Books · Monarchies · Observations · Science

Samovlastye in Dahl's dictionary and samovlastnost as an equivalent of Bataille's souveraineté

Ivan the Terrible Ruled as an Autocrat, Now Wisely and Sagely, Now Recklessly and Cruelly. Autocracy (samovlastye), according to V.I. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, is unlimited power, strength, will, or the right of disposal, constrained by nothing, felt and perceived as a right or a quality. The word

Geography · Science · Nature

Paratethys as the largest lake on Earth and the three seas that appeared after its disappearance

Millions of years ago, Paratethys was the largest lake on Earth, covering 2.8 million square kilometres and stretching from present-day France to the Altai. The water level in the lake stood 80 metres above that of today's World Ocean. Paratethys, often called an ocean, existed some

Observations · Science · People

I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe

Richard Feynman

Science · Nature

Scientists discover a companion to Betelgeuse, one of the brightest red supergiants in the constellation of Orion

Scientists have discovered a companion to Betelgeuse, one of the brightest red supergiants in the constellation of Orion. For stars of this kind, having a companion at all is a great rarity. The companion is a bluish-white star, roughly 1.5 times more massive than the Sun. It orbits

Books · Museums · Science

Jan van Musschenbroek's magic lantern in the Boerhaave Museum and Gravesande's 1720 book

The forerunner of the television: the oldest known “magic lantern” is recorded in the Physices elementa… of the Dutch physicist Willem Jacob 's Gravesande. 's Gravesande, a former lawyer from The Hague who became a professor of mathematics at Leiden, was the first of Newton's followers

NB! · Science · Society · Nature

The same climatic picture viewed across a gap of 30 years

The same climatic picture viewed across a gap of 30 years. What was accepted as the norm in 1995 was deemed, in 2024, a heat dangerous to health.

Archaeology · The East · Science

Scientists report the full sequencing of the genome of an Egyptian, a contemporary of the first pyramids, who lived 4,500 years ago

Scientists report the full sequencing of the genome of an Egyptian, a contemporary of the first pyramids, who lived 4,500 years ago. It has emerged that the genetic code of this man, aged about 60, whose bones were found in an amphora 300 km south of Cairo, is 80%

The East · Observations · Science

If you thought galleys were obsolete by the Age of Discovery, think again

If you thought galleys were obsolete by the Age of Discovery, think again. Here, by way of proof, is an image of an Ottoman galley in the Black Sea, late sixteenth century. And although by this time the strong maritime powers, the Ottoman Empire among them, could boast a great

NB! · Science · Pop Culture

How ChatGPT Sees Its Users

Museums · Heritage · Science · Nature

A fungus impervious to museum climate control and low humidity has been found in a number of Danish museums, including the National Museum in Copenhagen, writes The Art Newspaper Russia

The problem was discovered by a group of researchers led by Camilla Jul Basthholm, head of the conservation and storage department at the National Museum of Denmark, who described the situation as “a kind of coronavirus epidemic for Golden Age painting”. The fungus attacks paintings, textiles and furniture. “Museum” mould

Science · Education

The Origin of the Russian Language:

Proto-Indo-Germanic, Slavo-Germanic, Balto-Slavic, primitive Slavic, South-Eastern Slavic, Russian

The East · Science · Society · People

Alexander Chizhevsky linked wars and revolutions to solar activity

US Intervention in the Middle East Mapped onto the 11-Year Solar Cycle of Sunspot Activity. The theory linking warfare and revolutionary outbreaks on earth with the activity of the sun was first advanced by the Russian Soviet scientist Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964), a biophysicist and the founder of