Greenwashing at Elsevier: A political ecology of corporate publishing
Two new biographies of Leibniz, a polymath who was so prolific he even ‘constructed a chair that would allow him to fall asleep in the middle of writing and immediately get back to work on waking up’ Link1
‘We All of Us Make Mistakes’: Medical Negligence in Interwar General Practice
Strange, surreal and sexy: 31 images that changed the way we see our bodies
Apropos the astonishing life and work of Leibniz, I never knew that the description of someone as an optimist was first coined to describe his personal attitude to life. Leibniz ‘would not have regarded himself as an optimist, though; the concept had not been invented. A French journal coined optimisme after his death, to refer to his account of God’s choice between possible worlds. It later came to mean some of the things that Leibniz personally was—energized by hope, inclined to underestimate the chances of failure, ready to see a bright side. When the pain in his legs kept him indoors, it was “a blessing in disguise,” he half joked to a friend, because it meant that he could get even more done at his desk’ Link