Latvia's colorful meadows are home to a great number of wild flowers that would be the envy of many other countries, and there's no better time of the year to explore them than the time leading to the midsummer celebration. Over the course of the next few weeks, we'll publish a Latvian Radio strand dedicated to Latvia's wild flowers.
Almost half of central and local roads are in bad or very bad condition. A large part of the road infrastructure funding is made up by EU funds, the availability of which for this purpose will fall dramatically in 2019. The Transport Ministry has discussed setting up a road maintenance fund, reported Latvian Radio on December 21.
Latvia loves trees. Dižkoki (great trees) are Latvia's largest trees, protected by law. Long ago, they were thought to be holy and signal the presence of god. Some of these ancient trees are still standing - like Zemgales krīvs (the sage of Zemgale), a 300-year-old oak that Latvian Radio visited starting off its "Greatest Trees of Latvia" column.
The University of Latvia is using fruit flies to research shiitake mushrooms. Turns out substances in the mushrooms help prolonging the fruit flies' lifespan and improving physical abilities. The flies, mere nuisance for many, are useful to scientists and have things in common with human beings, reported Latvian Radio Thursday.
There could be a total of 20,000 protected trees (dižkoki - or 'great trees') in Latvia, but only a fifth are marked as such. Inspectors from the Nature Conservation Agency routinely set off to measure the kings of the forest and say that locals' help in finding and marking these trees is very welcome, reported Latvian Radio Thursday.