Metaphysical tenderness does exist – it lies at the core of joyful acceptance of all manifestations of life on both sides of our skin and determines our zest for life, perhaps to a greater extent than money, fame, or origin.

Why is the word “tenderness” rarely mentioned in the Bible? Can we make any judgement about God’s tenderness? We talk to Father Tadeusz Dola, Professor Emeritus of Theology and head of the Theological Sciences Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Painter and graphic designer Rafał Olbiński explains how art motivates us to be better people and why good manners are worth more than laws.

Struggles with femininity in Yiddish poetry.

On the Tenderness of the Environment and the “Tender Narrator.”

On the importance of tenderness towards others in workplace relationships.

On the shift toward tender sensitivity – the role of relations, emotions, and empathy in design.

The issue of tenderness has never been the major topic of moral theology. It is enough to have a quick look at the most popular dictionaries of moral theology to see the total absence, or only a marginal presence, of this issue both in the doctrinal teaching and the catalogue of virtues. The article presents specific 20th-century philosophical and theological attempts to tackle the issue of tenderness that were introductory to the theology of tenderness suggested by Pope Francis. The article presents different approaches to tenderness in Pope’s theology and its existing examples. Pope Francis seems to understand tenderness as a mode of existence and relations with other people that correlates with the mode of being a Christian in the world, because this is the way of showing God to the world. This way of life is characterized by empathic closeness, life focused on the gift of self, a real participation in the life of other people with their joys and sufferings, and, last but not least, paternal and maternal care. If we assume that the goal of moral theology is to show authentic human existence in specific places of human life, it has to be said that, following Pope Francis’ teaching, it is impossible to contribute to moral theology and ignore tenderness as the central virtue vital for living the Christian calling.

Blockchain technology may soon profoundly transform the economic, financial, and legal reality of entire societies and even systems of government. But is this new financial instrument (a new form of ”tender,” in the sense of money offered for payment) sensitive only to the rules of free-market economics, or also to human rights and sensibilities? Whose needs will determine the direction of change: those of ordinary people, or the financial elite?

Astronomers are charting out a radio map of the sky, showing hundreds of thousands of previously unknown galaxies.

Highly sensitive devices such as the SHRIMP IIe/MC ion microprobe help scientists to make precise measurements of past time-scales, paleoclimatic temperatures, and much more.

Psychotherapist and psycho-oncologist Justyna Pronobis-Szczylik talks about the need for tenderness and the insensitivities of the healthcare system.

Olga Tokarczuk is among the pioneers exploring a certain turn towards emotions, artistic efforts that value sensation over thought.

What does it take to secure a foothold in the global high-tech market and keep such a business afloat? We can look at the experiences of other companies to find proven solutions and answers to the most important questions.

For many years, people’s perceptions of wolves had nothing to do with actual knowledge about wolf biology and ecology. What can close observations of wolf families teach us about these mammals? Should we give wolves names? And why don’t they need our empathy?

The word “sensitivity” has many meanings, ranging from more mundane technical senses, to meanings specific to statistics and machine learning, all the way to the most human understanding of the concept – that of tender emotions.

Elusive phenomena such as the parental care habits of prehistoric animals would seem to be forever inaccessible to paleontological research. However, new spectacular finds offer some deeper insight into such behavior.

On the question when mammals first started to rear their offspring, the jury is still out. Was such care-giving behavior actually inherited from our reptilian ancestors?

Marta Wrzosek from the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw talks about the fascinating and complex world of fungi and examines the complicated role of language in science popularization.

The occurrence of errors in publicworks tender documentation is an undesirable phenomenon which is unfortunately often encountered in construction practice. Errors may have various causes and also have varying levels of negative effects on the successful implementation of the investment project. Taking this fact into consideration, this paper aims to identify and assess errors in terms of the requirements laid down by the applicable legislation in the Czech Republic, especially the Public Procurement Act and the associated implementing decree. A total of 126 public tenders were analysed in detail from this perspective. The results show that the occurrence of particular errors is relatively high, especially with regard to the specification of the bill of quantities and the requirement to include references to openly accessible price systems. Furthermore, errors relating to the specification of the quantity of works, units of measurement and descriptions of cost items were identified as having the largest impact on a project. Findings presented in this paper aim to highlight common errors in public tender documents and raise awareness of the need to improve their quality to ensure legislative compliance.

The article presents the tender procedure used to select the best – according to the investor’s requirements – variant of the offer for the General Contractor of a development investment. The subject of the contract was the comprehensive construction of a complex of single-family, semi-detached buildings with a traditional brick structure. In the opinion of the authors of the article, a well-thought-out selection of an appropriate contractor is one of the most important elements of the investment process, because it has a direct impact on the fluency of the construction stage and the future use of the investment, during the warranty period. In addition, a diligently conducted tender procedure allows to minimize the risk of selecting an unprofessional contractor and thus allows to counteract many possible problems and conflicts during the implementation of the subject of the contract. At the stage of the tender procedure, four variants of offers for the comprehensive implementation of the construction of a complex of single-family semi-detached buildings of the following criteria: price (C1), lead time (C2), form of payment (C3), liquidity (C4), experience (C5) and resources (C6). In this article, the authors presented in details the calculation procedure using the ideal point method. Conducting a multi-criteria assessment of variants, based on the selected methods, also clearly verified the strengths and weaknesses of all tenderers, enabling the selection of the best one in the light of the adopted assessment criteria.