What are crucifers? Where do they occur? And which role do they play in today’s research? The digitised holdings of the United Herbaria of the University (Z) and ETH (ZT) Zurich offer some answers.
Natural Sciences
The terror of frogs and the birth of the novel Frankenstein
Many thousands of frogs fell victim to Luigi Galvani’s scientific curiosity, and all because the anatomist observed how the leg of a dissected frog began to twitch as if from nowhere. This occurrence took place in Bologna in 1780 and led to one of the most important discourses in scientific history – and to the birth of the novel Frankenstein.
![[:de]tierfänger Und Tierhändler Peter Rudolf Ryhiner[:en]tierfänger Und Tierhändler Peter Rudolf Ryhiner Und Jacky Maed[:]](https://etheritage.ethz.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Com_L06-0240-0002-0006-featured.jpg)
Ryhiner’s Python
The Swiss animal catcher Peter Ryhiner (1920-1975) had christened the blue-eyed python Serata (Sanskrit for “beauty”) and brought it from the vicinity of Kolkata to the USA and later to Switzerland. The picture was taken by a Comet photographer on the occasion of the opening of the travel agency Jacky Maeder at Sihlstrasse 38 in Zurich.
Bioinspired banknotes
After a 20-year hiatus, an insect graces our banknotes again – this time in a particularly beautiful context: light, which is omnipresent on the new, red 20 franc notes. They feature a prism splitting a beam of light into its colour spectrum and a white screen in front of the audience at the Locarno Film Festival. There is also a large iris, depicted
Collecting in Nazi-Germany – Max Bänninger and his Beetles
Max Bänninger’s collection of beetles is one of the most valuable – because very well documented and broad – and internationally renowned in the ETH entomological holdings. The bulk of his collection was acquired in Germany.
‘The Pilgrims of Science’: The First Swiss Himalayan Expedition of 1936
In 1936 Augusto Gansser (1910-2012) joined another Swiss geologist Arnold Heim (1882-1965) for the first Swiss expedition to the Himalayas that lasted for eight months. During the expedition both Heim and Gansser kept
Gneiss work!
Felspar, quartz and mica – the main mineral components that make up granite and another type of rock: gneiss. Even though it was used to construct some of Switzerland’s famous buildings, gneiss is relatively unknown compared to granite or marble.
The construction of the Gotthard railway – the southern access route to the Gotthard tunnel
Those who are allowed to make drawings for the Gotthard line here in the open air in 1875 should themselves lucky! The tunnel workers toiled in the often far too stuffy pits in the north and south. The construction company Favre allows this and numerous other
On the animal kingdom’s tail: Gessner’s composite sketches
Conrad Gessner (1516-1565), a polymath and Zurich city doctor, lived at a time when traditional knowledge was joined by a wealth of new experiences. Not only did the discovery of America open up unknown places, but also unfamiliar flora and fauna. At the same time, many ancient
A piece of the moon in Zurich – the lunar rock exhibition at ETH Zurich in 1970
„Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.“
With these words uttered by Neil Armstrong during the first moon landing on 20 June 1969, America pipped the Soviet Union to the post in the race to the moon at the height of the Cold War (Jaumann 2009, 36). The years that followed until the last moon landing in December 1972 were