The UN General Assembly has declared 2015 the International Year of Soils to raise awareness of the vital importance of soil, which is essential not only for food security and for cultivating plants for feed, fibre, fuel and medicinal products, but also for maintaining biodiversity as it hosts countless organisms. It plays a key role in storing and filtering water, in carbon and other nutrients cycling and performs other irreplaceable ecosystem functions. The Institute of Soil Biology of the CAS Biology Centre carries out biological research into many of those functions of soil in both natural and human–affected environments, including studies of the soil microstructure, soil organism communities and their dynamics and interactions and so on. Researchers at the Institute of Soil Biology focus, among other things, on the contribution of soil fungi to nitrous oxide emissions and on the production of methane. The latter is a potent greenhouse gas and a substantial part of atmospheric methane is produced by anaerobic microorganisms called Archaea found in the soil and in animal digestive tracts, while soil is also a significant methane sink. Research is also being concentrated on the characterization and risk assessment of antibiotic resistance-reservoirs in soil, which is connected with the massive use of antibiotics in the past five decades. Scientists examine ways of preventing the antibiotic resistance spreading in the environment through food chains as well as and on the role played by the soil microflora in those processes, as Doctor Dana Elhottová explains in the corresponding article. and Jana Olivová.
The first implementation phase of the ELI Beamlines project was concluded and the laser facility in Dolní Břežany was inaugurated on October 19, 2015 in the presence of many distinguished guests from the world of science and politics. The initial greetings were given by Czech and foreign guests, including the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences Jiří Drahoš, Director of the Institute of Physics Jan Řídký, the President of the Senate of the Czech Republic Milan Štěch, Archbishop of Prague Dominik cardinal Duka, Director General of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) Francesco Sette, Director General of the ELI-DC International Association Wolfgang Sandner, Chairman of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure John Womersley, French physicist and founder of the ELI project Gérard Mourou, Deputy director for science and technology in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California Patricia Falcone. Guests were invited to see laser and experimental technologies directly in one of the laser halls. and Marina Hužvárová a Jana Olivová.
Dr. Petr Jehlička, Snr Lecturer in Environmental Geography at the Open University in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, points out that some twenty-five years after the end of socialism, between one and two thirds of the East European middle classes still continue to grow some of the food consumed in their households - mostly not for economic reasons but primarily as their hobby. Nevertheless, social sciences in the West and a considerable part of scientific literature on home gardening in the global North continue to view this informal food production in Eastern Europe as an activity of mainly disadvantaged segments of society. He argues, moreover, that concepts generated in the Western context, where this activity is only marginal, are considered as universal knowledge, while data gathered in Eastern Europe, where household food production is dominant, are viewed as marginal and less interesting. He also describes ways in which Eastern Europe can contribute to broad international debates about this issue and various other topics in social sciences. and Jana Olivová.
Creating a scientific and educational forum for students, scientists and other professionals to learn about, to share, to contribute to, and to advance the state of knowledge in its field of science is the aim of the Organization for Computational Neuroscience, which staged its annual meeting in Prague in July 18-23, 2015, co-organized by the CAS Institute of Physiology and the Charles University. Keynote speakers at the CNS 2015 Prague: Jack Cowan, Wulfram Gerstner and its president Astrid Prinz gave interviews to the Academic Bulletin, in which they highlighted the both the new findings and main open questions in computational neuroscience. This field combines mathematical analyses and computer simulations with experimental neuroscience to develop a principled understanding of the workings of the nervous systems and apply it in a wide range of technologies. Increasingly studies emphasize the circuitry and network function in the brain. Investigations are focused on the changes of the functional and anatomical features in a healthy brain as compared to dysfunctional brain states; thus, studies of the healthy brain provide insights into brain dysfunction, while observations of dysfunctional brain states give clues to normal brain functioning. This workshop explored computation in both the healthy and dysfunctional brain to uncover what each state might reveal about the other. and Jana Olivová.
The 80 th Prague Meeting on Macromolecules, this time focused on Self-assembly in the world of polymers, took place in Prague on July 10-14, 2016. Its participants discussed theoretical aspects of polymer self-assembly, advanced methods of preparing and characterizing self-assembling macromolecular system; special attention was paid to biomimetic self-assembled nanostructures as well as to biological and technical applications of self-assembled macromolecular systems. and Jana Olivová.