Archaeology · Geography · Science · Nature

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena has set side by side three sets of data: models of the distribution of the largest complexes of vector mosquitoes, palaeoclimatic models and the settlement sites

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena has set side by side three sets of data: models of the distribution of the largest complexes of vector mosquitoes, palaeoclimatic models and the settlement sites of early humans in sub-Saharan Africa in the period

Science · Society · Nature · Ethnography

Gibraltar's Barbary macaques eat red clay because of tourist food

Gibraltar is home to Europe's only wild monkeys: Barbary macaques, about 230 of them. Tourists feed them ice cream, crisps and bread, despite a fine of £4,000. Yes, Gibraltar is a British territory, disputed by Spain. A recent study records that in response to this diet the

Archaeology · The East · Books · Science

Papyrus with a fragment of the “Iliad” found inside a Roman-period mummy at Oxyrhynchus

At Egyptian Oxyrhynchus, the Hispano-Egyptian expedition of the University of Barcelona has concluded another season of excavation and returned with something genuinely strange. Among the Roman-period mummies was one inside which lay a papyrus bearing a fragment of the second book of the Iliad, the famous "Catalogue

Faith · Heritage · Science

Chronology of scientific studies of the Shroud of Turin from 1898 to 2025

In 1898 the photographer Secondo Pia photographed the Shroud of Turin and discovered that the image behaves like a photographic negative. The positive appeared only on the negative plate. This observation became the first scientific fact about the relic that received no simple explanation. In 1969–1973 the Vatican formed

Observations · Science · Society · Nature · Humour

Loss of 1.6 million bee colonies in the US and closure of the Beltsville research centre

Despite the sudden loss of 1.6 million bee colonies in a mass die-off across the US in a single year, the Trump administration plans to close the USDA's leading bee research laboratory. Between June 2024 and March 2025, 1.6 million bee colonies died in the

Museums · Science · Palaeontology · Nature

Maiasaura nest in Montana showed that some giant dinosaurs cared for their young

A mother dinosaur watches over her brood. This is a photograph of the display at the Museum of the Rockies, where in the 1980s and 1990s the skeleton of Maiasaura stood beside a model of a dinosaur nest with growing hatchlings. The point is that just such a Maiasaura nest,

Archaeology · The East · Science

Italian researchers claim a possible second Sphinx lies beneath the Giza plateau

A second Sphinx may have been discovered beneath the Giza plateau. The team of researchers claims to be 80% certain of its find. The monumental statue is said to lie buried under 55 metres of hardened sand. A group of Italian enthusiasts used satellite radar to corroborate an existing image

Archaeology · Books · Science · People

Archaeologist Wim Dijkman finds skeleton that may belong to d'Artagnan

Skeleton discovered during repair of damaged floor in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Maastricht is believed to be that of d'Artagnan, the real-life officer who inspired Dumas's hero. Beside the skeleton were found a French coin of the late seventeenth century and

NB! · Archive · Science · Humour

Those who do not believe in chemtrails may, for example, be interested in a photograph of just such a spraying against malarial mosquitoes in the Armenian SSR in 1931

Observations · Science · People

I don't know about you, but for me Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov is one of the greatest men of all time

Let us simply remember him with a kind word

Art · Books · Science

Schelling on will as primordial Being, to which all predicates of Being apply

In the final and highest judgement there is no other Being but will. Will is primal Being, to which alone all the predicates of Being apply: groundlessness, eternity, independence of time, self-affirmation. All philosophy strives to find this expression Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Illustration: Rembrandt's etching "

Art · Books · Science · Society

Benjamin on two kinds of violence, the role of the police and the state of emergency

In 1921 Walter Benjamin wrote a short text, "Critique of Violence", which is now counted among the most uncomfortable philosophical texts of the twentieth century. Because it describes a mechanism we have grown accustomed not to notice. Benjamin distinguishes two kinds of violence. The first is law-making