Global Geography of Milk Consumption and Lactose (In)Tolerance

Sep 29, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in March 2013] To follow up on the recent GeoNote on wine, beer, and cider consumption in France in 1870s, let’s consider the worldwide spatial patterns of another drink—milk. To North Americans...

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The New York Times’ List of Potential New Countries, and Others As Wel...

Sep 18, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in September 2013] About a year ago, two New York Times journalists, Frank Jacobs and Parag Khanna, wrote an opinion article listing eleven potential new countries that they expect to emerge in the...

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Israeli Elections 2013: Tell Me Who You Vote For and I’ll Tell You Who...

Aug 15, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in February 2013] When I first moved to Israel from the Soviet Union at the end of 1990, one of the things I was most excited about is an opportunity to vote in real elections, ones featuring more...

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Christians in the Middle East: problems and prospects

Aug 14, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in September 2013 — the topic is again timely] Christianity remains an important minority religion in the Middle East, yet many Christian communities in the region have found themselves in an...

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Israel’s Growing Arms Export

Jul 23, 2014 by

The Jewish Standard notes today that “the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine has led airlines across the globe to consider investing in … anti-missile systems [produced by Israel’s Elbit...

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Na’vi and Dothraki

Jul 18, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in January 2012] Although Klingon is by far the best known example of a “sci-fi language”, it is not the only one. Two more recent examples of languages artificially created for sci-fi films...

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