One of the current leading events of global science policy took place November 17-19, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary. The main theme of 2011 World Science Forum, attended by 700 participants from 108 countries, was The Changing Landscape of Science - Challenges and Opportunities. Internationally-renowned scientists and science policy makers expounded on the geographical, thematic, and social aspects of this subject focusing on some of the most burning issues in science and the global society. The Forum´s closing statement, Declaration on a New Era of Global Science, was endorsed at closing session in the Hungarian Parliament Building. The complete text of the declaration can be read at http://www.sciforum.hu/. and Ivo Svejkovský.
Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the ASCR have proved that bats here suffer from the white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that is threatening the ecosystem in North America. In the Czech Republic as well as in other parts of Europe, bats with this syndrome die only very rarely and the disease has not yet caused a decline in the bat population. Uncovering the cause of “European immunity” could save North American bats and avert also the disruption of the biological balance in that part of the world. New knowledge of the pathology of bats infected with the white-nose syndrome fungus in Europe was published by an international team of researchers in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases. and Natália Martínková.
The Institute of Plasma Physics of the ASCR has produced a book, Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion for Everybody, which covers the story of the human struggle to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion on Earth. The book is “reader-friendly” in that special attention has been given to plain vocabulary and rich illustration. The topic is introduced with a detailed chronology of fusion history. The contribution of Oleg Lavrentyev, a pioneer of the Soviet fusion program, is recognized since he is credited as being the first to call attention to fusion in correspondence with his government in 1949 and 1950. These letters aroused the interest of physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov who launched a fusion program that resulted in the creation of Tokamak, a device which uses a magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus (doughnut). and Luděk Svoboda.