Isaac Asimov’s Thiotimoline
Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by American biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov (1920 â 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the…
The Garden of Earthly Delights, Â Hieronymus Bosch
The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title[a] given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old. It has been…
The Goldfinch in art
The goldfinch is a widespread and common seed-eating bird in Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia. As a colourful species with a pleasant twittering song, and an associated belief…
Goldfinch in art
The bird that repeatedly, almost obsessively, turns up in Renaissance religious painting is the European Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis, almost always in the hands of the Infant Jesus, and symbolising variously the…
Thistle tubes, thistle feeders, distelfinks and goldfinches
A thistle tube is a piece of laboratory glassware consisting of a shaft of tube, with a reservoir and funnel-like section at the top. Thistle tubes are typically used by chemists to add liquid to an existing system or…
Sanxingdui (‘Three Star Mound’)
Sanxingdui (Chinese: äžæć ; pinyin: SÄnxÄ«ngduÄ«; lit. ‘Three Star Mound‘) is an archaeological site and a major Bronze Age culture in modern Guanghan, Sichuan, China. Largely discovered in 1986, following a preliminary finding in 1927, archaeologists excavated artifacts that radiocarbon dating placed in the twelfthâeleventh centuries BC. The archaeological site is the type…
Lazarus of Bethany aka Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead
Lazarus of Bethany (Latinised from Lazar, ultimately from Hebrew Eleazar, “God helped”), also venerated as Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the subject of a sign of Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him…
Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy 388 BCE
Plutus Written by Aristophanes Chorus Rustics Characters ChremylosCario(n)PlutusPeniaHermes Mute mutual Date premiered 388 BCE Original language Ancient Greek Genre Ancient Greek comedyPolitical satire Setting Classical Athens Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy by…
Pluteus (sculpture)
In architecture and sculpture, a pluteus (plural plutei) is a balustrade made up of massive rectangular slabs of wood, stone or metal, which divides part of a building in half; in a church they fulfil the…
Tiresias was a blind prophet who was transformed into a woman for seven years
In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes,…
Daedalus (Greek mythology)
In Greek mythology, Daedalus (Greek: ÎαίΎαλοÏ; Latin: Daedalus; Etruscan: Taitale) was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, and possibly also the…
Lagniappe, “a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get”
A lagniappe is “a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase” (such as a 13th doughnut on purchase of a dozen), or more broadly,…
