Screentime Science & Society

Enjoy scientific curios collected over decades

A chemist takes his cabinet of curiosities online

thermometer

SMALL WONDER  Ross Kelly purchased this thermometer in Switzerland and displays it online.

Jaclyn Lundberg

By Lila Guterman

- More than 2 years ago

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In Renaissance Europe, scholars and collectors built curiosity cabinets and filled them with marvels of art and natural history. Catalogs of the contents of these privately held “wonder rooms” were sometimes published to share scientific knowledge, and larger collections formed the basis for museums.