Thanks to the new science of synthetic biology, it will soon be possible to create living cells in a laboratory. This could bring big benefits—from medicine to combating global warming—but potential dangers too. I went to Greenland to find out…

Norway may have given up producing canned fish, but its cuisine is still pretty poor. At the Stavanger fish market you can, however, pick up some very tasty whale meat

I celebrated international women's day with 90 Swedes in a plush all-male club. I got to take home Brad Pitt—and heard a nugget of gossip about Nicolas Sarkozy

I had been living in Damascus for barely a month when my Norwegian friend Isak told me he was on the verge of converting to Islam. Then the Danish cartoon row erupted

Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that published the infamous Muhammad cartoons, is based in my home town and still sits on my family's coffee table. This is the real story of how a provincial newspaper's prank turned into a global crisis

After a rocky patch in the early 1990s, the Swedish model of high taxes and high spending is now stronger—and more popular—than ever. Sweden's prime minister explains why

The powerful alliance between a part of America's Christian right and Likudnik Israelis could wreck the road map to peace

A book on the greatest developments in our understanding of the universe is stimulating but flawed

I came to love my Danish country hospital and its reassuring routines; now it is being closed down

Poor old Finland

The cold war split single cities in two. Globalisation is bringing separate ones together, regardless of nations

Danish secondary schools socialise parents as well as children. But don't mention exam results.