So what ‘Map Projections’-type are you?

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cartoon, humour, illustration, map, map projections, maps, xkcd

Source:xkcd: Map Projections.

Portraits of Soho

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london, pete zelewski, photography, portrait, portrait photography, soho

The People of Soho, a set by Pete Zelewski on Flickr.

Soho, located at West End of London, had been famous of sex shops and night life. Today it has developed into vibrant fashionable district, displaying remarkable cultural diversity. The photographer Pete Zelewski has superbly captured this essence of diversity in his bokehlicious portraits. Enjoy this multiplicity in personality appearances, which distances human beings from other living creatures.

Marie Curie’s Sex Scandal

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chemist, history, marie curie, nobel laureate, nobel prize, physicist, scientist

English: Marie Curie Česky: Maria Skłodowska-Curie Deutsch: Marie Curie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The sex scandal has been making news these days with top officials from CIA and US military giving up their occupations on account of this. Though the extent of these consequences are lethal to US national interest, sex scandals are still considered scandals in this modern liberal era. Just imagine how worst it had been, roughly hundred years ago, when woman is the protagonist involved in such scandal. It was famous polish-born scientists, Marie Curie, who took pinch of this pain. It was not an easy life to be a female scientist and the first one to receive two Nobel prizes in quasi male-dominated society. Read the whole story below, if you are curious what was that sex scandal about and how it ended up into the Duel, a popular sport (also had been a discipline in Olympic games) in those times.

Source: Marie Curie’s Sex Scandal and the Duel It Inspired – Mental Floss.

Related articles

• A Who’s Who of the Petraeus Military Sex Scandal (themoderatevoice.com)
• Marie Curie (hilobrow.com)
• Remembering Marie Curie on Her 144th Birthday (history.com)

Hitler’s dark charisma

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Adolf Hitler, BBC, charisma, Führer, germany, history, hitler, Laurence Rees, nazi, Nazism, politician, psyche, world war, World War I

Any attraction to the dark personality as Hitler‘s, it is really hard to comprehend. It is also hard to imagine, how he could hijack the whole nation, almost as if hypnotizing each citizens. Well, there are many ingredients, which paved path to tragic disaster as Second World War. Yet it was his charisma and economic reality which led to put him as a Führer of great nation, thereby contaminating its culture to see the whole mankind as its sole enemy.

This history matters to us today. Not because history offers “lessons” – how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.

In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had “charisma” because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.

Read this thoughtful article by Laurence Rees: BBC News – Viewpoint: His dark charisma.

The Nobel Winners Who Foiled the Nazis

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Copenhagen, de hevesy, George de Hevesy, germany, james franck, max von laue, nazi, niels bohr, nobel prize, physicist, scientists, University of Göttingen

Portrait of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, James Franck and Rabi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Very amusing story about two great physicists, James Franck (Jew german physicist) and Max von Laue (non-jew german physicist, but Hitler critic), from the university where I studied (University of Göttingen). They had to hide their Nobel prize medals at Niels Bohr‘s lab in Copenhagen, for not to be confiscated by Nazis. The situation became tricky when Nazi rolled into Copenhagen in 1940, but Niels Bohr and his colleague, de Hevesy managed to hide those medals interestingly very scientific way. Read the whole story below to find out.

Unfortunately, my university, hometown/host to 44 Nobel Laureates, had seen great exodus of mathematicians, scientists and intellectuals during Nazi period. Though few of them came back from exile, including Max von Laue, who in the end got possession of his Nobel Prize Medal.

Source: The Nobel Winners Who Foiled the Führer – Mental Floss.

1000 years of war in 5 minutes

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history, infographic, infovideo, War

War makes a history and history makes a war. Crash course in political landscape of last 1000 years.

Source: 1000 years of war in 5 minutes | kottke.org

Was Jesus Christ really married? New evidence says so…

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archaeology, christianity, history, jesus, jesus christ, religion, science, smithsonian, smithsonian magazine, theology

Harvard researcher Karen King today unveiled an ancient papyrus fragment with the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” The text also mentions “Mary,” arguably a reference to Mary Magdalene. The announcement at a religious studies conference in Rome is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world. The Smithsonian Channel will premiere a special documentary about the discovery on September 30 at 8 p.m. ET. And Smithsonian magazine reporter Ariel Sabar has been covering the story behind the scenes for weeks, tracing King’s steps from when a suspicious e-mail hit her in-box to the nerve-racking moment when she thought the entire presentation would fall apart.

Read more: The Inside Story of a Controversial New Text About Jesus | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine.

How many clothes does a man need?!

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Business, consumerism, consumers, cotton-industry, environment, fashion, fast fashion, textile, textile-industry, United States

In 1985, Americans on average bought 31 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy roughly 60—more than one per week. And when we lug home our haul we’re not shy about making room in the closet: We throw out 78 pounds of textiles per person—five times as much as we did in 1970.

It’s excessive consumption of textile affecting the environment and poor people at large. Why not buy something quality-wise good and use it for long? Should the textile be made more expensive? Or should the designer look for timeless design which makes textile durable in consumer’s mind? Or recycling should be encouraged like in various electronic industries?

Join the discussion –
Branch: http://on.branch.com/SoZx8o
Quora: http://qr.ae/8UPAn

Source: Are Your Skinny Jeans Starving the World? Mother Jones.

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• Sustainable Innovation: Reducing Fashion’s Carbon Footprint (junkscience.com)
• IHT Rendezvous: Sustainable Innovation: Reducing Fashion’s Carbon Footprint (rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Sustainable textiles (sustainableandfashionable.wordpress.com)
• Textile Waste Criteria (textlnfo.wordpress.com)

Envisioned present in the past

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1900, Art, France, Future, Paris, postcards, Science Fiction, vision, world exhibition

 

Jean-Marc Cote and other artists envisioned what France would look like in the year 2000. Presented at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris, at least 87 different cards were distributed in France from 1899 to 1910.

Watch the whole gallery: A vision of the future from 1899 Pictures | CBS News.

How many arms does a man need?

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arms-control, Gun control, politics, Right to keep and bear arms, United State, us

… gun ownership in the United States remains strong compared to the rest of the world and the debate over gun rights protection versus gun control has grown more divisive than ever before.

Related articles

• In The U.S. Gun Control Debate, What Can We Learn From Switzerland? (ibtimes.com)
• What would it take to start a gun control debate in the US? (ethanzuckerman.com)