30 August 2007

World expert visits University exhibition

Photo opportunity: 11.30 pm, Friday August 31st,
Tower Building foyer
University of Dundee

Dr Paul Cox, one of the world’s leading experts on the life and work of the eighteenth century botanist and scientist Carl Linnaeus, is visiting the University of Dundee’s Linnaeus exhibition tomorrow (Friday).

2007 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus (1707 - 1778), a Swede simplified and revolutionised the way plants and animals were named. Thousands of living things were classified by Linnaeus using a binominal system in Latin and, despite recent advances in genetic identification, his naming system is still used and understood by scientists today.

The University has been heavily involved in the international tercentenary celebrations. The University’s Book & Paper Conservation Studio at the University of Dundee was commissioned to carry out the conservation work on Linnaeus’s prolific correspondence. The three-year project has involved the cleaning, repair and re-housing of around 4000 letters from over 600 correspondents, many of them major figures in 18th century science.

That work has resulted in spin-off exhibitions, including one currently on show in the University’s Tower building.

Dr Cox, of the Institute of Ethnobotany in Jackson, Wyoming, will visit the exhibition tomorrow as part of a wider visit to the University. Among the exhibits are examples of work Linnaeus carried out on visits to some remote regions of the world, including the Arctic. As part of his own work, Dr Cox has retraced the journeys Linnaeus took to Lapland.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk