Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards – which celebrate the very best in science photography and imaging – from an x-ray of a bat to a micrograph of a kidney stone. The exhibition opens on 12 March at three science centres and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, also commonly known as thale cress. Some of the anthers are open, revealing pollen grains ready for dispersal. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and is widely used as a model organism in molecular and plant biology. Horizontal width of image is 1200 microns. Magnification 100x. (Photo by Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images)

The proliferation of marijuana edibles for both medical and recreational purposes is giving rise to a cottage industry of baked goods, candies, infused oils, cookbooks and classes that promises a slow burn as more states legalize the practice and awareness spreads about the best ways to deliver the drug. Edibles and infused products such as snack bars, olive oils and tinctures popular with medical marijuana users have flourished into a gourmet market of chocolate truffles, whoopie pies and hard candies as Colorado and Washington legalized the recreational use of marijuana in the past year. Photo: In this Thursday, July 10, 2014, photo, Mike Fitzgerald, right, teaches behind a sample display of cannabis-infused products during a cooking class at the New England Grass Roots Institute in Quincy, Mass. (Photo by Michael Dwyer/AP Photo)

“Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard (and often referred to by his initials, LRH), was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a self-help system called Dianetics which was first published in May 1950. He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and rituals as part of a new religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations that address such diverse topics as business administration, literacy and drug rehabilitation”. – Wikipedia

Photo: American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, uses his Hubbard Electrometer (patent pending) to determine whether tomatoes experience pain, 1959. His work led him to the conclusion that tomatoes “scream when sliced”. (Photo by Scott Lauder/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Egyptian workers eat on a truck in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, January 22, 2023. Egypt is in an economic crisis is partly caused by the yearlong grinding Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the conflict in Europe has also exposed the frailties of an economy suffering from decades of mismanagement, turmoil from its 2011 Arab Spring popular uprising, years of militant attacks and then, the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Amr Nabil/AP Photo)

Bella Hadid arrives at a Dior dinner party during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival at on May 15, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

Guards wait for the start of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's funeral at Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi Mosque east of Cairo, Egypt on February 26, 2020. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Photo: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) lying in state in the Kremlin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1924

Important! For the same article in Russian language click here.

Something quite intriguing is happening within Russian-speaking internet during the last few – should you type a fully academic inquiry (at least, according to Russian academic requirements) in national search engines for "Lenin's mausoleum" – the first thing you get (even in top 10 searches) is website pages talking about black magic and occult. Website authors view this construction differently, but unconditionally agree on one thing: the mausoleum of the "leader of the world proletariat” – the essence of a magical artifact, a sort of “energy vampire”. It was built with a certain purpose: to drain the energy out of miserable Soviet citizens on one hand; and to poison the anthroposphere of one-sixth part of the earth with its vibes (the exact territory that was occupied by the former Soviet Union), depriving the Russian people of will to resist on the other hand. Complete nonsense? No doubt. Nevertheless, an intriguing one. Well, probably because some oddities do exist in mausoleum's history. These oddities are the thing we are going to discuss this time. First, let me refresh you memory on the subject.

A stray cat walks in front of a ballot box at a polling station for Turkish citizens living abroad, as part of the second round of the Turkish presidential election, at the Turkish Embassy in Cairo, Egypt on May 22, 2023. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)