From the New Scientist:
It was a celebrated experiment demonstrating the electrical nature of lightning. And it’s just gone electronic.
Benjamin Franklin‘s 1752 paper describing how he conducted lightning with a kite is one of hundreds of landmark scientific papers now available to the public in an electronic archive compiled by the Royal Society in London.
The papers date back 340 years to the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, published in 1665.
Among them is Edmund Halley’s description in 1705 of the comet named after him; Isaac Newton’s invention of the reflecting telescope; the first paper published by Stephen Hawking and details of the DNA double helix published in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick.
Free for two months from 14 September, the archive includes reports of the discovery of penicillin and proposals for blood transfusions penned in 1665 by Robert Boyle, to see “whether a fierce dog stocked with the blood of a cowardly dog may become more tame”.
Benjamin Franklin’s mastodon tooth: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
The Cosmic Century.
A History of Astrophysics and Cosmology.
Malcolm S. Longair.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
Hardback: 561 pp., illus. $60. ISBN 0521474361.
More information at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521474361/scienceweek
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“Nanoparticles” may seep through skin:
The health implications of tiny, artificial
objects in the body are uncertain, investigators
note.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080930_nanoparticle
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