The measure of heat energy was not translated to food until the end of the 19th century

At least half the population will need vaccination to stop coronavirus spread

The 19th century saw new breeding methods and growing enthusiasm for pets

The Great Famine led to much soul searching about ‘good’ food versus ‘bad’

Converting emotions into quantifiable physical signs fascinated Darwin and it’s still a fascination for scientists

Ireland’s approach to posters has changed a lot since 19th-century cholera outbreak

The growth rate of this useful organism helps determine the age of the surface it grows on

If we crowd animals together in large numbers to feed ourselves we maintain a high risk from emergent zoonotic disease

In order of importance: optimism, then patience, next idealism and lastly courage

The danger is that, like in the past, the person will become a scapegoat for all our fears

What will happen where trust in science is not a central part of wider culture?

Did practice of closing people into their houses or ‘shutting up’ work?

At the outbreak of a virus, masks may give a sense of comfort but there is debate over their efficacy, with some medical professio(...)

‘Museum collections are key to understanding biodiversity over the last few centuries’

Lab rats also probably led some scientists to accept heterosexuality was not universal

Weather predictions and folklore are probably as old as human society

German professor’s burner laid the basis for development of spectrum analysis

Galileo risked ridicule when he suggested that the moon’s surface was not smooth

The poles switch every few hundred thousand years. Opinion is split on the significance of this

From Alcock and Brown’s transatlantic crossing to global commercial flights, the 20th century saw astonishing developments in avia(...)

The ozone hole presents a compelling, simple narrative. We need more of these

CRISPR and genome editing raises issues that can no longer be ignored

The European Parliament is considering doing away with daylight savings time in 2021

William King was first to decipher that ancestors were different species to modern humans

This June, it will be 100 years since world’s first non-stop transatlantic flight took place

The definition of ‘a good sleep’ is not the same at every time, in every place and for every person

The Irish have been gripped by the American beauty ideal of even, straight, white teeth

The discovery of a letter shines new light on Galileo’s battles with the Catholic Church

In 1846 Robert Mallet delivered a paper on a machine to register seismic motion

From ‘booby trap for old ladies’ to efficient maker of heatwave-defying pot of tea

How can we treat people fairly while reducing risk to others of contracting the disease?

Women should be trusted to understand the difficulties and told when mistakes happen

In the ‘Columbian exchange’, plants, livestock and diseases have as much impact as people

Anton Mesmer combined his ideas with a flair for the dramatic that orthodox medicine found distasteful and the public found intrig(...)

Ever wondered how pie and bar charts came to be? A single Scot, William Playfair, invented them

A 19th-century zoological garden was an educational display for the pleasure of humans with only limited obligations to animal wel(...)

Shackleton, Crean, Crozier, Hart: Irish names are all over the North and South poles

The marvel of the pacing industry is the speed with which creating a human-machine hybrid has come from the extraordinary to the c(...)

Are we now condemning large parts of the world to more profound legacies of poverty linked to past and present pollution?

When Carnsore Point was proposed as the site for Ireland’s first nuclear power plant

The rise of the peanut allergy suggests there are others out there that we cannot yet explain

Why not enhance your summer travels with a visit to a history of science museum? Last month’s column had suggestions in Ireland an(...)

From the Leviathan telescope in Birr Castle to the former ‘Bedlam’ in London, many museums in Ireland and England offer unique ins(...)

Solving the mystery of traits that disappear only to return in a future generation

The ethics of publicly displaying or dissecting human corpses have always been grey

Ireland and Britain had their own way of calculating the date of Easter

Since the first vaccination – against smallpox – debate about vaccine safety has raged

It hasn’t gone away, you know: Victorian junk science has its race-baiting adherents

Governments have a long history of interest in their citizens’ diets

A string of less successful devices came before the hermetically sealed thermometer we know today

HSTM Network Ireland is holding a conference at DCU on the history of the future

When Nasa’s shuttle exploded in 1986, killing seven, it put manned space travel in doubt

Various schemes were drafted in the 19th century to build a tunnel, but insurmountable obstacles scuppered each

The chequered history of chemical quick fixes suggests that extreme caution should be taken

Old theories that hot climates make people weak and fearful have proven remarkably durable

The Royal Zoological Society of Ireland bred lions from the 1850s, principally for zoos and circuses abroad

Several Irish scientists contributed to explosive research during the first World War

The image people have of a ‘scientist’ has changed since the 1950s, but some stereotypes are stubbornly persistent

You probably think you know what a disease is: it makes you sick. But that’s not exactly how it works

FRIENDSHIP WEEK: Twain was hugely interested in technology and struck up a friendship with the scientist

At least as far back as the 17th century, Europeans believed that they could change climates

When a plan to run a cable linking Europe and North America hit trouble, Thomson stepped in

The isolation and slaughter of cattle are still routine responses to outbreaks

Two scientists in Galway challenged the discovery of an ancient ‘fossil’ in Canada in 1864 but were ignored

The physician’s 1649 book, A Physical Directory, explained the properties and effects of natural substances

One lesson not learned from the Famine was that a monoculture is particularly vulnerable to disease

The Grubb family pioneered telescope manufacturing in the early 19th century from their Dublin base

In the 19th century, George Romanes was pilloried for suggesting that the most intelligent animals could learn to form abstract id(...)

Before Robert Koch established ‘the germ theory’, a Dublin doctor was examining the possibility of disease passing to humans via d(...)