New Book: Modern Flu: British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890-1940 (Palgrave, 2023)

Ninety years after the discovery of human influenza virus, Michael Bresalier’s new book, Modern Flu traces the history of this breakthrough and its implications for understanding and controlling influenza ever since. Examining how influenza came to be defined as a viral disease in the first half of the twentieth century, it argues that influenza’s viral identity did not … Read more

Kepler and the Star of Bethlehem

In December 2020 there was a rare astronomical event at the winter solstice: a great conjunction. A conjunction occurs whenever two astronomical objects appear close together in the sky. A great conjunction is a conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter, the slowest-moving planets visible to the naked eye. A great conjunction occurs every twenty … Read more