Brno in the context of "Gregor Mendel"

The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Czech Republic has a hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,871 square kilometers (30,452 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city is Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň and Liberec.

The Duchy of Bohemia was founded in the late 9th century under Great Moravia. It was formally recognized as an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire in 1002 and became a kingdom in 1198. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, all of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy. Nearly a hundred years later, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire.

The Venus of Dolní Věstonice (Czech: Věstonická venuše) is a Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 31,000–27,000 years ago (Gravettian industry). It was found at the Paleolithic site Dolní Věstonice in the Moravian basin south of Brno, in the base of Děvín Mountain in what is today the Czech Republic. This figurine and a few others from locations nearby are the oldest known ceramic articles in the world.

Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms. It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene.

Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the organism (e.g. dominance), and within the context of a population. Genetics has given rise to a number of subfields, including molecular genetics, epigenetics, population genetics, and paleogenetics. Organisms studied within the broad field span the domains of life (archaea, bacteria, and eukarya).

The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the Red Hill (Czech: Červený kopec) archeological site in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people known by name. One of the Celtic tribes were the Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name Boiohaemum – Latin for the Land of Boii. Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.

After the turbulent times of the Migration Period, the Czech lands were ultimately settled by the Slavic tribes. The year of 623 marks the formation of the first known state in the Czech lands, when Samo united the local Slavic tribes, defended their lands from the Avars to the east and – few years later – won the battle of Wogastisburg against the Franks invading the Czech lands from the west. The next state appearing in the Czech lands after the dissolution of the Samo's state was probably the Great Moravia. The center of its power lay in the area of Moravia and present-day western Slovakia. In 863, Cyril and Methodius, two scholars from Greece, brought Christianity to the Great Moravia and established the first Slavic script – Glagolitsa. The Great Moravia fell during the Magyar invasion at the start of the 10th century.

The South Moravian Region (Czech: Jihomoravský kraj; German: Südmährische Region, pronounced [zyːtˈmɛːʁɪʃə ʁeˈɡi̯oːn]; Slovak: Juhomoravský kraj), or just South Moravia, is an administrative unit (kraj) of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia. The region's capital is Brno, the nation's 2nd largest city. South Moravia is bordered by the South Bohemian Region to the west, Vysočina Region to the north-west, Pardubice Region to the north, Olomouc Region to the north-east, Zlín Region to the east, Trenčín and Trnava Regions, Slovakia to the south-east and Lower Austria, Austria to the south.

The Svratka (Czech pronunciation: [ˈsvratka]; German: Schwarzach) is a river in the Czech Republic, a left tributary of the Thaya River. It flows through the Vysočina and South Moravian regions, including the city of Brno. It is 168.5 km (104.7 mi) long, making it the 9th longest river in the Czech Republic.

The Brno metropolitan area (Czech: Brněnská metropolitní oblast) is the metropolitan area of the city of Brno in the Czech Republic. The metropolitan area has a population of 729,405 as of 2024. The metropolitan area is the third most populous urban area in the country.

Covering an area of 1,978 km² in the South Moravian Region, it comprises Brno and 183 surrounding municipalities, with a total population of over 700,000 as of 2023. The aim of establishing the Brno Metropolitan Area is cooperation between municipalities in coordinating strategic projects in transportation, education, environment, and social services. This cooperation is made possible by the European Commission's ITI tool – Integrated Territorial Investments.

Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959) is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University in Brno and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň.

His major interests include Indo-European languages, Uralic languages, Altaic languages, Afroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic) languages, Nostratic languages, Dené–Caucasian languages, and mathematical linguistics (lexicostatistics and glottochronology).