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Abstract

Dear readers, This issue of História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos comes out shortly after the successful 13 th National Seminar of the Brazilian Society of the History of Science (SBHC; Sociedade Brasileira de História da Ciência), held at the University of São Paulo's School of Philosophy, Letters and Sciences on September 3-6, 2012. For many years now, this has not only been the most important gathering for Brazilian researchers in the field but also a prime reference for scholars from other parts of the Americas and the world. It's hard to single out specific presenters or agencies that supported the body and its activities without committing an injustice to others, but we must surely thank Olival Freire, of the Federal University of Bahia, who is leaving his post as chair of the SBHC. We must also congratulate the event's dedicated organizers and the newly elected board, presided over by Márcia Regina Barros da Silva, of the University of São Paulo. We likewise salute the many professors and students at Casa Oswaldo Cruz who presented papers, and we pledge our support to the organizers of the next seminar wich we hope will take place in Minas Gerais two years from now. In São Paulo, we enjoyed the opportunity to listen to, learn from, and converse with our colleagues, sharing an intellectual complicity that we feel certain is reflected as well in História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos. The articles in this issue evince the journal's diversity and its holistic understanding of the history of science, health, and medicine. A valuable research study by historian Regina Horta Duarte and Güydo Campos Machado Marques Horta, an undergraduate in biology, recognizes the work of zoologist Rudolf Barth, who, in a display of an early concern over environmental destruction, took part in two expeditions organized by the Brazilian Navy in the late 1950s to a remote and small Brazilian island in the southern Atlantic that boasts remarkable flora, geology, and fauna. This noteworthy study is complemented in Sources Section by Ortrud Monika Barth and Cristina Engel de Alvarez. Both texts suggest metaphors for contemporary environmental dilemmas and underscore the import of the history of science today, namely, the significance of a long-range perspective and of interdisciplinarity in shedding light on the challenges of environmental sustainability. Our Sources Section also offers an interesting debate about some of the ideas of a renowned U.S. specialist in the social study of science and technology, Sheila Jasanoff, whose books and articles are indispensable to understanding the interaction between science, on the one hand, and power and the legal order, on the other. Her work explores, among other topics, the convergence of biology and industry (e.g., patent regulation, reproductive technology, and cloning), the climate change debate, and the conjoined