Worlds of Wonder: citizens invited to help research the history of microscopy
An online crowdsourcing initiative of the FASoS MUSTS research group, Worlds of Wonder, was launched recently. Worlds of Wonder is part of an NWO-funded PhD project that invites citizens to help analyse illustrations in nineteenth-century microscopy journals and books – anyone can join and research the history of microscopy.
In the mid-nineteenth century, opticians started to produce relatively cheap microscopes and microscopy became a popular leisure activity. Many journals and handbooks on microscopy appeared, which were often richly illustrated. The aim of Worlds of Wonder is to learn more about these illustrations, how they were made and distributed, and how scientists and illustrators collaborated to produce them.
To this day, so many nineteenth-century publications on microscopy remain that they can hardly be analysed by just a handful of researchers. Therefore, the MUSTS researchers behind Worlds of Wonder, Lea Beiermann, Cyrus Mody and Raf De Bont, ask citizens to help them classify microscopy illustrations, assign keywords to the illustrations to make them searchable, and identify the people who made them.
You can join the project on Zooniverse or learn more about the history of microscopy on the Worlds of Wonder blog.
Also read
-
Green light for UM participation in unique YUFE bachelor programme
The UM can start as a degree awarding partner in the new unique bachelor programme Urban Sustainability Studies offered by YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe), an alliance of ten European universities. This week, the UM received a positive outcome of the macro due diligence assessment...
-
Professor Anouk Bollen-Vandenboorn appointed Knight in the Order of the Crown
Prof. Dr Anouk Bollen-Vandenboorn, Director of the Institute for Transnational and Euregional cross border cooperation and Mobility (ITEM) at the Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, was appointed Knight in the Order of the Crown on 3 July, during a formal ceremony at the Belgian Embassy in The...
-
Study Smart gets Dutch Education Premium
Maastricht University's (UM) interfaculty educational innovation project Study Smart is one of the three winners of the Dutch Education Premium 2025. This was announced on Tuesday during the Comenius festival in The Hague.