Blogs and Essays

Seeing Double – Henry and Edward Doubleday – Entomologists
Glenn Benson our Hon. Curator of Artefacts looks at the men behind the images of the Doubledays in the collection of the Society and discovers an unexpected connection to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London where he works.
16th July 2025

Chromatic Confessions of Salt Stressed Plants: AI to Read Between the Leaves
Uncover how machine learning can be used to spot salt stress in plants, revolutionising how we farm amidst sea level rise.
3rd July 2025

Our Digitised Collections
This month’s treasure is our digitised collections (and an excuse to plug their new home!).
16th June 2025

Anoles on the Edge: Adapting to the Andes
How Andean lizards reveal the hidden power of temperature in driving evolution. Written by guest blogger Rosie Ryland.
3rd June 2025

Dorothy Chapman's (note)books
Two printed books morphed into heavily used notebooks, when lovingly filled out and coloured in by an early 20th-century amateur botanist.
25th March 2025

“This Book is Chineese Manufacture”
This month Conservator Janet Ashdown explores the notebooks used by Alfred Russel Wallace during his Malay Archipelago expedition (1854-1862), focusing on their unusual construction, materials, and the conservation efforts to preserve them.
14th March 2025
