Around 1490, Leonardo da Vinci drew a man inscribed simultaneously within a circle and a square – the figure now known as Vitruvian Man. Measurements of the drawing place the ratio of the square’s side to the circle’s radius at approximately 1.645. Despite more than a century of analysis, no consensus has been reached on the geometric construction Leonardo used to generate that proportion. Independent researcher Dr Rory Mac Sweeney proposes reframing the problem geometrically. The circle represents radial geometry – organisation around a centre. The square represents orthogonal geometry – organisation along perpendicular axes. The question becomes: which geometric form mediates between them proportionally?

For many decades, historians have argued over whether Nicolaus Copernicus – the astronomer who first proposed that Earth orbits the Sun rather than the other way around – also cast horoscopes and used astrology in his medical practice. It sounds like a simple question, but it has generated some of the most heated debates in the history of science. Now, a new paper by George Borski and Ivan Kolkov brings fresh evidence to bear on the controversy, and the answer is more nuanced than either side expected.

Before there were borders… before conquest rewrote the maps… there was Africa – the birthplace of humanity. Cradle of civilizations, technologies, philosophies, and sacred traditions that shaped the ancient world. Yet too often, Africa’s story is forced to begin in bondage – with loss, rupture, and the European Slave Trade.

In the chaos of early twentieth-century Russia, philosopher and historian Lev Karsavin (1882–1952) sought to reconcile faith, reason, and the depths of human emotion. Exiled and later imprisoned in the Soviet gulag, he developed a vision of “all-embracing unity,” where even love, suffering, and death reveal the presence of the divine. Professor Robert Slesinski’s book, Liebestod: The Philosophy of Lev Karsavin, explores this striking figure in Russian religious thought.