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Icelander Davíd Arnórsson has been a baker all his life. He ran a successful bakery in Iceland, but always dreamt of setting up a business abroad. Two years ago, he moved to the Czech Republic, opening a bakery called Arctic Bakehouse at Prague’s Újezd, together with his friend and business partner, Gudbjartur Gudbjartsson. Their sourdough breads and Nordic pastries became an instant hit with both the locals and tourists.

Czechs like to describe themselves as a nation of people who are innovative and manually skilled. There is even a saying in Czech – zlaté české ručičky, which translates as golden Czech hands, and points to the nation’s ability to create and innovate under all conditions. Kutilství, as we describe the DIY phenomenon in Czech, has always been a strong part of the Czech national identity.

Raccoon dog, crayfish plague or the giant hogweed - these are just some of the hundreds of invasive animal and plant species that have been intensively spreading in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe over the past years, causing substantial damages to local ecosystems. Seeking to address the problem, the Czech cabinet has just approved a draft bill aimed at regulating the number of invasive species in the Czech Republic. Similar legislation is in effect in other EU member states.

This year’s Woman in Youth Activism Award for strengthening the voice of young women in Europe went to Czech activist Johanna Nejedlová. The 28-year-old Czech is the co-founder of Konsent, which focuses on preventing sexual violence and creating a safer environment for women. She beat the world-famous Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who was shortlisted in the same category.

Fruit trees have been a common feature in the Czech and Moravian landscape for centuries. However, in the past decades, traditional orchards and fruit tree alleys have been disappearing at an alarming rate. A Brno-based initiative, called Pecky z Moravy, or Moravian Fruit Stones, aims to reverse this trend by collecting tree seeds and planting them in the countryside.

The young Czech scientist Marie Šabacká has spent a considerable part of her working life in the Arctic, Antarctic and other remote areas, studying ecology of polar microorganisms and the impact of climate change on local ecosystems. This year, she received a prestigious grant from the Neuron foundation to explore tropical glaciers in Africa.

There are new warnings about a possible outbreak of measles in European countries including Czechia. Despite repeated warnings by the World Health Organization and national authorities, some Czech parents still refuse to have their children vaccinated. Our reporter Vít Pohanka spoke to both the opponents and proponents of vaccination for children and took a broader look at the issue.

Czechs are known around the world for a number of inventions, such as soft contact lenses or the Semtex plastic explosive. But not many know that they also invented the so-called síťovka or net bag, which was a predecessor of the widely used plastic bags. Czech Radio paid a visit to a Prague-based company, called Czech Net Bag, which has been trying to revive the nearly hundred-year-old product and bring it back into fashion.

Ondřej Sekora is perhaps best-known as the author of the beloved cartoon character Ferda Mravenec or Ferdy the Ant. But Sekora was more than just an illustrator and comics author. He was also a journalist, an amateur entomologist, and one of the first propagators of rugby in Czechoslovakia. The Moravian Museum in Brno will mark 120 years since Ondřej Sekora’s birth with an exhibition and a new monography.

The National Library of Israel has started digitising a long-lost batch of archival materials, belonging to Franz Kafka’s friend Max Brod. They include, among other things, Kafka’s personal diary and a notebook in which he practiced Hebrew. Israel received the missing documents from a Swiss bank in August after years of international searches and legal disputes over the author’s legacy.