The art of gathering: histories of international scientific conferences.

Hundreds of thousands of conferences have taken place since their first appearance in the late eighteenth century, yet the history of science has often treated them as stages for scientific practice, not as the play itself. Drawing on recent work in the history of science and of international relations, the introduction to this special issue suggests avenues for exploring the phenomenon of the international scientific conference, broadly construed, by highlighting the connected dimensions of communication, sociability and international relations. It lays out a typology of scientific conferences as a way of gaining an overview of their diversity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Communicating science, mediating presence: reflections on the present, past and future of conferencing.

The move online of almost all meetings in 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic threw into sharp relief the taken-for-granted centrality of conferences within scientific culture. While its impact on science has yet to be fully grasped, for the authors of this special issue, this situation held heuristic power for understanding the meanings and functions, now and historically, of international scientific conferencing. Ongoing discussions in the academic world about the pros and cons of virtual meetings bring out the central place of presence in these events and its mediation across space and time by modern infrastructures and technologies.

The spatial inscription of science in the twentieth century.

With their landmark architectures, exhibitions and museums of science and technology partake in the spatial inscription of science in twentieth century landscapes. Unlike other beacons of progress, exhibitions and museums of science and technology double up, inside, as material arrangements of objects, visuals and texts aiming to confer meaning onto the modern world. They both embody and seek to order the spectacle of modernity while often being deployed with the aim of promoting particular visions of social and material progress.

Travelling Scientist, Circulating Images and the Making of the Modern Scientific Journal.

The early astrophysicist Norman Lockyer was both editor of the journal Nature from its creation in 1869 and for the following five decades, and an early practioner of the new astronomy. He frequently used the journal to expound his scientific theories, report on his work and send news home while on expeditions. I look into the particular visual culture of astrophysics developed by Lockyer in Nature, its evolution at a time of rapid development both of the techniques of astrophysical observation and visualization and of the techniques of image reproduction in print.

Antagonism by NKP608 of substance P-induced plasma protein exudation in a novel preparation of perfused trachea in rats and guinea-pigs in vivo.

Objective: To examine whether NKP608, a novel 1-benzoyl-2-benzyl-4-aminopiperidine NK1 receptor antagonist, inhibits substance P (SP)-induced airway plasma protein exudation in vivo.

Material: Anaesthetised English shorthair guinea-pigs and Wistar rats.

Treatment: Tachykinin peptides were applied topically onto the trachea and antagonists administered intravenously.