Zoologist Petr Šípek on how dramatic drop in numbers can impact ecosystems

More and more analysis is pointing to a dramatic drop in insect populations in Europe and across the world. A long-term study in neighbouring Germany, for example, suggests that flying insect populations dropped alarmingly by more than 75 percent over the last three decades.

David František Wagner on the popularity of the live-action hobby and (occasional) art form

Last month saw the 50th anniversary of the first full hip replacement surgery in the former Czechoslovakia under the lead of Professor Oldřich Čech who later played a role in the first Czech-made endoprosthetics design.

Pavla Horáková is well-known in literary circles as a respected translator, reporter for Czech Radio, and author. Her new novel called Teorie podivnosti (A Theory of Strangeness) received very positive reviews and has become a much sought-after title this holiday season*.

We are here outside the famous Carolinum – the heart and soul of Charles University in Prague. This year the university has been marking 100 years since the founding of Czechoslovakia and recently opened an exhibition entitled “Czechoslovakia in 100 objects”.

Prague’s Charles University is proud to have hosted its first Cleveringa lecture at the Patriotic Hall this week, commemorating a famous courageous protest speech by Professor Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa on November 26, 1940 at Leiden University against the dismissal of Jewish colleagues. The speech led to a student strike and closure of the university by the Nazis.

If you are one of the two thousand or so people who attended the První republika festival organised by Charles University (and the First Faculty of Medicine) last weekend, you probably caught sight of a poster of T.G. Masaryk, as drawn by Jaz. He is the anonymous author of Opráski sčeskí historje – an irreverent comic strip that has achieved cult status through an unusual take on Czech history and the Czech language.

This weekend (November 3-4) saw the Frame Comics Festival, a two-day celebration of indie comics, held at the Carolinum. If you are a fan of personal stories, more niche artistic approaches and original graphic novels and children's books, this was the perfect chance to meet international authors and artists. And pick up a book for a loved one or a friend.

Anyone interested in the history of hot chocolate, tea and coffee would be thrilled to sit down with Karel Černý - the head of Prague’s Institute of Medicine and Foreign Languages at Charles University's First Faculty of Medicine - as we did. Barring that, the next best thing may be to pick up his soon to be published history about caffeinated beverages in Central Europe.

Professor Robert J. Aumann is a renowned Israeli-American mathematician who received his Ph.D. from MIT and is most closely associated with Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His ground-breaking work in game theory culminated in his receiving the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2005 (which he shared with Thomas Schelling).

Foreign students who have the chance to study at Charles University under the Erasmus+ program often describe their semester or two in Prague as “unforgettable”. Not only is Erasmus+ an opportunity to advance in one’s chosen major but it’s a chance to experience something different in the heart of Europe.

This August 11, Jan Palach would have been 70 years old. A student at Charles University in January 1969, 20-year-old Palach doused himself in gasoline and set himself alight at the top of Prague’s Wenceslas Square. He took the drastic decision to lay down his life as a form of protest – five months after Soviet tanks had rolled into Czechoslovakia.