imperial ambitions

On this day in 1783, Czarina Catherine the Great announced the annexation, following a favourable outcome in the Russo-Turkic Wars against the Ottoman Empire, of Crimea, the right-bank of the Kuban region and the Taman peninsula that separates the Azov from the Black Sea. Other territorial expansion during long reign included parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Novorossiya (roughly corresponding to the Bessarabia region of Moldova and coastal areas of Ukraine) as well as Russian America. Also on this day in 1812, Czar Alexander I (grandson of the former) issued a decree to make Helsinki the capital of the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland—having seceded from Sweden and part of the Russian Empire from 1809 until 1917

extremophile

Appearing a bit like the Microsoft start button, this remarkable halophilic (salt-loving) microorganism classified as Haloquadratum walsbyi was discovered in the 1980 in briny pools on the Sinai peninsula. The single-celled creatures are virtually flat and nearly perfectly square and often form colonies of “sheets” visible to the unaided eye in order to maximise solar reception and contain tiny gas vesicles, which look like crystals, that help the cell remain buoyant and near the surface of the salty water they inhabit.

putinversteher

In circulation since the 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea (even nominated as Unwort of the year then but losing out to the below)  and now rising again to common-parlance and international recognition, the German term for a sympathiser or apologist of the president of the Russian Federation with the noun that generally means “understander” joins a cadre of words that have entered English in recent years (see previously), drawing sometimes apt but imperfect parallels to the US invasions of Iraq, Grenada, or Vietnam—careful not to condone or endorse violence but at the same time invoking deflection and whataboutism (a tu quoque fallacy). The article from Deutsche Welle goes on to report that the use of the letter ‘Z’ to signal support of the Russian aggression has been outlawed in this country, the letter with no unambiguous interpretation and a Cyrillic corresponding letter which seems strange considering the country’s nationalism. Theories on the distinguishing markers on otherwise identical tactical vehicles range from запад (Romanised as zapad—or a war against the West), за победу (for victory) or grimly and commiserate with the atrocities seen зачистка, an unofficial military term for a cleansing operation, room-to-room searches

midjourney

Via Waxy who is beta-testing the site too, we are directed towards Parker Malloy’s playing around with a text-prompt art generation tool that’s netted some truly mind-blowing, dreadful excellence of a neural network’s ability to produce the stunning and arresting results. The instructions that produced these works are as follows: “Chicago skyline by Andy Warhol,” “Spider-Man-themed silkscreen,” and Shakespeare’s line from The Tempest, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” Much more to explore at the links above—Joe Biden as a Grant Wood portrait is uncannily on point as well. 

 

fungi seeks same

Being long-time enthusiasts about plant and mushroom networking and communication, we quite enjoyed learning of this very preliminary, new research that goes further, responsibly suggesting analogues between the chemical and electrical signals that funguses employ to coordinate among colonies or distant parts of themselves—previously also compared to neurons—and human language. Analysis and attempts at decoding these shared messages reveal that missives are dispatched in packets with a vocabulary of possibly up to fifty words that vary across different varieties of mushrooms with split gills being the most chatty and nuanced among the species sampled.

stanze della segnatura

Born on this day (or possibly 28 March) in 1483 (†1520—on the same day), the artist mononymously known as Raphael—Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino—would go on to become one of the trinity of Italian High Renaissance art alongside Leonardo and Michelangelo, prolific despite his relatively early death, working in Umbria, Florence and finally in Rome under the patronage of two popes, the majority of his creations on display in the Vatican. Reflecting his Neoplatonic ideals, arguably his best known, commercially duplicated work is The School of Athens (Sculoa di Atene, complemented by The Parnassus and the Disputa on opposite walls), a suite of frescos commissioned between 1509 and 1511 to decorate the rooms of the papal palace with a celebration and revival of the arts and sciences and cameos of philosophers portrayed by contemporaries.

bridgehead and bastion

Taking another stroll around the neighborhood during my lunch break (see previously) and with the subterranean pedestrian passage reopened I explored the Reduit—the redoubt that originally hosted the soldiers’ barracks of the fortress of Mainz across the River Rhein—the connected to rest of the Palatinate via a pontoon bridge of ships lashed together at the time of completion in 1834 when the garrison hosted troops of the German Confederation which included forces of Austria and Prussia. 

 The semi-detached caponier, separated by the inner courtyard, is a defensive feature to extend the protection of the fort’s curtain to outbuildings and beyond—and is derived from the French term caponnière for chicken coup. 

Damaged during World War II and not fully restored, today it is the seat of several local clubs and organisations and an open-air venue. The connecting tunnel is reserved as the Brückenkopf Kastel Graffiti Hall of Fame and features more gigantic street art murals.

roche ripple

Its peaks removed by one of the biggest controlled explosions in history and a major feat of engineering on this day in 1958 to mitigate potential navigational hazards and the event covered live in one of the first national, coast-to-coast televised broadcasts, Ripple Rock is a seamount in the Discovery Passage, an inlet between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. The geological formation was so named as the summits were only metres below the surface and made a unique standing wave in the fast currents of the strait.