🦔 uk.bookshop.org/a/14242/9781...

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

submitted 50 days ago • 66 comments

It’s the start of 0th week and time to get properly back to school! I seem to have @orieloxford.bsky.social library to myself this morning and I have an article to write for @bshsnews.bsky.social #Writing #PhDLife ##OxfordStudentLife #GraduateStudent #HistoricalResearch 🤓🙂💻👩‍💻📝📖

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

It's the end of #BSECS2025! This conference is such a highlight of the year. For the first time I’ve felt happy to introduce myself as a scientist AND a historian and really feel that through presenting here I’ve developed confidence as a historian of natural history. Onwards to #BSECS2026!

submitted 52 days ago • 1 comment

Day 1 at @bsecs.bsky.social #BSECS2025 complete. My talk for @curioustravellers.bsky.social went well, standing room only in the seminar room, and great to be talking about #ThomasPennant and his #NaturalHistoryCollections (OK, I maybe mentioned #GilbertWhite once...twice max 😜)

submitted 54 days ago • 1 comment