PATHWAYS INTO A SCIENTIFIC ELITE: THE SOCIAL ORIGINS, SCHOOLING AND UNIVERSITIES OF FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY BORN FROM 1900

We report on continuing research on the British scientific elite, intended to illustrate a proposed new approach to elite studies, and based on prosopographical data on Fellows of the Royal Society born from 1900. We extend analyses previously reported of Fellows’ social origins and secondary schooling so as to take their university careers into account. The composite term ‘Oxbridge’ is called into question, as Cambridge appears historically to have been far more productive of members of the scientific elite than Oxford. However, Fellows from more advantaged class backgrounds do have a clearly higher probability than others of having attended Cambridge, Oxford or London, rather than universities outside of ‘the golden triangle’ – an outcome only partially mediated through private schooling. The ‘long arm’ of family of origin is thus apparent, although private schooling has been more important in helping Fellows from managerial rather than from professional families to gain entry to an elite university. Family influences on Fellows’ fields of research also remain, even though a further major factor is the universities they attended. A ‘royal road’ into the scientific elite, which Fellows from higher professional and managerial families have the highest probability of having followed, can be identified: that leading from private schooling to both undergraduate and postgraduate study at Cambridge. But the most common pathway, taken by 20% of all Fellows, is that leading from state schooling to undergraduate and graduate study at universities outside of the golden triangle. Fellows from higher professional, but not managerial, families show a distinctively high probability of having avoided this pathway; but it is that most common for Fellows of all less advantaged class origins. The case of the British scientific elite would suggest that detailed and disaggregated analyses of processes of elite formation can show these to be much more diverse than has often been supposed.

The English Connection: Jacob and Johann Philipp Breyne, James Petiver and Plants: The Correspondence between the Breynes and Petiver from the 1690s

The article discusses the hitherto unknown correspondence between the Danzig (present-day Gdańsk) botanist Jacob Breyne, his son Johann Philipp Breyne, and James Petiver in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Their correspondence documents contacts between one of the most important naturalists of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the seventeenth century and members of the Royal Society. The content of the letters reveals how books, naturalia and various artefacts circulated between Western and East-Central Europe. It also reveals the principles of reciprocity and friendship followed by those who conducted inquiries into natural history.

Introducing Sensors & Diagnostics

It is with great pleasure that we introduce Sensors & Diagnostics, a new gold open access journal by the Royal Society of Chemistry dedicated to promoting research on innovative sensors, systems, devices, and technology for diagnostics and other applications.

Into the second decade

Open Biology is 10 years old and we have much to celebrate. Open Biology launched as the Royal Society's first fully online, open access journal dedicated to cell and molecular biology. The underlying principle of Open Biology is to enable discoveries to be quickly and easily disseminated through the community, and in this vein in the first 10 years of the journal we have introduced format-free submission, mandated open peer review where the reviews and author responses are published with the paper, and established our enthusiastic Preprint Team under the guidance of Prof. Michael Ginger. Credit for most of this success is due to the guiding hand of David Glover, our founding editor, and the team at Royal Society Publishing.

Os estudos de Thomas Young sobre a acomodação ocular: análise do episódio e tradução comentada do texto “Observations on vision” (1793)

Neste artigo, apresentamos uma tradução comentada para o português do texto “Observations on vision” (1793), de Thomas Young (1773-1829), seu primeiro trabalho publicado nas Philosophical Transactions da Royal Society. Nesse texto, Young discutiu algumas teorias e ideias sobre a acomodação visual existentes até sua época. Após apontar diversas falhas nessas teorias, ele propôs a sua, baseada na existência de uma musculatura no cristalino responsável especificamente por esse mecanismo. A tradução é precedida por três seções, em que aspectos da história da anatomia ocular e das teorias anteriores para a acomodação visual são abordados, a fim de contextualizar a leitura do material traduzido.Thomas Young’s studies on visual accommodation: an analysis of the episode and a commented Portuguese translation of his “Observations on vision”(1793)AbstractIn this paper, we present a commented Portuguese translation of Thomas Young’s (1773-1829) “Observations on vision” (1793), his first published paper in Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions. In this article, Young discussed some previous theories and ideas on visual accommodation up to his days. After pointing out the flaws of these theories, he proposed his own: muscles in the crystalline lens were responsible for this mechanism. The translation is preceded by three sections in which we comment on aspects of the history of eye anatomy and of the previous theories for visual accommodation, in order to contextualize the reading of the translated material.Keywords: Visual accommodation; Optics; Vision; Thomas Young; Light.

