Free Republic

Literature lovers around the world on Friday held celebrations and paid tribute to Anton Chekhov on the 150th birthday of Russia's most universally acclaimed playwright. Chekhov fans said the author famed for combining a raw emotional writing style with detailed studies of the human condition at the turn of the last century maintains his relevance more than 100 years after his death. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev jetted to Chekhov's hometown of Taganrog in southern Russia, where he described the physician-turned-writer's short stories and plays as "immortal." Clutching a bouquet of cream roses, the Kremlin chief said we can still learn...

DNA test can detect Picts' descendants By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent (Filed: 14/08/2006) A geneticist has created a DNA test for "Scottishness" that will tell people whether they are direct descendants of the Picts. The test, expected to cost about £130, checks a sample of saliva against 27 genetic markers linked to some of the earliest inhabitants of Scotland. Dr Jim Wilson, of the public health sciences department at Edinburgh University, said: "We started this work a few years ago, looking at the Norse component, and we proved that a large proportion of people on Orkney are descended from Vikings....