The 2026 Grand Final in Vienna was won by Bulgaria’s DARA with “Bangaranga,” giving Bulgaria its first Eurovision victory. According to AP, the song received 516 points, while Israel finished second with 343 points. The 2026 edition also took place under political tension and boycotts linked to Israel’s participation, reminding the world that Eurovision has always been more than a song contest: it is also a mirror of Europe’s social, cultural and political climate. (AP News)
Since 2019, the Institute for Human Sciences and the Erste Foundation have sponsored an annual Speech for Europe. The speech is always timed to coincide with the opening of the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna’s annual cultural festival, and is on or near Europe Day, which is also the anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
The speech is held outdoors, on Judenplatz, the centre of the Viennese Jewish community during the Middle Ages and the site of an important Holocaust memorial today. Entry is free and the audience stands to listen. Hopefully it does not rain.
This year, Anne Applebaum gave the speech. American readers might note that she speaks here as a European and offers advice to Europeans. This is because she has a Polish passport, acquired in 2013, but also because she considers herself to be a patriotic citizen of the transatlantic alliance that America built together with Europe more than eighty years ago. She also believes that the ideas and values behind the American, Polish and British constitutions are the same.
The theory of the Triune Brain, proposed by the American neuroscientist Paul MacLean, became one of the most famous models for explaining human behaviour. It describes the brain as a system composed of three evolutionarily different levels: the “reptilian complex”, the “palaeomammalian” or limbic brain, and the “neomammalian” brain, associated primarily with the neocortex. In popular interpretation, these levels are responsible, respectively, for survival, emotions and rational thinking.
Modern neuroscience considers this model overly simplified. However, as an educational metaphor, it remains useful: it helps explain why a human being may simultaneously seek safety, experience strong emotions and make complex rational decisions. This article presents MacLean’s theory in detail, while also adding scientific clarifications and noting its limitations.
Modern humans — Homo sapiens — are the only surviving species of the genus Homo. Despite our visible diversity, all living humans share a recent common evolutionary origin in Africa. This conclusion is supported by palaeoanthropology, archaeology, and population genetics.
The study of ancient fossils, archaeological cultures, and genetic markers — including mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome lineages, and genome-wide variation — has allowed scientists to reconstruct the major stages of human origins, migrations, and adaptation.
For readers of Science & Life, this is not only a story about the distant past. It is also a story about the unity of humankind, the movement of ancient populations, the power of scientific evidence and the danger of oversimplified racial myths.
Special analytical material by the 100%NEWS.TV Editorial Department
Imagine a classic picture of apparent hopelessness: exhausting Florida heat, a heavy business suit, and an endless line of doors being closed before a young saleswoman could finish her pitch. For seven years, Sara Blakely sold fax machines door to door. Before that, she had twice failed the LSAT, the law-school admission test in the United States, and had even failed to secure a role as Goofy at Walt Disney World because she was not tall enough for the costume.
At first glance, this looked like the ordinary biography of a person moving from one disappointment to another. Yet two decades later, Forbes would place that same woman on its cover and describe her as the youngest self-made female billionaire. By the age of 41, the company she had created — Spanx — had become a billion-dollar business. It had been built without external venture capital, without an elite business-school background, and without family connections inside the closed world of fashion and retail.
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“Why are some people so lucky, while others are not?” “I will try once more, and then decide whether to continue.” “Maybe I am simply not as strong as others.” “Perhaps we have a different mentality.” “Why does life give opportunities to some people and not to others?”
Have you heard such phrases before? Of course you have. They fill the air around us, because the world often contains more voices of complaint than voices of courage. Yet biology tells a different story. From the very beginning, life is not built on weakness. Life begins with energy, selection, interaction, movement and the extraordinary capacity to overcome resistance.