The contribution of the Scottish doctor Robert Erskine to the development of Russian medicine in the 18th century

The Scottish doctor Robert Erskine (1677–1718) became Chief Doctor of Russia and personal physician to Tsar Peter the Great. Extensive archival material documents his remarkable career. From schooling in the village of Alva and apprenticeship to an Edinburgh apothecary, he went on to study medicine in Paris and Utrecht and was admitted to the Royal Society in London. Recruited into the service of the Tsar, to whom he became a trusted friend and counsellor, Erskine played a central role in the modernisation of Russian medicine, pharmacy and natural science in the early 18th century. His untimely death at age 41 was marked with a state funeral in St Petersburg. Some historians in Russia assert that in their country, the development of medicine and the natural sciences took place without the transitional stages of iatrochemistry and iatrophysics which characterised the shift in scientific thinking throughout Europe in the early modern period. This study of archival records shows that Erskine held iatrophysical and iatrochemical views in common with his European contemporaries. His influence ensured that Russia was thoroughly involved in European developments in science and medicine in the 18th century.

Ein Vergleich zwischen dem neuen hochaufgelösten HYRAS-Globalstrahlungsdatensatz (1951-2015) und weiteren Referenzdatensätzen für Deutschland und angrenzende Flusseinzugsgebiete

<p>Die durch den Deutschen Wetterdienst (DWD) entwickelten Hydrometeorologischen Rasterdatensätze (HYRAS), mit den bisher bereits zur Verfügung stehenden Variablen Niederschlag, Temperatur und relative Feuchte, wurden zuletzt im Rahmen des Expertennetzwerks des Bundesministeriums für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI) um die Variable Globalstrahlung ergänzt. Zur Erstellung der Rasterdatensätze werden tägliche Stationsmessungen der entsprechenden Variablen auf ein 5km x 5km Gitter interpoliert. Aktuell liegen die HYRAS-Daten für den Zeitraum von 1951-2015 vor und liefern klar definierte Referenzzustände für Deutschland und die angrenzenden Flusseinzugsgebiete.<br />Für die Arbeiten im Themenfeld 1 des BMVI-Expertennetzwerkes „Verkehr und Infrastruktur an Klimawandel und extreme Wetterereignisse anpassen“ stellt die Globalstrahlung eine wichtige Größe für die Berechnung der Verdunstung im Wasserhaushaltsmodell dar und führt zusammen mit den übrigen Variablen des HYRAS-Datensatzes zu realistischeren Ergebnissen der langzeitlichen Entwicklung des modellierten Abflussgeschehens. Dies verbessert auch die Aussagekraft für relevante Größen im Verkehrssektor wie beispielsweise dem Hoch- und Niedrigwasserabfluss. Neben der Anwendung für die Analyse des gegenwärtigen Klimas werden die HYRAS-Daten auch für die Bias-Adjustierung von Klimamodelldaten verwendet und tragen hierüber auch zur Validität von Klimaprojektionsergebnissen und hieraus abgeleiteten Anpassungsmaßnahmen bei.<br />Aus den genannten Anwendungen ergeben sich verschiedene Anforderungen an einen Rasterdatensatz der Globalstrahlung, wie die Abdeckung eines möglichst weit in die Vergangenheit zurückreichenden Zeitraums, die Abbildung von Extremwerten, des langfristigen Trends sowie der allgemeinen dekadischen Variabilität. Die Anforderungen sollten dabei nicht nur im Flächenmittel, sondern möglichst auch für einzelne Regionen wie z.B. kleinere Flusseinzugsgebiete erfüllt sein. <br />Neben der verwendeten Regionalisierungsmethodik hat vor allem auch die Verfügbarkeit von geeigneten Messdaten einen erheblichen Einfluss darauf, in welchem Umfang die genannten Anforderungen erfüllt werden können. Stationsmessungen der Globalstrahlung liegen im Zeitraum 1951-1980 für Deutschland und die angrenzenden Regionen, insbesondere in den Anfangsjahren, nur sehr vereinzelt vor. Zur Erstellung des HYRAS- Globalstrahlungsdatensatzes wurde aus diesem Grund ebenfalls auf Stationsmessungen der Sonnenscheindauer zurückgegriffen, die ab 1951 bereits zahlreich und flächendeckend vorliegen. Die tägliche Sonnenscheindauer lässt sich über ein einfaches lineares Regressionsverfahren nach Angstrom (1924) und Prescott (1940) in tägliche Summen der Globalstrahlung umrechnen. Um die Qualität des Verfahrens für die Umrechnung von Extremwerten zu verbessern, wurde mit dem Wolkenflüssigwassergehalt aus ERA5-Reanalysedaten ein weiterer Prädiktor implementiert. <br />Neben der Vorstellung des Verfahrens soll insbesondere ein Vergleich der Globalstrahlung zwischen dem neuen HYRAS-Datensatz und weiteren Referenzdatensätzen wie z.B. der ERA5-Reanalyse und dem CM SAF SARAH v2.1 Satellitendatensatz sowie Stationsmessungen für den Zeitraum 1951-2015 präsentiert werden. </p> <p>Angstrom A (1924): Solar and terrestrial radiation. Report to the international commission for solar research on actinometric investigations of solar and atmospheric radiation. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 50(210), 121-126.</p> <p>Prescott JA (1940): Evaporation from a water surface in relation to solar radiation. Transaction of the Royal Society of South Australia 64(1), 114-118. </p>