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NB! · Pop Culture · Nature · Ethnography
The root of the mandrake really does resemble a human body, which may be why it was credited with magical properties (think of Harry Potter); there are also mentions that it helps against female infertility
NB! · Mores · Pop Culture
How to Improve One's Looks in the Eighteenth Century
Observations · Mores · Society · Pop Culture
Yury Averbakh on living chess in the USSR of the 1950s and the OBKhSS intervention
I am often asked about my chess past. Above all it is a draughts past, strictly speaking, but I remember plenty of stories from the lives of chess players. I recall a tale told by the well-known Soviet chess official Yury Averbakh, who is now 95. He once shared
NB! · Archive · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
Do Read Item 17 of a Circus Programme from 1885
Do read item 17 of a circus programme from 1885. A HORSE named Blondin WALKS A TIGHTROPE AT A HEIGHT OF 6 METRES. The horses I know can only booze and retouch their photos for Instagram 🙄
NB! · Science · Palaeontology · Pop Culture · Nature · Humour
German palaeontologists find skull of new dicynodont Bulbasaurus phylloxyron in Africa
The skull of Bulbasaurus phylloxyron, a representative of a new variety of herbivorous mammal-like reptiles, the dicynodonts. It was dug up in Africa by German palaeontologists, who did not name it after the Pokémon!
NB! · Art · Pop Culture · Humour
A cat of soft-paste porcelain from the Saint-Cloud manufactory of the late seventeenth century has simply found out what she is worth
NB! · Faith · Cinema · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
That Goblet of Fire from Harry Potter looks remarkably like the reliquary of Cosmas and Damian
NB! · Faith · The East · Pop Culture · Ethnography
The image of the demon Pazuzu (or simply Zu) from ancient Assyria and Babylon is also in active use in modern culture
NB! · Observations · Pop Culture
Anyone interested in the Battle of Wakefield, or in the Wars of the Roses generally, will enjoy this entertaining comic strip: http://johnwelding.blogspot.ru/2012/02/battle-of-wakefield-1461-comic-strip.html?m=1
Monarchies · Society · Pop Culture · Humour
Supposition that Nicholas I was born of Babkin and Nadezhda Babkina's claim to the throne
If Nicholas I was sired by a Babkin, then Nadezhda Babkina is heir to the Russian throne. Checkmate, conspiracy theorists!
NB! · Education · Pop Culture · Humour