An urgent plea has gone out from Britain's Royal Society, calling for a ?white knight? to buy some notes written by Robert Hooke in the late 1600s and make them available to researchers. Hooke worked with Robert Boyle, coined the term 'cell' and helped rebuild London, among other things. He was an early secretary of the Royal Society and the papers in question are annotated and draft minutes from early meetings. Given all of which, it seems a shame that the Royal Society isn't in a financial position to buy the notes itself. But that apparently is the case. On February 9 the Society's president, Martin Rees, issued a press release calling for someone to buy the collection so they aren't lost to 'researchers on the early history of the Royal Society, and its role in the development of modern science.' There have been a few high profile cases of...

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