Science · Nature

The narwhal's horn is a modified male tooth and is not used to break ice

The narwhal's horn is in fact a modified tooth in the male. Males of this marine mammal have two teeth in all; the left one grows out spirally twisted and can reach two or three metres in length. In females these tusks do not erupt at all. Despite

Archive · Books · Science · People

One of the most unusual manuscripts submitted for the new season of the Hypertext Prize is a work by the writer and science journalist Sergei Korostelev, "Earth — Venus: The Two Lives of Leonid Xanfomalidi"

It is a large-scale biography of the distinguished Russian astronomer and space researcher Leonid Vasilyevich Xanfomalidi (1932–2019). A Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, he led experiments on the Soviet automatic stations that explored Mars, Venus and Halley's Comet. Venus played a special part in Xanfomalidi&

Observations · Science · Pop Culture · Humour

Kate Bush in a 1979 Photograph by Claude Vanheye and the Story of Wilhelm Reich

Kate Bush, photographed by the Dutch photographer Claude Vanheye in a car park in Amsterdam in 1979. The crocodile is not real. I know nothing about Kate Bush, except that she is a singer and in her day made, together with Terry Gilliam and some celebrated actors, a video for

Archaeology · Architecture · The East · Geography · Science

The Area of Babylon According to Herodotus and to Modern Researchers

Herodotus describes Babylon as a square city with sides of 120 stadia. One stadium is about 175 metres, so the area of Babylon, according to Herodotus, was 441 square kilometres, the size of 4 modern Parises or half of New York. Quite an enormous city to have in the desert.

NB! · Archive · In the Press · Science · Nature · Humour

Time magazine covers predicting global cooling (1973-1979) and global warming (1987-2007)

Black-and-white photograph of an elderly bearded man in a light jacket seated at a table with a microscope and test tubes.

Books · Observations · Science

On the idea that Europeans have a long old age rather than a long life

Academician Mechnikov wrote in "Essays on Optimism":. Europeans do not have a long life, only a long old age. When you are no longer fit for anything, and yet still alive

Architecture · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science · Paris

The Paris Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology compared with the Fersman Museum

Yes, my favourite museum in Moscow is still the Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Neskuchny Garden. Let us compare it with the Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie in the Jardin des plantes in Paris, which occupies a building of somewhat grander proportions, yet looks almost like the Fersman Museum. The

Moscow · Science · Education · Palaeontology

Terms from the chorus of a palaeontological song by Moscow students of the 1950s

Student, step out faster, for oysters wait for us in the field, and the Jurassic ammonite waits for us in the field, the Vraconian belemnite, the Lutetian nummulite. The opening of a palaeontological song composed by students of the Moscow Institute of Geological Prospecting named after Ordzhonikidze in the 1950s.

Books · Science · People

Pushkin on Lomonosov's poetry and its influence on literature

In Lomonosov there is neither feeling nor imagination. His odes are tiresome and bombastic. His influence on literature was harmful and is still felt in it today. Pomposity, affectation, an aversion to simplicity and precision, an absence of all national character and originality: such are the traces Lomonosov left behind.

Black-and-white photograph of a desk piled with papers, in front of a blackboard covered in formulas and shelves of books.

NB! · Archive · Science · People

Albert Einstein's desk as it remained after the scientist's death

Albert Einstein's desk, just as he left it after his death

NB! · Archive · Science · Paris · People

On 4 February 1912 the French tailor Franz Reichelt, who had devised a parachute suit for jumps from a great height, tested his own invention on himself by leaping from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, from 57 metres

On 4 February 1912 the French tailor Franz Reichelt, who had devised a parachute suit for jumps from a great height, tested his own invention on himself by leaping from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, from 57 metres. And was killed

Architecture · Observations · Science

In the French spa town of Rive-de-Gier, a glass pipeline appeared as early as the middle of the 19th century

I am not sure that such sewerage systems are in use today, but glass pipelines are employed in industrial production