[Are liquid crystals living organisms?].

In 1888 the Austrian botanist F. Reinitzer made the observation that the solid compound cholesteryl-benzoate changes - when melting at 145.5 oC - into a cloudy liquid, that however, turns into a clear liquid at 178.

[Not Available].

Dutch science flourished in the late sixteenth and in the seventeenth century thanks to the immigration of cartographers, botanists, mathematicians, astronomers and the like from the Southern Netherlands after the Spanish army had captured the city of Antwerp in 1585, and thanks to the religious and the socio-economic situation of the country. A strong impulse for practical scientific activities started from the Reformation, mainly thanks to its anti-traditional attitude, which had an anti-rationalistic tendency. Therefore, in the Northern Netherlands there was no 'warfare' between science and religion and the biblical arguments leading to Galileo's condemnation were not used.

[Reasoning by analogy in chemical history: fallacies and guidelines].

In chemistry (and natural science in general) reasoning in terms of analogy may be of great practical value as well as of theoretical significance. At the same, however, the use of analogy is risky and the results are uncertain. In alchemy and iatrochemistry analogies between the living and the non-living nature have been carried too far.