Yugoslavia’s WWII memorials

During the 1960s and 70s, thousands of monuments commemorating the Second World War – called ‘Spomeniks’ – were built throughout the former Yugoslavia; striking monumental sculptures, with an angular geometry echoing the shapes of flowers, crystals, and macro-views of viruses or DNA. In the 1980s the Spomeniks still attracted millions of visitors from the Eastern bloc; today they are largely neglected and unknown, their symbolism lost and unwanted. Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers travelled the Balkans photographing these eerie objects, presented in this book as a powerful typological series. The beauty and mystery of the isolated, crumbling Spomeniks informs Kempenaer’s enquiry into memory, found beauty, and whether former monuments can function as pure sculpture.

– Roma Publications

Many more of these incredible structures at retronaut

Today’s bookmarks

Specimen: Adult mouse hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in learning and memory. Reactive astroglia (pale yellow) have proliferated and enlarged in response to neuronal activity over time. Technique: Confocal microscopy, Z-stack of 7 slices. (Dr. Sandra Dieni/Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Albert-Ludwigs University/Freiburg, GermanyThe Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition winners

Finally, along with this Phil Plait write up (bookmark him!) is this really cool video from NASA detailing the recent observations of a giant planet 63 light years from Earth orbiting only 4 million kilometers from its sun. So close is this, that its atmosphere is being boiled and blasted away, streaming a tail of gas ‘behind’ it.

Fuck do I love the crazy/cool things out there for us to keep discovering. Keep it up Universe.