Observations · Science · People

Large Hadron Collider experiments turn lead into gold nuclei lasting fractions of a second

News from the alchemists. Scientists have succeeded in turning lead into gold. The breakthrough was made possible by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. For the moment, the gold nuclei thus formed exist for only a fraction of a second before decaying at once. Let us call it poetic that

Faith · Observations · Science · Education

Network model of cardinals' influence from Bocconi researchers and doubts about its reliability

Ahead of the conclave, researchers at Milan's Bocconi University analysed cardinals' social-media data to determine which relational structures improve the chances of winning a papal election. Giuseppe Soda, Professor at Bocconi University: "Our starting point is simple. Even in the Church, as in any human

NB! · In the Press · Observations · Science · Humour

Might the journalists of REN TV put their questions about extraterrestrial cities in South America and Tsiolkovsky's acquaintance with the Martians not to me, but to the author of this opus

Archive · Faith · Science · Society

If Leo XIV is the first American Pope, then Leo XIII created the term "the heresy of Americanism"

One of the stumbling blocks between the Catholics of the United States and the Vatican during the pontificate of Leo XIII was the wish of the American clergy for changes, so that the Church might become one of the pillars of the state order. It was precisely in this period

Science · Society · People

The need for certainty has always been stronger than the need for truth

The French anthropologist Gustave Le Bon

Google Earth screenshot of the globe, with the Pacific Ocean filling most of the view.

NB! · Coming Up · Geography · Maps · Science

Where Pacifida, or the continent of Mu, is placed and where the idea came from

That very place on earth, rarely shown to the layman, where Pacifida, or the continent of Mu, ought to be found. Where the very idea of it came from, hear in the third episode of my podcast

Archive · Art · Heritage · Science

Getty Research Institute opens access to over 12 million records in updated Provenance Index

The Getty Research Institute has updated its Provenance Index (Getty Provenance Index). The new version offers open access to more than 12 million records drawn from archival inventories, auction catalogues and art dealers' account books, reaching back as far as the sixteenth century. The development of the project reflects

Geography · Science

The Greek theory of the origin of the name Italy and three other hypotheses

One theory of the origin of the word “Italia” holds that the peninsula was originally named by the Greeks. Legend traces the name to the figure of Italus, grandson of Ulysses and king of the Oenotrians, Arcadian colonists who settled in what is now Calabria, on the western tip of

Archive · Geography · Science

Kosmos-482, backup of Venera-8, to fall to Earth between 12 and 14 May after 53 years in orbit

Postage stamps with the Soviet interplanetary automatic station "Venera-8", which reached the vicinity of Venus on 22 July 1972, 117 days after launch. Four days after Venera-8, its backup, an identical station, was launched; it failed to reach departure trajectory and remained in Earth orbit. This

Art · Science · Society

Artsy publishes Art Market Trends 2025 report on pricing and transparency in the art market

Artsy, a major online platform for buying, selling and learning about art, has released the report Art Market Trends 2025, based on more than 1,600 responses from collectors and gallerists in 60 countries. The main findings: 🖋 52% of collectors doubt that art prices are justified. Prices for art are

Coming Up · Art · Moscow · Museums · Science

Contemporary philosophers and art theorists are actively discussing the creative output of neural networks and artificial intelligence, from rethinking authorship and the creative process, calling AI a co-author, to debates about the authentic…

Most philosophers agree that AI is merely a tool and one of the extensions of the human mind, and art historians, curators and artists are not standing aside from these reflections either. One answer is the exhibition "Humans and Neural Networks: Who Creates Whom?", which opened this week

Dark silhouette of the International Space Station against the orange disc of the Sun, with sunspots and a fibrous surface texture.

NB! · Science · Nature

American astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy photographs the ISS against the Sun

The ISS passes the Sun. Photograph taken by the American astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy