The angel of death and a miserly king in “Brennoye” by Evelyn De Morgan, 1897

Mortal Things. By the English Pre-Raphaelite artist Evelyn De Morgan, 1897.

One might think that this is the Mother of God spreading her starry heavenly veil over our world; the symbols, at any rate, point that way. But the artist's allegory is that the angel of death, with the moon upon its wing, is creeping up on an earthly king, wasting away over his gold in a desolate and gloomy land. The miser's fate is sealed. And somewhere in the distance a liberated spirit soars aloft

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Close-up of a glass bottle with a blue label showing STALINE in red letters, along with the words “de source” and “état naturel”.

French mineral water Staline, with a name that echoes Stalin's

No one has done more for the rehabilitation of Stalin than a plain French mineral water

John Flaxman's 1795 engraving of Thetis bringing armour to Achilles

Created in 1795, this engraving by the celebrated English artist and sculptor John Flaxman illustrates one of the most dramatic scenes of Homer's Iliad. Before us is the moment when the goddess Thetis brings her son Achilles the new armour forged by the god Hephaestus. The mother finds

Researchers find that Neanderthal birch tar could have served as an antibiotic

If an English actress takes the products of human combustion as a sedative, then the products of burning birch bark, scientists have found, may have been used by Neanderthals as an antibiotic. Researchers from the universities of Cologne, Oxford and Liège, and from Cape Breton University in Canada, have established

Rachel Sterling eats her mother Diana Rigg's ashes before every first night

Endocannibalism is the scientific name for the eating of the remains of deceased members of one's own social group or family. The Yanomami of the Amazon add the ashes of a dead relative's bones to banana soup and consume it so that the spirit of the

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French mineral water Staline, with a name that echoes Stalin's

John Flaxman's 1795 engraving of Thetis bringing armour to Achilles

Researchers find that Neanderthal birch tar could have served as an antibiotic

Rachel Sterling eats her mother Diana Rigg's ashes before every first night