Two years ago I wrote an article called “Programming Human Beings during Vacations” in which I argued that the deciphering of the human genome was the very beginning of an arduous process in truly understanding genetics. I said that while some people feared that tinkering with genes was only a few years away my belief [...]

Here´s another complicated post to right. On the last one I sounded “homoweird” and now here comes one in which I may sound racist. But here it goes anyway. It refers to Polynesians and Melanesians and my statement is that Polynesians seem to be much more admirable people than Melanesians. [...]

Nature vs nurture. I tend to side with the Nurture side. In general I believe that education and overall upbringing play a very important role in the personality and skills of most individuals. But in the case of at least a certain type of sexual orientation, given my experience over here in [...]

“Human beings are the only animals that can harm at a distance.” This is a phrase out of the book. I complement it with one of my own. Human beings are the only animals whose greatest possibility of harm comes from members of their own species. Even the most dangerous animals [...]

My wife and I are in the South Pacific. We are here without internet, without dvds, without TV. We are in a tiny island called Tikehau, a coral reef. We are not even in Tikehau proper but in a smaller nearby island that has no cars and altogether around 80 people. [...]

I am in the South Pacific. I have been here for two weeks. I was in New Caledonia, now I am in French Polynesia. I also think this is the longest time I have been without internet, without using a computer, without writing e mails or surfing since 1994. New [...]

Here we are, in French Polynesia. As most travellers we are equipped with travel guides. We seek a balanced view, so we carry two guides. One is in English, the Lonely Planet guide. The other one is the famous Petit Futé guide, in French. Now, here´s the problem with these [...]

Spending a month in isolated places in the South Pacific having to carry a limited amount of luggage turned out to be the perfect experiment as to what are the most useful gadgets to carry. And here they go:

In May 2004, two months after the March 11th attack, I had the idea to have a global summit on March 11th, 2005 in Madrid. Little did I know that the summit would actually happen and be a major success. When Kofi Annan chose our conference to announce the United Nations’ strategy against terrorism [...]

At our conference on global terrorism attended by Kofi Annan and 34 heads of state there were two schools of thought on the future of Al Qaida. The optimists who thought that Al Qaida had been dealt a lethal blow and that it was unlikely that it would strike again in Europe or America [...]