The Virgin of the Rocks (The Virgin with the Infant Saint John adoring the Infant Christ accompanied by an Angel) c.1491-1508 Leonardo da Vinci 1452 – 1519 You can enlarge the image if you follow this link. The National Gallery website has some good general...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most people have things that they repeatedly do before events they are nervous about. If you have a big meeting coming up at work, you might go and hide in the bathroom and try to calm down a bit, or maybe make a...
Sticking with the medical theme, this is sumatriptan: It’s a migraine cure, and it’s marvellous. It works. When I have a migraine attack, I spray twenty milligrams of this up my nose, and the pain goes away. It’s not perfect – in particular, it doesn’t...
The second major instrument to be traded is called Forex, which stands for Foreign Exchange. This involves buying and selling currencies similar to how you’d do it in the post office. Currencies are traded in currency pairs and a currency is denoted by the three...
The Virgin Adoring the Child Sandro Botticelli 1490 Sandro Botticelli is another one of those Florentines who we know by his nickname (it means little barrell). His given name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. He was a student of Fra Filipo Lippi, who you may...
We’re halfway through the month, and today is the day for looking at medical breakthoughs. There’s no actual reason for this, it just seems like a good idea. This is penicillin: Penicillin is, famously, produced by some kinds of mould as a form of self-protection,...
Currently we’ve covered What a stock market is, and why the prices move on the stock market. In this article we’ll quickly cover the different types of instruments that can be traded on the stock market. The most common instrument traded is a share. A...
Detail of Virgin with Child between St. Stephen and John the Baptist Filippino Lippi 1503 Filippino Lippi was the son of famous fifteenth-century Florentine painter Fra Filipppo Lippi, a monk who was reported to have had several children with an assortment of different nuns. Filippino...
But not as you know them! Now, when I say ‘league’ within the general context of sports, I imagine you’re going to think of football. That’s ok, it’s a popular sport, you’re allowed to think of it. Simplify it down to the basics: a football...
As the ocean has currents, so does the air. But where the ocean has to move around the continents, air can move over them. The land isn’t flat, but in most places it’s a pretty good approximation of it. Air currents are primarily shaped not...