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LONDON (AP) - Britain's leading academic body paid $1.75 million Tuesday for a 17th-century manuscript by pioneering scientist Robert Hooke, winning a campaign to keep the document in the country just before it was to be auctioned.
The 520-page manuscript, written in a spiky hand, offers insight into the birth of modern science, with details of some of the earliest work with microscopes and the first studies of sperm and micro-organisms.
"This is great news for science and great news for Britain," said Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of Britain's academy of scientists, the Royal Society. He described Hooke as "a colossal figure in the founding of modern science."
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