Yorkshire Philosophical Society

‘I used to busk in York,' says Richard Hawley ahead of Museum Gardens headline gig Richard Hawley says he used to "busk in York" - tonight he is headlining Museum Gardens.

The Press has done a great interview with Richard Hawley ahead of Saturday's gig in Museum Gardens. We're ever so slightly smug that Richard name checked the Yorkshire Philosophical Society! www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/2528418...

We are looking at a detail from a medieval painting depicting a figure sleeping (or possibly dead it’s hard to tell) in a red canopied bed.

When you’ve spent the weekend battling the Viking hordes and you’re ready for your comfy bed.

Hope you enjoy your copy of The Historian this month.
Steve has made a contribution to the debate about the old and new poor laws in his beloved St Maurice’s parish in York, known as the Groves now. @uoyborthwick.bsky.social @cecs-york.bsky.social @ypsyork.bsky.social

One of four Roman emperors to have spent time in York, Septimius Severus died here in 211. At that time, of course, the city was called Eboracum. Severus Hill, west of the city centre, is now home to a water tower and electricity sub-station. It's the memorial he would have wanted, for sure.

In fact a few years back we dug out the old Chocolate Apple recipe from our archives and worked with York Cocoa Works to actually make it for the first time in over half a century!

More on this here:

www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/pr...

(Archivists have all the fun.)

Strange carvings at Norwegian grave site reveal what language was like before Vikings Stone fragments inscribed with runes found in separate graves ‘fit together like jigsaw puzzle’

Strange carvings at Norwegian grave site reveal what language was like before Vikings www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Yorkshire Philosophical Society Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Free entry to YPS members and students in full-time education; non-members £5 at the door.

Join YPS here: shop.ypsyork.org

WHY CAN'T WE CURE ALL CANCERS?

A landmark lecture by Thomas Hughes, Professor of Biosciences

Tom's team at the University of York St John is developing exciting therapies personalised to individuals and their cancers.

11 February, 7-8 pm, Yorkshire Museum

www.ypsyork.org/events/why-c...

7pm, 28 January, Yorkshire Museum:

Adam Parker, Curator of Archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum, will talk about Star Carr, the Mesolithic jewel in the crown of Yorkshire’s archaeology.

Free entry for YPS members; non-members a mere £5 at the door.

www.ypsyork.org/events/displ...

(Spot the typo)

Further information is on our website at www.ypsyork.org/events/gener...

Tomorrow, 7 for 7-30 downstairs at Micklegate Social, York:

Dr Jillian Barlow will tell us about generationresearch.ac.uk, which provides opportunities to explore research and technical science roles as a career.

This is one of our Cafe Scientifique events - and it's free to attend!

A frosty gate leads the eye to a snow covered hillside, a blue sky and whispy clouds.

Happy New Year!

This was the border between England and Scotland yesterday afternoon...

View of Ladybower Reservoir in the middle distance, with sunlit hills rising on either side.

Ladybower Reservoir - a great place for a walk at any time of the year!

Figurine of an amber bear carved some 10,000 years ago during the Mesolithic period. The bear is seen in profile facing right. The legs are incomplete. The ears, muzzle and mouth are depicted. The figurine is displayed on a small metal stand. The display lighting shining on the bear’s head and neck enhances the translucence of the orange coloured amber

An ancient and magical amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø in Denmark from a submerged Mesolithic settlement under the North Sea.

✨Merry Christmas everyone✨

National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me

#Archaeology

Merry Christmas!

Newly uncovered sites reveal true power of great Viking army in Britain Previously unseen artefacts show invading forces included communities of men, women, children, craftworkers and merchants

This is cool! A lovely new archaeology project from my Alma mater, the University of York

Newly uncovered sites reveal true power of great Viking army in Britain

www.theguardian.com/science/2024...

Once one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries in the country St Mary's Abbey, York, was first built in the late 11th century. Following the Dissolution of the monasteries the buildings were converted into a palace for the King. In a significant fall in their

I shall during my liff and whiles I am here pray to allmighty god, that he of his most abundant goodnes will help ayde and comforth you, And after your continuance of Nestours yeres that that most noble Impe the Princes grace your most dere soonne may succide you to reigne long prosperously and feliciously to goddys pleasure Beseeching most humbly your grace to pardon this my rude writinge, and to consider that I am a most wofull Prisoner ready to take the death whan it shall Please god and your Maiestie And yet the fraell flesh inciteth me continually to call to your grace for mercy and pardon for myn Offenses And thus Christ save preserve and kepe you Written at the Towre this Wennysday the last of June with the hevy hert and trembling hande of your hieghnes most hevye and most miserable Prysoner and pore slave Thomas Crumwell most gracious Prince I crye for mercy mercy mercy /

The last episode of #WolfHall aired last night, but did you know we have a copy of the letter Thomas Cromwell sent to King Henry pleading his case? It was carefully copied into the Register of Archbishop Lee of York in 1540 and you can read it below:

archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/browse/regis...

