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☆ Mummified animals Napoleon's scientists brought back from Egypt sparked a pre-Darwinian debate about evolution
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-19 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte brought a slew of savants — geologists, engineers, and other scientists — on his unsuccessful attempt to take over Egypt. A collection of mummified animals that the scholars brought back from Egypt seemed to hold the key to the question of species transformation. Naturalists Cuvier and Lamarck had first sparred three decades earlier when a mummified ibis arrived at the museum. The skeleton of a mummified ibis (middle) that Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire brought back from Egypt, along with a cat and a hawk. "I have shown that it is at the present time precisely as it was in the time of the Pharaohs ," he later wrote of the mummified ibis.

Persons: Darwin, —, Napoleon Bonaparte, Naturalists Georges Cuvier, Jean, Baptiste Lamarck, Cuvier, Lamarck, transformism, Naturalists Cuvier, Lamarck’s, Charles Darwin, Marie Jules Cesar Savigny, ” Cuvier, Geoffroy, savants, Etienne Geoffroy Saint, Hilaire, lungfish, Geoffroy Saint, Jenny McGrath, “, Charles Darwin’s “ Organizations: Service, Naturalists, French Museum of, French Academy of Sciences, Getty Locations: transformism, Egypt

☆ Napoleon stranded a bunch of scientists in Egypt and now we have modern archaeology
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Napoleon Bonaparte brought engineers, architects, and scientists when he invaded Egypt. In three stages, these "savants" meticulously illustrated the ruins of ancient Egypt. But one of his lesser-known offenses — abandoning a crew of scholars and scientists in Egypt — led to the unexpected byproduct of formal archaeology as we know it today. AdvertisementIt divided Egypt into ancient and modern times, and launched the modern vision of ancient Egypt as we know it today. The structures, symbols, and images of ancient Egypt became fashionable features of European art and architecture.

Persons: Napoleon Bonaparte, —, Egypt —, Ridley Scott, Napoleon, Mohamed Abd El Ghany, Nina Burleigh, Dominique, Vivant, Denon, savants, Napoleon's savants, Burleigh Organizations: Service, Scientific, Art Media, Egyptian Ministry of Tourism Locations: Egypt, France, Upper Egypt, Kings, Luxor, Karnak, Thebes, Edfu, Upper, Lower Egypt, Egyptian, Europe

☆ 7 scientific breakthroughs that resulted from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-02 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Then, after a series of defeats in Egypt, Napoleon returned to France in 1799 and left many of the scientists stranded. At the time of Napoleon's invasion, travelers had long known of Alexandria, Cairo, and other parts of Lower Egypt. Just 21 and a botanist by training when he arrived in Egypt, Savigny collected invertebrates like worms, bees, spiders, snails, and flies. The Rosetta Stone helped Champollion discover how to decipher hieroglyphsFor centuries, no one could read hieroglyphs, the pictorial writing that covered many Egyptian monuments. When the French found the Rosetta Stone during their invasion, they knew it could serve as a kind of translation key.

Persons: Napoleon, —, Napoleon Bonaparte, Egypt that's, Claude, Louis, Berthollet, natron, Werner Forman, savants, Sand, Dominique, Vivant, Denon, Karnak, he'd, Savigny, Jules, César Savigny, De Agostini, Getty Images Savigny, Etienne Geoffroy Saint, Hilaire, Geoffroy, Charles Darwin, Evon Hekkala, Crocodylus, John Vetch, Vetch, Rosetta Stone, Champollion, Rosetta, Jean, François, Nicolas, Jacques Conté Organizations: Service, Institut, West, Universal, Egypt wasn't, Art Media, Getty Images, Getty, Science, Society Picture Library, Europe, France's, British Museum, Fox, Cairo . Science Locations: Egypt, Cairo, France, Natron, Limestone, Wadi El Natrun, Upper, Lower Egypt, Alexandria, Edfu, Thebes, Esna, Paris, Egpyt, Europe

☆ The giant sucking sound you hear is the gobs of capital being pulled away from emerging managers. Here's how one solo capitalist defied the slump.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-12 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Those who raised their first venture capital funds in the pandemic-era boom times are now struggling with their sophomore efforts. Despite the tailwinds, some emerging managers are defying the slump and raising new funds. He told Insider exclusively that he's now closed on $15 million for fund two from investors including Cendana Capital, Invesco Private Capital, and two dozen startup founders. And so in 2019, he reached into his network of founders and raised a $2 million fund to invest in software companies. Now, he's already gearing up for fund three, which Wan said he plans to launch in 2024.

Persons: Insider's Callum Burroughs, Jordan Wan, Wan, Zocdoc, Oliver Kharraz, it's, Alan Ni, Jake Cooper, Manoj Kanagaraj, Blackstone, Cooper didn't, Cooper, they've, Wolf Organizations: Sequoia, Partners, Cendana, Invesco, Capital, Oscar Insurance, Garner Health Locations: London, Denver , Colorado, Wan

☆ Climate Doomsday Is Nigh—Again
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Human beings, the wretches, continue to disappoint the savants at the United Nations, and never more than on climate change. The global body announced last week that despite all of the world’s climate sacrifices and trillions of dollars in renewable spending, we’re all still doomed unless mankind makes radical changes in lifestyles and standards of living. The 2015 Paris climate agreement required countries to commit to reducing their emissions to keep the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It’s already warmed about 1.1 degrees. Not that the alms offered up by President Biden and European leaders will do much good.

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