Science

Shining a light into the darker corners

Sweden has the dubious honour of being second only to Third Reich Germany in the number of people sterilised against their will. It is one of those “skeletons in the closet” things, in that the Swedish establishment avoided talking about it for a number of years, preferring to bury this rather sordid aspect of our …

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No nose & a burst bladder – poor man!

Today’s post is about a gentleman who is mostly famous for two things, one of which is not having a nose. It is strange, isn’t it, what peculiar aspects of people go down as truly noteworthy for future generations, and in this particular case the loss of a nose clearly overshadows the impressive intellect and exciting …

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Of Alcohol and Devious Merchants – a brief history of Armagnac

The other day, I went into the local liquor store and bought a bottle of Armagnac. It was time, I’d decided, for me to acquire a sophisticated adult vice, and I quite liked the mental image of me curled in the sofa, book in hand and with a glass of Armagnac within reach. Now, buying …

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Going with the flow – or the spark of life

Electricity has always been around. Lightning is a form of electricity – but our ancestors called it magic, and cowered in fear in their recently decorated caves as the skies burst apart with bolts of light. Or they blamed it on God. “Let there be light,” He thundered, and the sky lit up from within. …

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