Quantum of Science

Science is a tested, verifiable and organized set of knowledge. The field of ethics focuses on ideals, behavior, the question of good and evil and the consequences of a certain act. Understanding that science is a form of activity aimed for improving the civilization, we also understand that these activities can at the same time have very unpredictable and unforeseeable consequences, so ethics has to be the consciousness of Science. History is full of examples of establishing ethical standards in Science. Let's remember the Hippocratic Oath, the Oath of Maimonides, and in newer history the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, a document that warns us of dangers of weapons of mass destruction – and the main document for the establishment of Pugwash, in July 1957. Paul Berg, an American biochemist and professor at the Stanford University, was one of the initiators of the famous Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA (modified DNA) in 1975. The Conference was a forum for d...

I don't know why you're not there I give you my love, but you don't care So what is right? And what is wrong? Gimme a sign What is love? Baby, don't hurt me Don't hurt me no more Valentine's Day is the ideal opportunity for us, who talk science, to use the moment and write something on neurochemistry of love, passion, attraction, sex, and relationships. Why do we need love? Evolutionary biology has given us some answers: love, and more precisely, the connection between partners, is an important advantage for the Homo sapiens species, because the species' young grow up slowly, and their childhood and adolescence last a lot longer than with other species. So, the children need their parents much longer, and the child has the best chance of survival if both parents are present. Some species are monogamous, like a lot of birds species, and it's a rarity to see the pair 'separate', and if one of the partners...

Even those not keen on the western movie genre nor movie-lovers, know about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a 1957. movie starring Burt Lancaster (Wyatt Earp) and Kirk Douglas (Doc Holliday). The better informed ones know that the movie is based on a real event – a shootout that lasted 30 seconds with 30 shots fired, on October 26, 1881. in a small town of Tombstone, Arizona. Why write about the shootout at O.K. Corral on this blog? Be patient, continue reading and learn something. This showdown between the frontier marshals and a group of cowboys who refused to obey the laws had a distant echo in the modern American history. That was a time when the Wild West started losing some of its' wildness and the beginning of law enforcement. Cowboys were less considered to be loners with the occasional livestock protection jobs, and more to be scatterbrains, bullies and people who opposed the introduction of the rule of law to territories they occupied, limited as their...

I think I can safely say that I am “British-inclined”. Maybe a lot of you will hold this against me, but I am not much of a local-patriot. As I child, I was practically in love with ancient Greece, myths, stories, epics and mostly through drawings by a British neoclassicist John Flaxman (York, 1755- London, 1826) gathered in a collection of retold ancient Greek epics and myths prepared by Gustav Schwab (Stuttgart, 1792 - Stuttgart, 1850),  German writer and publisher. I fell in love with literature and fine arts through Flaxman's drawings and Schwab's Sagen des klassischen Altertums, however, almost at the same time I discovered The Beatles (through my mother), David Bowie (through my mother and the movie Labyrinth) and Queen (through MTV). The Rolling Stones and I have met some time later. John Flaxman, "Penelope Surprised by the Suitors", 1805. Once you discover the British rock scene, you almost instantly find yourself in a historical ...

There is a lot of what we don't know about plant life by the sea. It's just plants, we don't pay too much attention to things and creatures that don't move. Of course, more people prefer to see pinery near to their beach. When I say “plant life by the sea”, I think of plants that grow within the intertidal zone (technically, a scientific term for a land zone under the physical impact of waves and also the area that is under water at high tide) and all plants that grow in the coastal area in general. You know – it's all those things with leathery leaves that seem to be coated in some kind of a waxy matter and which usually smell really good, like laurel or softwood. Also, it would seem by the rule, even if they're not softwood, they're evergreens. I emphasize this fact specifically, because continental schools usually teach that only firs, junipers and pine trees are evergreens - Mediterranean plants species are usually not being taught and even w...