Two boys in swim caps walk along the pool edge. Above them rise tiers of yellow galleries with blue changing cabins, a mosaic frieze and the sign "Priere de ne pas courir".

NB!

Children at a swimming pool with yellow walls and blue doors in an Art Deco interior

Architecture · Cinema · Observations · Heritage · Paris

Piscine Pontoise in Paris: Lucien Pollet's 1933 Art Deco Pool and Its 2023 Restoration

Perhaps some will recall one of the most beautiful interiors in Paris from Kieślowski's "Three Colours: Blue" with Juliette Binoche, and from "Amélie". This canary yellow belongs to the Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles... or rather, to the Pontoise swimming pool. The landmark

Museums · Heritage · Palaeontology · Nature

Discovery of mammoth skeletons on Count Golovkin's estate in the Sumy region in 1839

The World's First Monument to a Mammoth Was Erected in 1841 in the Village of Kuleshovka. The inscription on the pedestal reads: This extraordinary rarity was discovered in the presence of the proprietor, Chief Chamberlain Count Yu. A. Golovkin The memorial commemorates a mammoth skeleton found on this

Archaeology · Science · Nature · Ethnography

The terms “invasive” and “non-native” carry fatal legal consequences for biological species

The terms “invasive” and “non-native” carry fatal legal consequences for biological species. These labels, in essence, open the way to measures up to and including the complete destruction of populations. In science this is called eradication. What mostly comes to mind are examples of the total eradication of species

NB! · Books

Topical Reading

Coming Up · Art · London · Monarchies

On 1 July Sotheby's in London will offer an amber heart-shaped pendant with a carved portrait of Elizabeth I

The appraisers expect £100,000 to £150,000. Yet last November an anonymous collector bought this pendant at auction in Edinburgh for £5,588, as a mere old article of amber. After careful attribution, the inconspicuous trinket was recognised as a Renaissance jewel bearing a portrait of Elizabeth, which added

Archaeology · Science

Post pits aligned with the solstice axis found at Bulford near Stonehenge

Near Bulford, five kilometres from Stonehenge, traces of a structure some five thousand years old have been found. Two post holes, one might say, and one would hardly have blamed anyone for paying them no attention, yet they were found, 120 metres apart and about a metre deep. But Phil

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society

To the cautiously floated question "what is so important about the Electrozavod?", one might reply, so as to avoid explaining oneself to the valued fools, with a question of one's own: "is the city really in such need of new square metres of offices and h

To the cautiously floated question "what is so important about the Electrozavod?", one might reply, so as to avoid explaining oneself to the valued fools, with a question of one's own: "is the city really in such need of new square metres of offices and

Black-and-white photograph of a man in a white fencing suit holding an épée, the fencing mask pushed back on his head.

Observations · People · Humour

Fencer in a white suit with an épée and the mask pushed back on his head

Viktor Alexeyevich Krovopuskov: Soviet sabre fencer, four-time Olympic champion and seven-time world fencing champion. So here is a man with a telling surname

NB! · Science · Palaeontology · Nature

A new species of ant, Aethiocarenus burmanicus, with a triangular head and bulging eyes able to look backwards, discovered by scientists of Oregon State University in a piece of amber 100 million years old

Archaeology · Faith · Museums

Second-century Greek curse tablet with Egyptian symbols found in a well in Heerlen

A lead curse tablet, or defixio, written in Ancient Greek and designed in the Egyptian manner, with a group of magical signs meant to carry its request to the powers of the other world. The tablet names two men and two women, who may equally be the cursed or the

Archaeology · Science · Nature

A team of researchers from Oxford, let us call the collective MacLeod and colleagues, has found traces of the plague bacillus about 5,500 years old in the DNA of the hunter-gatherers of the Baikal region

A team of researchers from Oxford, let us call the collective MacLeod and colleagues, has found traces of the plague bacillus about 5,500 years old in the DNA of the hunter-gatherers of the Baikal region. This is the earliest outbreak of plague recorded in archaeological material. The Plague

Alexandr Radayev