Science Journal | All stories

In this edition of Science Journal: Czech physicists make the American Science magazine with an experiment on quantum walks. And the secrets of the Antarctic unfold beneath the watchful eyes of scientists from Masaryk University in Brno, who are expanding their research at James Ross Island this year.

Presbytis hosei canicrus – let’s call him Miller's Grizzled Langur, is one of the rarest primates in the world, with hardly any pictures in existence and very few people having ever seen one. In fact it was believed that the long-tailed monkey was extinct, until scientists observing two natural springs in the Kutai National Park in Borneo came across one grizzled patron after another.

There’s a hole in the middle of Prague, and we want you to know what’s in it. The early 1980s metro station at Národní třída is the scene of a fascinating archaeological dig that we’ll be visiting in this month’s Science Journal.

We are not going so very far from Earth today, only two and a half light-minutes or so, to a point where, come 2017, Czech technology will be orbiting our Sun, and helping to answer some of its secrets.

In this month’s Science Journal we talk to the Czech psychologists who monitored the participants in the Mars 500 experiment, and also to the discoverers of a hitherto unknown, tick-borne disease.

It has been a constant companion for generation after generation of Czech science lovers – the popular science magazine Vesmír is marking its 140th year in publication. In today’s Science Journal we talk about the magazine’s course through the decades with none other than its editor-in-chief Dr. Ivan Havel, the distinguished former head of the Centre for Theoretical Studies and brother of ex-president Václav Havel, who took up work at the magazine just after the Velvet Revolution.

We’ve heard the politicians and the eco-activists’ views on the Šumava – but what do the scientists say? And by the way, how do cells read DNA? That’s what we’ll be trying to get our heads around this month on Science Journal.

Where will the energy of the future come from? If it comes from nuclear fusion, then the COMPASS tokamak fusion reactor in at Prague’s Institute of Plasma Physics will have played an important role in making it a reality.

It is only two and a half years now since the Czech Republic officially joined the European Space Agency, and already Czech scientists are playing a big role, with more than three dozen projects currently underway.

In this month’s edition of Science Journal: A team of Czech researchers may have found the answer to a question that has puzzled veterinarians, horse breeders and biologists for decades – why such a high percentage of pregnancies in mares end in natural, chemically triggered abortions. A recent study released by a Czech scientist suggests the answer may be that keeping pregnant mares close to stallions at their home stable makes them more likely to abort.