Category: History

Metchnikoff: Beyond Science and Survival | November 13 2025, 04:53

I was reading Metchnikoff’s biography (don’t ask why I ended up there) and thought about how much can fit into one life. He wasn’t just a scientist, but rather like a saga:

His elder brother Ivan was the prototype for Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Another brother, Lev, was a prominent anarchist, sociologist and fought in Italy alongside Garibaldi. Metchnikoff himself tried to end his life twice: the first time after the death of his first wife (who, sick with tuberculosis, was carried to the church on a chair). He took morphine but survived. The second time was when his second wife Olga fell critically ill with typhus. He deliberately inoculated himself with relapsing fever. Fortunately, both survived. However, the Grim Reaper with his scythe only came after his third consecutive heart attack.

The dude graduated from university at 19 as an external student. I.M. Sechenov himself recommended him for a professorship. But Metchnikoff was “blackballed” (rejected) by one vote. In protest, Sechenov resigned along with him.

He founded the first bacteriological station in the country at that time in Odessa. But due to an employee mistake (they spoiled the anthrax vaccine) an entire flock of sheep died. After this scandal, he left Russia. The station — on Leo Tolstoy Street.

In Paris, he was immediately taken under the wing of Louis Pasteur (the father of pasteurized milk), who supported his theory and gave him a lab in his institute. There, Metchnikoff worked for 28 years, becoming the deputy director.

While studying cholera at the Pasteur Institute, Metchnikoff proposed a theory that not everyone who comes into contact with the pathogen gets sick. He suggested that it’s all about… (of course) the gut flora. To prove it, he deliberately drank a culture with cholera vibrios. Nothing happened (it would have surely happened to you, Metchnikoff thought)

In the end, he received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of phagocytosis (cellular immunity). He is also “the father of gerontology” — Metchnikoff was the one who proposed the theory that to achieve longevity, one must combat bad bacteria in the gut with probiotics. Now, they say, gerontologists around the world drink sour milk on May 15th remembering Metchnikoff.

He died in Paris, and his ashes are kept in the library of the Pasteur Institute.

Also, in the English Wikipedia he’s Élie Metchnikoff. Not easy to guess.

In the photo, Metchnikoff and Leo Tolstoy are discussing immunology.

Samuel Morse: From Painter to Telegraph Pioneer | October 28 2025, 15:00

At the “Rzhipopisi” exhibition, a painting titled “Paris through the Eyes of Samuel Morse” was showcased. Essentially, dots and dashes—it sparked the idea for this post. Few know that Samuel Morse was actually an artist, and quite a decent one—check out a couple of his paintings attached to this post. But he was only “decent” by our standards—surrounded by many equally skilled artists, he considered himself a failure in this realm and devoted the second half of his life, 35 years, solely to the telegraph. (By the way, Hitler was also an artist, amateurishly decent, but more mediocre compared to Morse amidst his contemporaries, yet he ventured into politics). In the attached photos, there’s a painting with paintings. Its actual size is about two meters and among the paintings hanging there is even the Mona Lisa (La Joconde) by Leonardo da Vinci, which wasn’t valued back then as it is now. It mainly became famous after it was stolen from the Louvre, and then fervently searched for and found by the entire world.

By the way, Morse Code was not invented by Morse, but by Alfred Vail, his colleague—a fact Morse later repeatedly denied (while also attributing the invention of the telegraph itself to himself). In 1848, the Vail/Morse code was refined by the German Friedrich Gerke. The code, improved by Gerke, was used until new technologies came along.

(By the way, I don’t understand why it’s Morse and not Morz. He was American, and nobody ever called him Morse.)

Indeed, among people who were artists, about whom everyone has forgotten that they were artists because they remembered something else, it is worth mentioning besides Hitler, also Winston Churchill and George W. Bush Jr.

Life Imitates Art: The Real Louvre Heist After “Lupin” | October 19 2025, 14:49

Just yesterday we watched the first episode of the series “Lupin”, in which Assane Diop, inspired by the adventures of the fictional thief Arsène Lupin from Maurice Leblanc’s novels, together with two accomplices, carefully plans and steals a necklace that once belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette from the Louvre. The episode was very cool, I hope the whole series is too.

And today I see in the news that today criminals stole jewels of “immeasurable worth” from the section where the French royal regalia are kept in the Louvre, and then fled the crime scene on scooters. The thieves entered the Apollo Gallery, where the French crown jewels are housed, using a ladder and, presumably, small chainsaws. Nine items were stolen from the collection of Napoleon’s and the Empresses’ (Josephine’s and Eugenie’s) jewels, including a necklace, a brooch, and a tiara. The entire theft took seven minutes. At least one of the stolen items was found near the museum. It appears the robbers dropped it during their escape.

What a coincidence

Haunting Tales of Hotel Room 441 | October 16 2025, 12:27

I am starting to like my hotel. I am in room 446

Items we have read report that if you do stay at this hotel, avoid the fourth floor, or at least Room 441. That is where a lady from the other side lurks at the end of the bed, kicking the feet of guests who attempt to sleep there. And those guests are attempting to sleep there because they want to have the haunted experience. Don’t ask. Ever read Stephen King’s horror short story 1408”? The Congress Plaza is said to be its inspiration and a portion of the source that has brought Mr. King’s net worth to $500 million.”

Items we have read report that if you do stay at this hotel, avoid the fourth floor, or at least Room 441. That is where a lady from the other side lurks at the end of the bed, kicking the feet of guests who attempt to sleep there. And those guests are attempting to sleep there because they want to have the hauted experience. Don’t ask. Ever read Stephen King’s horror short story 1408”? The Congress Plaza is said to be its inspiration and a portion of the source that has brought Mr, King’s net worth to $500 million.”