Look up! Working together to bring astronomy to people across the UK - at 1pm RAS Public Lectures and Events | Tuesday, 17 of December 2024 - 13:00 | Look up! Working together to bring astronomy to people across the UK - at 1pm

🚨 Reminder 🚨

Tomorrow we've got our last Public Lecture of the year.

Do you love all things astronomy? Come and hear about the UK-wide initiatives setting people up for a life-long love of the stars 🔭✨

Four couple of images showing the differences between melanosomes in lepidosaurs, in pterosaurs, in non-maniraptoran dinosaurs maniraptoran ones. Scale bars: 1 μm.

🧪 #SciAdvent Dec16 🦖🎄🦕🎄🦖
We can know #dinosaurs' colours thanks to fossilised melanosomes! These are soft-tissue organelles containing pigments. At first mistaken as bacteria, they were first identified in fossil squids and then in fossilised feathers...(1/2)

(img from doi.org/10.1038/natu...)

The Hidden Risks of Hearing Loss Not hearing well isn’t just frustrating; it can bring surprising health risks. Here’s what you need to know.

A 12-year study of 639 adults by Johns Hopkins found that mild hearing loss doubles #dementia risk, moderate loss triples it, and severe hearing loss increases the risk fivefold.

Get your hearing tested and wear hearing aids if you need them.

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/welln...

#alzheimers

We are looking at a painting during a restoration. Parts of it are yellow and worn whilst other parts have been cleaned and are clear and bright.

Would you like to hear a little story about one of York's confectioners?

No? Well that's rude. We're going to tell you anyway.

Let us introduce Sir Joseph Terry. Here he is during a trip to Harrogate for a clean and some TLC. The painting equivalent of a spa day if you will.

Portrait of Mary Anning in a green cloak and straw bonnet tied with a red ribbon. She has a basket for her fossils over her arm and she holds a hammer in the right hand.

ink, pencil and wash scale drawing by Mary Anning of her plesiosaur, an animal with a small head and long neck and four paddles.

11 December 1823, am, falling tide: #MaryAnning continued to excavate her plesiosaur, probably helped by local quarrymen who worked the foreshore limestone and could ship her fossil to the town in their specially-built stoneboats. More on stoneboats here: www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk/lrm/wp-conte...

Tackling health inequality in South Yorkshire with wearable technology Pioneering projects using smartphones and wearable technology to address the high levels of health inequalities and disease across the region, have been awarded funding at the South Yorkshire Digital ...

The South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub is marking its first anniversary by awarding £500,000 to new projects designed to improve disease diagnosis and treatment by using digital data together with NHS data to create novel clinical tools.

www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/tacklin...

Free volume online - looks very interesting journals.uio.no/viking/issue...

The Enlightenment or the great ‘Age of Reason’ was a time in the 17th and 18th centuries when a new philosophical movement dominated the world of ideas throughout Europe One of those involved, had an albeit brief, Yorkshire connection - William Herschel. He was born in Germany in 1738 but 1/4

Sepia portrait of Sir John Herschel taken using the calotype process in 1844.

Their son, John, was also a famous astronomer. He visited York for a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1844 and was one of many delegates to be photographed by Robert Adamson & David Octavius Hill. www.ypsyork.org/wp-content/u...

Seventeenth-century painting of landscape with figures in foreground. Text reads Call for Papers: Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World. 9-10 June 2025. John Rylands Research Institute, Manchester.

CFP for the 'Sleeping Well' @sleepingwelluom.bsky.social end-of-project conference, 'Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World'. Taking place 9-10 June 2025 at JRRI, Manchester. Details on our website here: sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-wel...

Deadline 3 Feb. Please share widely!

Abbey ruins rise above a line of shrubs in Museum Gardens

Two hundred years ago, the Yorkshire Philosophical Society was granted land on the site of St Mary's Abbey. We built the Yorkshire Museum there and surrounded it with beautiful botanic gardens. www.yorkmuseumgardens.org.uk/about/st-mar...

Cotton-and-squid-bone sponge can soak up 99.9% of microplastics, scientists say Filter performs well in removing plastic pollution from water and Chinese researchers say it appears to be scalable

This excellent @theguardian.com article describes how scientists have created a sponge from squid bone and cotton that removes 99.9% of microplastics from water.

Scalable and reusable, it could revolutionise microplastic cleanup.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

🧪#Pollution #SciComm