An international conference titled Knowledgeable Society took place in Prague on March 10,2011 under the aegis of the Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas. Organizers of the conference directed attention on actual questions of science and education a world-wide context. and Vladimír Čechák, Jan Zima.
Letos uplyne 140 let od narození a 50 let od smrti tohoto pedagoga, prvního děkana Pedagogické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze, prvního ředitele Pedagogického ústavu J. A. Komenského ČSAV a nositele mnoha vyznamenání. and Jan Hálek.
This issue features two articles which deal with the first post-1989 president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CAS), Prof. Otto Wichterle. The Academy of Sciences has been observing this year the 20th anniversary of its inception. The Czech chemist and inventor Otto Wichterle is world renowned for inventing the first practicable soft contact lenses. He graduated from the Chemical and Technological Faculty of the Czech Technical University in 1936. In 1939, all Czechoslovak universities were closed down by the Nazi regime. However, he began working at the research institute of the Bath Works which enabled him to continue his research on plastics. Professor Wichterle developed the first Czechoslovak synthetic fiber, to which he gave the name of silon. After the Second World War he continued his university research. However, he was persecuted by the communist regime and in late fifties was fired from his office as dean of the Chemical Faculty. But on Christmas Eve 1961, he produced the first practical soft contact lens on a device he set up on his kitchen table consisting of a gramophone motor and bits from a toy construction set. The Czechoslovak Government sold all rights of the invention to an American entrepreneur for $330,000. Under Czech law Wichterle received one-tenth of one percent of that payment - about $330. Soft contact lenses were introduced by Bausch & Lomb in 1971 and are now worn by about 100 million people worldwide. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Professor Wichterle was fully rehabilitated. He was the president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences from 1990 till the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992. In 2007, Professor Wichterle was posthumously named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. and Jan Boháček, Mgr. Marina Hužvárová, Rudolf Zahradník.
Názor, že lidé jsou chodící zoologické zahrady, by ještě před několika (ne víc než 10) lety většina vědců patrně považovala za poněkud přehnaný. Od té doby ale nastalo to, co lze nazvat změnou paradigmatu, a fakt, že na každou lidskou buňku v těle připadá až 10 buněk jiných organismů, začíná být součástí učebnic. Většina těchto buněk se nachází v našem tlustém střevě, které je považováno za nesmírně složitý ekosystém s existencí bilionů virů, bakterií, archeí a eukaryot (mezi ně patří prvoci, helminti a mikroskopické houby). Pro jejich označení se používá souhrnný pojem mikrobiom, jenž ale spíše zahrnuje pouze bakteriální složku, která je doposud nejvíce prostudovaná a zdá se velmi důležitá. (Pojem mikrobiom se používá i pro bakteriální komunity v ústní dutině, kůži, vagíně apod.) and Kateřina Jirků-Pomajbíková, Julius Lukeš.