The Mesa Verde cliff dwellings are among the best preserved archaeological sites in North America

In 1891, ancestral remains belonging to the Pueblo tribes of the Mesa Verde region began a long and unexpected journey when they were taken from their resting place in Colorado, United States. A journey which culminated in them arriving halfway across the world in Finland. 

This September, 129 years later, the ancestors took their final voyage when they were reunited with the tribes and laid to rest for the last time.  

THE AMERICAN JOURNALIST Anne Applebaum is a well-known author and authority on issues related to eastern Europe. The titles of her previous books often contain words such as gulag, iron curtain, and Holodomor, Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine. She has always been very open with her own ideological convictions. She is an old-school conservative, anti-communist, and moderate republican from the era before Trump.

African Elephants drove the Norse out of Greenland! Yes, that’s how tangled the interplay of transcontinental socioeconomic dynamics and sensitive environments can be. The intriguing historical puzzle of Norse disappearance from Greenland had eluded resolution, until late when an interdisciplinary approach seems to have done the trick - elucidated the disastrous effects of human indiscretion and imprudence. The new explanation holds lessons for us that are quite pertinent contemporarily.

Twitter image capture

 2020 KICKED OFF WITH A BANG in the world of showbiz news, when it was revealed that Hollywood star and Academy Award nominee Sharon Stone had her account blocked by the popular online dating app Bumble, due to concerns that her profile was fake. 

However, it turns out that the 61-year-old superstar truly had set up a Bumble account in the hopes of finding love. Shortly after some fans on Twitter had excitedly posted screenshots of her profile online, Stone herself responded by tweeting that Bumble had deleted her account. 

There is no doubt that the covid pandemic will remain in history mostly for other reasons than the infections and the mortality and morbidity statistics. At least so far, these stats fade out easily when compared to historical plagues such as the outbreaks of typhoid, cholera and the infamous Spanish flue - which by the way started in Kansas, Texas, and by Trump’s logic should be called USA virus, instead of Spanish.

Emmy-nominated series: “The Mandalorian,” can be streamed in Disney+

Disney+, the highly anticipated streaming service from The Walt Disney Company, continues its international expansion by launching in Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg. 

With over 6300 titles from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and more, Disney+ will be a formidable competition for Netflix and other streaming services.

Betting on harness racing, called Toto, is a popular form of gambling in Finland / Lehtikuva

Gambling has been a popular activity across Europe as well as the rest of the world for years now. No matter how hard some governments tried to prevent their residents from gambling, players still managed to find a way to play their favourite games of chance.

However, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare has recently reported that people from Finland started looking at gambling with different eyes.

Pretty Marc frontman Marc Aulén in Helsinki (Image: Tuukka Kouri)

IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC that is placing unprecedented pressures on small musical acts that now have to contend with cancelled bookings and shuttered venues, a shared passion for the craft of music is vital for keeping creativity alive.

Assyrian king and Marduk-zakir-šumi I of Babylon shaking hands

Coronavirus pandemic has forced us to change many of our habits. People everywhere have become hygiene-aware and are more careful about what they touch. Right from the beginning of the spread of the now pandemic Covid-19, hand washing instructions, songs and memes mushroomed in every channel of the social media. Today hardly any two people shake hands when they meet. 

Screenshot from a Masha i Medved video

The fifth-most watched YouTube video in the world of all time is an episode of a Russian cartoon for little children. The formidable title of being the "most viewed non-music video" belongs to it as well. Titled "Recipe for Disaster", the 17th instalment in the Russian cartoon series "Masha and the Bear" (Masha i Medved) has, as of 2019, garnered 4.213 billion views. Although primarily intended at very young audiences, the delightful, vivid and intricate 3D animation, sprightly music and acoustics, gripping, fast-paced narrative, and a witty, fastidious, and acute English translation render it attractive to any age-group.