Recently, I read an absolutely fascinating article by two Japanese scientists who study ant behavior. They described how one species of ant uses sophisticated chemistry to wipe out an entire colony of another species. The process unfolds as follows: The queen of the parasitic species approaches the colony of another species. Since ants rely on…
My foreign friends, blog readers, and social media followers have recently been asking me what has happened to Czechia when they see top representatives of the new government aligning themselves with Russian collaborators like Orbán and Fico. Elections were held in the Czechia, overwhelmingly won by the populist movement ANO. It won by promising everything…
This year I decided to take a several-day pre-Christmas trip to Athens. My goal was not the ancient monuments, but the district of Exarchia. This part of Athens is well known for its alternative and anarchist spirit. And perhaps by coincidence, it was exactly the weekend when the annual protests against police violence take place,…
I headed to this event sometime earlier this year. At first, I hesitated a bit. A punk musical? Dominion Theatre in the West End with velvet seats? A capacity of 2,000 seated? But as soon as I saw the crowd trickling in—many of them familiar faces from the 100 Club or Camden gigs—my doubts gradually…
