A Special Place for Blog Lovers with a Touch of Science!

Credit: The 4th-century Greek palindrome: ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ (Wash your sins, not only your face), at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople; Christina Kekka from Athens, Greece Light correction by Basile Morin; via Wikipedia

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards. The word derives from Ancient Greek. It means: "a word or line that reads the same backward and forward," (1620s), from Greek palindromos "a recurrence," literally "a running back." Second element is dromos "a running"; the first is palin "again, back," from PIE *kwle-i-, suffixed form of root *kwel- (1) "revolve, move round." PIE *kw- becomes Greek p- before some vowels.

(via etymonline.com)

Credit: A Persian representation of the poet Rumi; Getty images

Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, as well as Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet" and the "best selling poet" in the United States. (via Wikipedia)

Credit: Getty images

Ever since the days of the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle, it has been supposed that there is a hierarchy of the human senses. Sight comes out as the most important, then hearing, with smell, taste and touch lower down.

But if senses like smell get less attention in the here and the now, they get almost none when it comes to the past. When we think about cultural history – perhaps visiting a museum or looking at classical art – we tend to rely exclusively on our eyes. Yet the sense of smell, when it does come into play, can be powerfully evocative. So perhaps it is appropriate that researchers are paying much greater attention to the smells of the past.

Credit: Vintage colour illustration from Gulliver's travels. Gulliver tied down by the lilliputians. Gulliver held prisoner and tied hand, foot and hair by the people from Lilliput during his voyage there. Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 prose satire by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the travellers' tales literary subgenre; Getty images

1. "Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old."

2. "Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison."

3. "The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting."

4. "And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

5. "Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine."

Credit: Portrait of Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) as he sits behind his desk in his study, Vienna, Austria, 1930s. The office is filled with figurines and statuettes of various origins. (Photo by Authenticated News/Getty Images)

Vienna has been the center of many cultural, scientific, and artistic movements. It is a city with a large historical heritage. One of the greatest inventions of them all was Psychoanalysis. In 1899, Sigmund Freud published his epochal book – The interpretations of dreams. That was the foundation of the greatest revolution in Psychology and one of the greatest in human history. It changed the way we understand and perceive human beings, our minds, and the world in general. Psychoanalysis gradually permeated all spheres of Art, Humanities, and Social Sciences. It presents us with an entirely new paradigm in which we have acknowledged the pivotal role played by the unconscious dynamics of our psyche. That knowledge helped us grasp some intricate and complex psychological events that were previously inexplicable and once again proved the unfathomable depths of human consciousness.