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Featured Books
    All Featured Books
    Book of the Month Series
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    Earth Optimism 2020
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Visit BHL
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured Books
    • All Featured Books
    • Book of the Month Series
  • User Stories
  • Campaigns
    • Fossil Stories
    • Garden Stories
    • Monsters Are Real
    • Page Frights
    • Her Natural History
    • Earth Optimism 2020
  • Tech Blog
  • Visit BHL
Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL

All posts by Laurel Byrnes

Blog Reel, Campaigns, Earth Optimism 2020

Alexander von Humboldt and the Interconnectedness of Nature: Exploring Humboldt’s Legacy as a Father of Modern Environmentalism

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Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a man who believed all of nature was interconnected, and that by affecting one aspect of nature, other parts of nature would be affected, too—for good or ill. Humboldt believed that one’s own emotions and subjective views were necessary in order to completely experience nature. Simply taking measurements or classifying animals, plants, rocks and other forms of life would never allow one to fully experience the truth of nature.

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October 1, 2020byLaurel Byrnes
Blog Reel, Featured Books

Athanasius Kircher’s Cabinet of Wonder: The Man Who Believed in Everything and His Museum of the Miraculous, Universal, and Absurd

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Athanasius Kircher, a 17th century German Jesuit scholar whose name translates to “immortal” (from the Greek “Athanasius”) and “church” (from the German-derived “kircher”), was born on 2 May 1602 in Geisa, part the principality of Fulda in the Holy Roman Empire in Europe. The youngest of nine children, Kircher’s family was devoutly Catholic — a complicated religious affiliation at a time when Protestantism was more popular and war broke out between Catholics and the Protestant Lutherans and Calvinists in the form of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Not only did Kircher live during a period of war, but also of witch burnings and plague.

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June 6, 2019byLaurel Byrnes
Blog Reel

Ole Worm’s Cabinet of Wonder: Natural Specimens and Wondrous Monsters

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Ole Worm (1588-1654) was the first, and most well-known, collector in Scandinavia during the Renaissance.  In his homeland, Ole was attributed as the founder of the modern disciplines of archaeology, museology, philology, ethnology, and folklore.  Ole’s cabinet of wonder, documented in a catalog of its holdings, Museum Wormianum was the foundation for what would become Denmark’s National Museum.

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May 9, 2017byLaurel Byrnes
Blog Reel, Featured Books

Ferrante Imperato: Step Into His Cabinet of Wonders!

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Cabinets of Wonder: What Are They and Why Were They Created?

The term, “cabinet of wonder”, comes from the term “wunderkammer” (literally meaning “wonder chamber”). The tradition of creating cabinets of wonder began during the Renaissance, the period of time between the 14th and 17th centuries.

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March 13, 2017byLaurel Byrnes
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books, Page Frights

Monsters in Nature: Frightful Tales from the 19th Century

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Today’s book is truly filled with Page Frights! Sea and Land: An Illustrated History of the Wonderful and Curious Things of Nature Existing Before and Since the Deluge, by James W. Buel (1849-1920), highlights some truly horrific creatures and plants, with colorful tales and an abundance of amazing illustrations. You can read about, and see images of, giant prehistoric and contemporary land, air and sea creatures, sometimes in battle with one another and sometimes battling humans–including early man.

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October 11, 2016byLaurel Byrnes
BHL News, Blog Reel

Earth Day 2016!

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Happy Earth Day!  This special day for recognizing and fighting the serious and negative effects of climate change began on April 22nd, 1970.  On that first Earth Day, 20 million Americans peacefully demonstrated to shine light on the devastating effects of modern life and production on wildlife and the climate.  Soon after this the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and other laws meant to protect the environment were passed by the government.  By the 1990s Earth Day expanded and came to be celebrated by over 200 million people in 141 countries–and now more than 1 billion people all around the world participate on Earth Day in order to help the environment.
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April 22, 2016byLaurel Byrnes
Blog Reel, Featured Books

Ancient Myths Inspired by Fossils

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The study of mythology associated with fossils is a relatively new field, which Adrienne Mayor (2005) terms “the folklore of paleontology”; she continues by saying that “[c]ombining oral traditions and paleontology, and drawing on history, archaeology, anthropology, and mythology, the investigation of fossil legends offers a new way of thinking about pre-Darwinian encounters with prehistoric remains” (Preface, p. xxiv). Drawing from several resources, one can create a dynamic picture of what a large variety of cultures around the world and throughout time have thought were the myths associated with dinosaur, bird, and other prehistoric fossils. Due to extensive travel, Greeks and Romans discovered fossils throughout the Mediterranean and into India (Mayor, 2000b, p. 8).
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October 13, 2015byLaurel Byrnes
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