“Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people”  (Thor Heyrdahl )   An ecologist friend of mine sent me a paper from the mid-80s titled What is conservation biology by Michale E Soulé that sought to build (rather define) the (then) emerging discipline of conservation biology. Soulé frame...

Cambalache is the name of one of the most famous tango songs ever, composed during the world economic crisis in the 30s. A cambalache is a shop in which it is possible to buy almost anything and products are exposed in a rather chaotic way. The term is often used as a metaphor for the mess and loss of clear references in society in times of cris...

It struck me last weekend when I read an interview in a Belgian newspaper with Saskia Sassen, a well known sociologist. She recently wrote the book Expulsions: Brutality and complexity in the global economy (which is on my reading list, and probably should be on yours too).  She argues in the book that what we are witnessing now, in the 21st ce...

A recent (online) film, ‘Under the Dome – investigating China’s smog’ examining severe air pollution in China and its causes, has gone viral in just a couple of days in my country. ‘Under the dome’ seems to have hit a nerve for many Chinese people and has attracted hundreds of millions of hits by now. Although the video has been take...

Till recently, I worked as a staff advisor to the Office of the Minister of Health in my country Costa Rica. “What does an advisor to the Minister actually do?” was a question I often got from friends and peers external to the Ministry. I always found it difficult to explain in a brief way what my duties were. Then one day someone asked me i...

International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated last Sunday, March 8. It’s been again an outburst of female  voices mainly, which is a bit politically correct perhaps, but understandable. No man wants to be slammed down on this day, while making some sort of controversial statement. Still, it would be good to also hear more male voices on IW...

How does an educated and well accomplished woman – say, a female scientist – in a typical African setting avoid stepping on the often overly sensitive toes of her husband or male partner? How can she balance her career, family, and social roles without neglecting one or offending those who are ready to be offended? What about the bride price t...

Below you find an overview of the EV nominees  (nominations and/or self-nominations) for the EV Governance Committee, by WHO region. The African region is split up in West/Central African region and  East/South African region, as indicated in the poll last week. In 4 regions, an election will be held: Western Pacific, Region of the Americas; ...

Last November the Economic Forum released The Global Gender Gap Report 2014. The report is an attempt to measure the gap between men and women in four fundamental categories: (1) health and survival; (2) educational attainment; (3) economic participation and opportunity; and (4) political empowerment. In the Latin American/Caribbean region, 14 o...