Alchemy

A fresh look at Nicolas Flamel, the 14th-century Parisian scribe long credited with creating gold using the philosophers' stone, revisits the myth he built with his wife Pernelle. The story, which fuelled centuries of obsession with alchemy and immortalised the couple in books and popular culture, is being reassessed as historians weigh how much of the legend rests on evidence.

The SQLAlchemy project has released version 2.1.0 of its widely used Python database toolkit and ORM. The release is being discussed by developers, though details of the changes included in the new version have not yet circulated widely beyond the announcement itself.

Writer Marlene has published a piece on her blog titled 'Alchemy and Pepper Seeds', arguing that planting Mexican pepper seeds can yield what she calls 'death berries', linking the garden to nightshade imagery. The short essay blends gardening with dark, metaphorical writing and thanks readers for sharing her site.

Google Cloud is discontinuing its Blockchain Node Engine, the managed service that let teams run blockchain nodes without maintaining their own infrastructure. Affected developers now need to migrate to alternative providers. Alchemy, a competing web3 infrastructure company, is publicly offering hands-on migration help to affected teams, including calls and direct support, a move seen as capitalizing on a rival's exit from the blockchain infrastructure space.

A new exhibition in Philadelphia explores the historical connections between alchemy and modern science, tracing how early alchemical practices contributed to the development of chemistry and other disciplines. The exhibit highlights manuscripts, instruments, and artifacts that show how mystical traditions and empirical inquiry were intertwined in the pursuit of knowledge.

Actor Ben Schwartz sat down with Anthony Mason for ALCHEMY to discuss an independent television series. The conversation covered his work on the project and his broader career in television. Details of the series and what was said during the interview were not provided beyond confirmation of the discussion.