br23 blog - minsk, belarus

On Saturday we visited Lobkowicz’s castle near Prague, saw the original paintings of Lucas Cranach, Rubens, Breugel, and many other famous painters, including unique paintings of Spanish artists from 15th and 16th century. Walking through the castle rooms I felt awed and even subdued by the weight of this centuries-old art and European civilization. And […]

• BBC: Universe ‘child of previous one’
I hate journalists’ writing about science because they often times report about something they themselves didn’t quite understand and usually end up writing misleading and pseudoscientific articles. And even though BBC is usually better than the rest of the bunch, in this case I was left with the […]

I have discovered Wikipedia more than two and a half years ago. Since then I’ve used it regularly as a quick reference, and I also used to contribute to it a little bit, mostly to the articles about Belarus. Since then several Russian contributors (who openly express pro-imperial, pro-Soviet, anti-Western, anti-Belarusian and anti-Ukrainian political views) […]

The third annual session of Warsaw East European Conference will take place on July 5 — July 8, 2006, in Warsaw, Poland. There will be three round tables:

Police state in the process of system transition in postcommunist countries
Belarus – future of the society, nation and state
EU eastern policy – enlargement, partnership, borders, cooperation

In order to […]

Only several days ago I ordered multivitamins with resveratrol from an online drugstore, and today I opened the new issue of “Scientific American” and saw this article:
• Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity Genes
I have a gut feeling it’ll become a huge thing in the upcoming years all over the world. And resveratrol (which I keep […]

Today I got an email from Jan Malicki, a chairman of Eastern European studies program in Warsaw University. He writes that Warsaw University is going to grant 20 scholarships to graduate students from Belarus and Ukraine, to study politology for one year (from March till December, 2006). The deadline for applications is January 20, […]

Almost by accident I’ve received six back issues of “New Scientist” from 2002 which I read yesterday and today with great interest. I was quite surpised to see that even short-term forecasts in science don’t seem to hold up. Here are just a few funny ones that I’ve spotted:
• Cloning. The January issue predicts […]

I’ve received an email announcement from France about an upcoming international conference on Belarus and Ukraine in Paris, in March 2006, and a culture week of Ukraine and Belarus, at the same time (March 20-25, 2006). Below you’ll find the complete text of the announcement with the details:
Call for papers
Conference «Ukraine and Belarus – […]

The man who helped me to cure my ulcer pains received the 2005 Nobel prize for medicine. Reuters reports:
“An Australian scientist who jointly won the 2005 Nobel prize for medicine said he became a human guinea pig and drank a cocktail of bacteria to prove his theories that ulcers were not caused by stress.
Australian […]