Gold and Gadgets: Tracing Global Influence and Metal Monopolies | October 14 2025, 03:13

Rajesh Exports states on their website that they process 35% of the gold mined on the planet. Of course, they are exaggerating, but overall, India and Rajesh do shape the market. It turns out that 11% of all the gold on the planet is adorned on Indian women. Additionally, it was found that in 1947, 70% of all mined gold was in the USA. From 1934 to 1970, it was legally prohibited for private individuals to own gold in the USA. Approximately 22% of all the gold ever accounted for on the surface of the Earth has been mined from a plateau in South Africa called the Witwatersrand. And if you consider all the gold mined throughout history, it would amount to less than an Olympic swimming pool.

China buys up silver, with India not far behind. Interestingly, platinum is significantly used in the production of catalytic converters for vehicles – almost 40% of the global production goes there. China, of course, holds much of this production.

Practically every smartphone, tablet, or touchscreen monitor that we use is coated with a thin layer of indium tin oxide (ITO). This material has a unique combination of properties: it is almost completely transparent while also conducting electricity excellently. This allows the screen to register your touches.

Although lithium is now strongly associated with batteries, historically and still today, a significant portion of it is used in the production of glass and ceramics.

The Surprising Origins of the Word “Tumbler” for Drinking Glasses | October 05 2025, 15:32

In our language, glasses are called tumblers. I decided to find out why, because a tumbler is essentially an acrobat.

There are two mutually exclusive theories. According to one, the original tumbler glasses had a rounded or slightly convex bottom, which allowed them to “rock” or “tumble” (to tumble), but not tip over completely. So, a tumbler in this sense is kind of like a “weeble.” According to the other, they were specifically made so they could not be put down on the table open, because, say on a ship, they could tip over and the valuable rum would spill out.

Hyperinflation Memories: Collecting Zimbabwe’s Trillion Dollar Notes on Etsy and eBay | September 27 2025, 21:20

On Etsy, you can buy five billion Zimbabwean dollars for a billion times less (minus one cent)

And a 50 trillion note can be bought for 30 dollars (minus two cents)

And there is also a 100 trillion note

Childhood Curiosity and the Mysteries of Soviet Electrical Engineering | September 23 2025, 17:00

I remember being puzzled as a child by who the idiot was that decided to make the radio plug exactly the same as the one for 220 volts. This radio plug was supposed to go into a radio socket.

As a child, I used to disassemble and “improve” almost everything electrical in the house (I hadn’t graduated to electronics yet). Of course, I got shocked many times by the outlet, but to my surprise, the old Soviet phone could also give a shock. When a call came in, the voltage in the line would jump from 12-60 volts to 120 volts 🙂

I also had an interesting experience with Christmas lights. For a younger schoolchild, it was unclear why Christmas lights could shock you since they used the same bulbs that I connected to a flat “Planeta” battery. I had to learn the technicalities 🙂 By the way, those square flat batteries have disappeared; they used to be everywhere.

From Opera to Oblivion: The Fascinating Journey of Lorenzo Da Ponte | September 22 2025, 18:53

We just finished watching Le Nozze di Figaro with Nadezhda in a serialized mode and today we’ll continue with Don Giovanni, also in a serialized mode, because no one has the time. So, both of these operas were written by an American 🙂 I mean the librettos. Turns out, Lorenzo Da Ponte, an Italian librettist, emigrated, naturalized in the U.S., lived here 33 years, taught Italian literature at Columbia University in New York, founded an opera theater in the USA, which became the precursor to the New York Academy of Music and the New York Metropolitan Opera. Really an interesting dude. His real name was Emanuel Conegliano. A Jew by birth, who became a Catholic priest, a friend of Casanova, and a supporter of Rousseau’s ideas. Before moving to the U.S., Da Ponte successfully juggled teaching and a small business, earning not so much from lectures as from owning a brothel for aristocrats which he maintained. In the U.S., he kept a grocery store in New Jersey and tried selling medicines in Pennsylvania. Lorenzo Da Ponte died on August 17, 1838, in humiliating poverty, a few blocks away from the boarded-up building of his theater. His grave in one of the New York cemeteries, which was not marked, eventually got lost. Essentially, the same post-mortem fate befell his friend Mozart.

The Maunder Minimum’s Impact on Stradivari’s Unique Violins | September 18 2025, 21:20

I stumbled upon an interesting scientific hypothesis from 2003 regarding why Stradivari violins (and those of his contemporaries) are so unique. Traditional hypotheses—about the secrets of the varnish or the aging of the wood—prove insufficient. According to this hypothesis, the entire blame lies with the Maunder Minimum, a period of reduced solar activity occurring from 1645–1715, during which the tree growth rate slowed down due to the climate, meaning the wood was denser. The hypothesis suggests that amidst the perfect combination of altitude, humidity, and temperature, this environmental shift provided material with unique properties, ideal for resonant soundboards.

Stradivari was born a year before the Maunder Minimum began. His “Amati Period” (1666–1690), “Experimentation Period” (1690–1700), and “Golden Period” (1700–1720), during which he perfected and produced his best instruments (see Henley 1961), all coincided with the Maunder Minimum. Cremona’s craftsmen during this period used the only wood available to them, i.e., from trees growing during the Maunder Minimum. Neither before nor after this period was such wood available. And, probably, it is nowhere to be found in the world even now.

But really, modern violins are also quite something. Two-three hundred years ago, musicians extracted the maximum from an instrument through trial and error, whereas now it is done through meticulous calculation of sound. It is almost impossible to differentiate violins by their sound anymore, and the difference lies in the realm of individual preferences, rather than an undisputed objective worse-better.