Moscow · Science · Society · Humour

Alexander Chubaryan, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Ramzan Kadyrov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; and Karen Shakhnazarov, Academician of the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts

Alexander Chubaryan, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Ramzan Kadyrov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; and Karen Shakhnazarov, Academician of the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts. A photograph from the Kremlin reception held in November 2019, on the day the Prize for the Strengthening of

NB! · Archaeology · Archive · Science · People

Notes on "The Earliest Destinies of the Slavs" from the Archive of Academician Boris Rybakov

Archive · Geography · Science · Humour

The Holtermann Nugget, found in Australia in 1872, and its photomontage

When you are the largest gold nugget in the world and your only virtue is to shine. ps The so-called Holtermann Nugget was found in Australia in 1872. The 285-kilogram behemoth contained 83 kg of pure gold, which is to say that it was still 70% slag. The

Books · Observations · Science · Education

The word abiturient changed its meaning from school leaver to applicant

Originally, the word abiturient was used to mean "a pupil finishing secondary school, a school-leaver". Today it has acquired practically the opposite sense: not one who leaves school, but one who applies for admission. As late as the 1960s, explanatory dictionaries described abiturients exclusively as school-leavers.

The East · Observations · Science · Humour

Reconstructing Sumerian phonetics from Akkadian, with four vowels and no sound O

Ever wondered what the Sumerian language sounded like? There is a simple lesson on Sumerian pronunciation. Nobody now living has heard Sumerian spoken, naturally, with the possible exception of Brendan Fraser, who has been known to go gadding about with mummies through worlds several millennia old. So reconstructions of Sumerian

NB! · Observations · Science · Humour

By 1979 Computers Had Become Positively Tiny

By 1979 computers had become positively tiny. And the floppy disk! A mere trifle! I even mistook it for a nano-SIM

Colour illustration: a small computer with an L-shaped desk above, and a man at a console in a hall with tape drives below.

Archive · Science

Business computers in a 1971 illustration resembling IBM System/3 and System/360

1971. A small computer, built for the businessman. The upper machine resembles the IBM System/3, the lower one the IBM System/360.

Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Science

nplus1 reports that Italian archaeologists have discovered in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence six previously unrecorded cardboard boxes and wooden crates containing more than 150 bone fragments, including the remains of two infant

nplus1 reports that Italian archaeologists have discovered in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence six previously unrecorded cardboard boxes and wooden crates containing more than 150 bone fragments, including the remains of two infants. It turned out that they had been excavated as long ago as the

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

One might consider it a prophecy of catastrophic climate change from 1912 come true, although humanity has pushed nature to the brink of existence and extinction not over centuries, as the futurologists of a century ago supposed, but in merely…

Cinema · Science · Society · People

A short article on the Russian prodigy and young genius Pasha Konoplev: how at four he solved complex school problems, at six scored 142 on an IQ test, at seven mastered logarithms and musical notation, at eight appeared in Solaris, and…

A short article on the Russian prodigy and young genius Pasha Konoplev: how at four he solved complex school problems, at six scored 142 on an IQ test, at seven mastered logarithms and musical notation, at eight appeared in Solaris, and at ten published "A Study of the Variables

Coming Up · Architecture · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science

The Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow and its collection dating from 1716

Shall we go to a museum? One of the oldest museum collections in Russia, dating from the time of Peter the Great, is, incidentally, the collection of minerals, which in 1716 became the core of the Mineral Cabinet of the Kunstkamera and in 1836 was formally transformed into a separate

Archive · Books · Museums · Science · People · Saint Petersburg

Nabokov's archive of 300 boxes to be transferred to Pushkin House

The Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences announces the long-awaited acquisition of Vladimir Nabokov's Swiss archive, after three years of preparatory work and colossal logistics. The archive amounts to as many as 300 boxes of documents, manuscripts and texts. To be