After defining the characteristics of ideological knowledge and knowledge based on research, the experimental work on illusory correlations, serial effects, difficulties in ‘grasping counterexamples’ and prejudiced pseudo-knowledge is reported. This proves how ideology can develop from the very functioning of the cognitive processes (perception, thought) when it is not kept under critical scrutiny. The difference between ideological and scientific thought reflects the different social conditions behind the production of the two types of knowledge. The production of scientific knowledge is regulated by specific rules such as the logic of the experimental method and empirical references, and is animated by a depressive attitude (“I am responsible for matters within the confines of rules set by the research community’) while the propositions of ideology are antiempirical, shy away from counterexamples, are confusional, and are underpinned by an attitude that is potentially maniacal and omnipotent. The ideological factors that can have an effect on professional research are listed and it is shown how the results of this, once controlled, lose all ties to the ideology they may have been inspired by, to the extent that they constitute another sphere that is completely autonomous and independent.

Language and logic are inseparably intertwined in the European intellectual tradition. It has not always been an easy relationship. There have always been issues of substance whether the two were friends or foes. Today computation is a part of the equation, and we are seeing the development of a new discipline of computational linguistics. But meaning in language is more than the combinatorial properties of signs. We note some limitations of the current technology and put forward some observations on the broader topic of grammar and mind.

In 1874 the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen sent a request to Edvard Grieg to have him compose music for a stage production of his ‘dramatic poem’ Peer Gynt. Grieg's immediate response was positive, and a happy collaboration between the two artists was established, the result of which was the premiere of Ibsen's drama with Grieg's music at the Christiania Theatre in the Norwegian capital in February of 1876. The history of Grieg's work, the first performances in Scandinavia, the editions of the score, and finally the 26 individual musical pieces of Peer Gynt are described in this paper.

The increase of the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial era, and the climatic change that it may trigger, are not subjects of public awareness, even though the evidence that the change has already been observed is still debated. The intensive research carried out in the last few decades to reduce the uncertainty in prediction has led to better identification of the other mechanisms able to influence the climate. The purpose of this paper is to present, in a simplified manner, these other sources of climate forcing, which may be responsible for a climatic variability superimposed on the long term one caused by the increase of the greenhouse gases and which may hide and even counteract its effects.

The first pure drugs from plant sources were obtained early in the 19th century. Magendie saw them as the basis for the development of a scientific pharmacopoeia based exclusively on pure compounds and, by 1821, had produced the first textbook of pharmacology based on strict scientific principles.