MPJ

After the Second World War, another tide of the arms race slowly but surely began to develop in the world. With the first nuclear power plant built in Obninsk back in 1954, in the former Soviet Union, it became clear that atomic weapons and the nuclear industry overall would mark the second half of the twentieth century. Today, about 80 years after the first nuclear reactor ever built, "Chicago Pile-1", the current numbers for the commercial use of nuclear power indicate that 50 countries operate about 220 research reactors with as much more operating power plants in majority of these countries. The military numbers are expected to be even higher, and the fact is that nuclear submarines and ships can be equipped with multiple nuclear reactors on board. Some of the aircraft carriers can have up to eight of them.

There is a period of time we are familiar with acronym "BC". It stands, of course, for "Before Christ", the period before the famous tale about origin of Christian religion. But this time goes far behind Jesus. Far beyond origin of all monotheistic religions. It goes even before the eons when our ancestors knew gods in plural and to the ages when modern humans started their everlasting and ongoing endeavors. The time in prehistory occupied with endless wonders of surrounding nature without firm beliefs but surely filled with many invisible divine spirits and mysterious stars. Due to illiteracy of the period there's almost nothing tangible we could use to gain full knowledge of how early society really looked like and even though we know great deal about those times only by analyzing cave walls, fossil record and DNA samples, in order to describe one early settlement we still must use lots of imagination and scientific guesses. Personally and definitely c...

Stories and speculations about human origin are always fascinating. Ever since Darwin. " Origin of Species ", published in the middle of 19th century, was truly one of those real breakthroughs in scientific thought. However, even though it is widely accepted by the mainstream and to date no alternative theory exists, if we disregard religion, that is - theory of evolution is not complete. In it's core, Darwin's natural selection of life is 'only' describing the evolution as a process. How life adapts to changes. Trials and errors of survival of species. The entanglement of life and environment. What happens if one species collides with another. But, the origin is something else entirely. No valued theory is anywhere on the horizon. What happened at the very beginning is still a mystery. We just ... don't know. Hence.. The stories and speculations. This october my reading time has been reserved for two books about human origin. Coincidentally, they arri...

Thrillers. Books perfect for the summertime. Even though they were not exclusively tied to the beach, in my case, of all occasions, somehow sand and Kindle went along hand by hand the best. Every time. As with default definition, thriller stories and novels engage all your senses and trigger right level of entertainment and all kind of emotions during those couple of days of intense reading. Also, they alway successfully keep away your thoughts from your job, your daily issues and raw reality from your mind. In previous couple of years (mostly summers), my stock of thrillers piled up significantly, so I decided to create a recommendation and small glimpse into stories of five different styles of writing and with that many main characters stored in the similar background of political or fictitious conspiracies. And all that in familiar form of classic 'villains vs heroes' storytelling with the hero winning the girl every time. Cliché, I know, but I love it and enjoy it all the s...