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April 1986: an American radio station announces news of what was soon found to be the greatest civil nuclear disaster in history at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine: "Radiation monitors in Sweden and Finland this morning are showing unusually high readings, in places three times normal levels. At the moment the source of those emissions is a mystery but speculation has arisen of a nuclear power plant accident inside the Soviet Union..."

Last week Sisyphus, the Czech Club of Skeptics, awarded the Czech Republic's "greatest" pseudo-scientists for 2003. The annual award has existed for six years with the aim of poking fun and making the public aware of some of the nonsensical theories that are out there, presented by fortunetellers, astrologers, and faith-healers.

The Czech Academy of Sciences, the successor of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, founded in 1953, is going to undergo restructuring. Its almost 7,000 employees, more than half of them scientists, currently work in 57 research institutes.

The current boom of the construction industry in the Czech Republic is keeping Czech archaeologists busy.

One of the institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Social Science, has re-opened its library to students and the broader public.

Last week the Moravian town of Litomysl celebrated the 90th anniversary of the birth of one of its great natives, world-renowned astronomer Zdenek Kopal. Zdenek Kopal left Czechoslovakia in 1938, after finishing his university studies. Later he studied at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. For thirty years Zdenek Kopal lectured astronomy in Manchester, England. One of the main areas of his interest were binary stars but Professor Zdenek Kopal is perhaps best known for his participation in NASA's Moon landing project. In an earlier Czech Science programme

The females of many species of primates show differences in their physical appearance during their fertile period to attract the males. Until recently it was thought that human ovulation, or the fertile part of the menstrual cycle, was not visually manifested in any way. According to a study recently carried out by Czech and British scientists, it might not be quite so.

Earlier this year we reported on an unprecedented project by Czech scientists - the Czech Republic is going to build a polar station in the Antarctic. The station will be located on the north edge of James Ross Island, off the northeast coast of the Antarctic. A group of Czech scientists recently spent five weeks on James Ross Island, exploring the ground where the station is to be built. Radio Prague spoke to the head of the expedition, Pavel Prosek, from Masaryk University in Brno. He said that now the crucial thing is to transport the building

Weather forecasts are something that most people take for granted these days. If you want to know whether to put on that extra jumper, you can turn on the TV, the radio, open any newspaper or search on the internet. But do we know where and how weather is being monitored? In the Czech Republic the institution responsible for weather monitoring and forecasting is the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute which has just celebrated its 50th birthday. But as director Ivan Obrusnik told me, its history dates further back.

There may not be too many signs of it, but spring is definitely coming.