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Displays of Power exhibition extended until 5 September 2020
2nd March 2020
Grant Museum of Zoology
Due to popular demand, we are delighted to announce that our exhibition Displays of Power: A Natural History of Empire has been extended until 5 Sepetember 2020. Exploring themes of Empire, we ask, "how did all these things come to be here in the first place"?
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Welcome to UCL Culture’s World of Tiny Things
4th May 2020
Contained within the quiet of our museums it is the small, the tiny and microscopic pieces that call to us the loudest. From a grain of ancient Egyptian wheat to an exquisite painted miniature, a strand of a mammoth’s hair to the smallest bone in the human body. Our museums contain a mostly hidden world of weird and wonderful small objects. Join us this May as we celebrate the small. Take part in our series of micro-meditations and create your very own ‘Digital Micrarium’. #UCLMicroWorlds Creative challenge: Create your own Digital MicrariumThe Micrarium in the Grant Museum is a beautiful back-lit cave of 2,300 microscope slides giving a glimpse of the vast diversity of animal life, nearly all of which is minute.Your creative challenge is to design and curate your own ‘Digital Micrarium’ inspired by what you can find around you. Down in the depths of a cluttered drawer or hidden in a box under the bed; in a shaded part of the garden, or in a pocket of a seldom used coat, small things are waiting for you to notice them again…Choosing anything from a bead of a broken necklace to a close-up of a leaf – we ask you to find and curate your own tiny objects. Arrange them on a large piece of white paper and take a photograph or draw them from above.What story do the items you’ve chosen tell? What do they say about you, your environment or your mood? Share your Digital Micrariums with us on social media with #UCLMicroWorlds and we will repost our favourites.Creative challenge: Micro-meditationsEvery Monday across our social media channels we will be giving you a new micro-meditation challenge. It’s the perfect opportunity to slow down, study something up close and discovery its beauty. Explore our CollectionsYou can explore many of our tiny collections online. Here are some of the highlights:The Micrarium It’s often said that 95% of known animal species are smaller than your thumb. But have you noticed how most museums fill their displays with big animals? We have created a beautiful back-lit cave displaying the tiniest specimens in the collection. All in just 2.52 square metres.Find out more about the Micrarium[[{"fid":"14091","view_mode":"medium","fields":{"format":"medium","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon, showing Monocystis, a parasite of the sperm sacs of earthworms.","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"medium","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Microscope slides prepared by Doris Mackinnon, showing Monocystis, a parasite of the sperm sacs of earthworms.","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"464","width":"768","class":"media-element file-medium"}}]]Collection of ProtozoaDoris Mackinnon (1883-1956) was a Scottish protozoologist and parasitologist. During World War I she did vital work studying and diagnosing amoebic dysentery and other intestinal parasites that affected the soldiers. Find out more3,000-year-old Egyptian wheat genome This study was carried out by an international research team who mapped the genetic code from a sample of wheat harvested over 3,000 years ago in Egypt.Find out moreMeteorite beads These beads are made from iron-rich meteorites that fell to earth 5,000 years ago. Someone in Egypt took the time to collect this brittle material, heat and hammer it until it was a millimetre thick and then carefully roll it into beads. They are the oldest known worked iron items in the world.Find out moreRamsay discharge tubesThese discharge tubes in the UCL Science Collection were used by Sir William Ramsay in his discovery of five new elements now known as the noble gases.Find out more
Jeremy Bentham’s lifelong plans for the auto-icon
4th Mar 2021
[[{"fid":"13691","view_mode":"large","fields":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"500","width":"800","class":"media-element file-large"}}]]Born in London in 1748, Jeremy Bentham was one of the world’s great thinkers and reformers. Bentham studied law and was called to the Bar in 1769, but quickly abandoned the practice of the law in favour of a lifetime seeking to reform it. Bentham is famous for developing the doctrine of utilitarianism — that an action is right if it increases happiness — as a critical standard by which to judge laws, institutions and practices. Bentham's liberal and egalitarian ideas inspired the founders of UCL and, by chance, his preserved body ended up here too. You can still see his Auto-icon on display in the Student Centre. The Auto-Icon is the preserved skeleton of Jeremy Bentham. It was prepared according to his own instructions, wears his own clothes, sits in his own chair and carries his own stick which he nicknamed Dapple. But how did Bentham come to such a radical decision about his body? The answer to this question lies, in part, in his many Wills which have now been transcribed by UCL Research Dr Tim Causer. It was common for people in the 1700s to make multiple Wills, particularly before travel or after changes in family status. Bentham’s Wills tell the story of how he refined his plan to leave his remains to benefit medical science over decades, and it was not the last whim of an eccentric Englishman. From at least the age of 21, Bentham had thought about how he might benefit humankind after his death by donating his body to science for dissection. You can trace this line of thought from his first will of 1769, to his last will and testament made a few days before his death on 6 June 1832.The research highlights a range of fascinating snippets and insights into Bentham’s life:• In his first will of 24 August 1769, made when he had come of age, Bentham first mentioned leaving his body to medical science ‘to the intent and with the desire that Mankind may reap some small benefit in and by my decease, having hitherto had small opportunities to contribute thereto while living’. He requested that his remains be delivered to the renowned Scottish physician George Fordyce - whose daughter, Mary Sophia, married Bentham’s younger brother, Samuel, in October 1796.• Bentham’s second will of 17 August 1785 was made near Paris when he was setting out to visit his brother Samuel in Russia, presumably in case he didn’t survive the voyage.• His third will, made on 15 July 1792 not long after his father’s death and on Bentham’s becoming head of the family, is very short and simply revokes his earlier wills, leaving all of the family property to Samuel.• In a codicil to the will of 1792, dated 29 March 1824, Bentham restated his desire to leave his body to science, and for the first time described how his remains might be assembled—he does not use the word ‘auto-icon’—and brought to a meeting of his friends at ‘a club in commemoration of my birth and death … at one end of the table, after the manner in which, at a public meeting, a chairman is commonly seated’.• In Bentham’s final will and testament of 30 May 1832, he revoked all of his previous wills, and in an annex described how the auto-icon was to be assembled. There are some intriguing insights into Bentham’s private life too. For instance, the will of 1785 reveals that he travelled to Russia in the company of a Scottish explorer called Logan Henderson, and Henderson’s two nieces; Bentham subsequently discovered that one of the women was in fact Henderson’s mistress, and she and Bentham hated one another. Meanwhile, his last will and testament of 1832 is revealing about the elderly Bentham’s domestic arrangements. He left money to his servants William Stockwell, Mary Watson, and Ann Lay, as well as to his long-serving gardener John Elrick. The list of individuals to whom he bequeathed twenty-six gold mourning rings—including his dentist, Thomas Cartwright, the Marquis de Lafayette, Sarah Austin, and the Guatemalan politician José del Valle—is revealing about Bentham’s friendships and international influence.Want to find out more?Ten Things you Didn’t know about Jeremy BenthamHelp transcribe more of Bentham’s writings via the Bentham Project
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