We are all exhausted by our continual battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, on both the individual and social level, therefore the prospect of achieving herd immunity seems like an attractive goal. However, experts agree that in the long term, the only way of bringing the pandemic under control is to develop an effective vaccine or treatment for severe symptoms of COVID-19.
The castle in Kórnik near Poznań is one of the Poland’s most valuable historic monuments. It also houses the archives and the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. After eight years of thorough renovation, the Pearl of Wielkopolska region has just regained its former glory.
The kick-off meeting, officially inaugurating the PASIFIC Program, will take place on November 5th, 2020 from 14:00 to 16:00 (CEST). It is a postdoc fellowship program addressed to researchers from around the world, who wish to carry out their research at the PAS institutes. We invite you to attend our online event next Thursday.
"Financial Morality of Poles" is a project that allows us to periodically analyze how we perceive financial fraud. We talk to Prof. Anna Lewicka-Strzałecka from the PAS Institute of Philosophy and Sociology about fraudulent activities we tend to tolerate and those that are the most difficult to us to justify.
On October 19, 2020, the COVID-19 Advisory Team headed by Prof. Jerzy Duszyński, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, presented its report – "Understanding COVID-19" – in the Senate of the Republic of Poland. Senators and the public had the opportunity to get acquainted with the experts’ guidelines. The meeting was held as part of the session of the Senate team "Health of the Poles".
Is it possible to "teach" computers to plan multistep organic syntheses? A group of scientists from the PAS Institute of Organic Chemistry, Northwestern University and Ulsan University in South Korea, led by Prof. Bartosz Grzybowski, has proven that automated synthetic planning at an expert level is feasible. Their groundbreaking program has been recently described in Nature.
Prof. Ewa Słaby, director of the PAS Institute of Geological Sciences, has been appointed the new President of the European Mineralogical Union (EMU). Professor Słaby is the first Polish scientist to hold this office. She has replaced Prof. Michael Carpenter from Cambridge University.
Polish researchers has discovered and described the remains of the world’s oldest mammaliaform from Greenland. During an expedition, organized by Dr. Tomasz Sulej from the PAS Institute of Paleobiology, a fragment of the lower jaw with two double-rooted teeth was found in rocks dating from 215 million years ago. This groundbreaking discovery, which sheds new light on the origin of the mammals, has been published in the latest issue of PNAS journal.
What is life like in remote polar research station? A foretaste of it one can get watching “A year in the Arctic” 3D mapping on the Wilanów Palace façade. The first illumination will take place on Saturday, October 17.
Researchers from thePAS Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Poznańhave developed a new rapidtest for SARS-CoV-2. It is the fourth generationof fast coronavirus test developed by PAS researchers. Thanks to the improvements, many laboratories will soon have the capacity to run much more tests per day than ever before. The test is already in production.
A team of scientists from the Institute of Chemical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice has developed a new method of methane recovery from the coal mine ventilation air. The TFRR technology – Thermal Flow Reversal Reactor – does not cause the formation of toxic gases such as nitrogen oxides or carbon monoxide.
Prof. Janusz Kacprzyk from the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences has been elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC). EURASC, based in Brussels, is one of the largest and most prestigious pan-European academies of sciences.
In the latest issue of Nature Geoscience, an international team of scientists shows that the current land management, promoting monocultures in forestry and agriculture, has a negative impact on water resources and hinders climate change adaptation. Their conclusions have been based on the analysis of ecohydrological processes. Prof. Maciej Zalewski, from the European Regional Center for Ecohydrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, co-authored the article.
The Polish Academy of Sciences and the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna) invite scientists of the humanities and social sciences to an online workshop, which will take place on December 4-5, 2020. The meetings are addressed to researchers, who intend to apply for Starting or Consolidator ERC grants in the years 2021-2023.
Today, the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to the British mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and two astronomers: Prof. Reinhard Genzel from Germany and Prof. Andrei M. Ghez from the US. Penrose, together with the famous British cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018, have proven the famous black hole theorem. Prof. Penrose has been a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1994.
Prof. Bartosz Grzybowski from the PAS Institute of Organic Chemistry and the UNIST University in South Korea together with his team have proven that one rotating reactor can replace complex laboratory devices. With the help of centrifugal force, liquids of different densities placed in the reactor are separated, due to changes in rotational speed, and undergo a series of chemical reactions. Photograph of this innovative solution have been published on the cover of the latest issue of Nature journal.
A report delivered by a team of scientists, working under the supervision of Prof. Jerzy Duszyński, president of the Academy, presents the current state of knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 virus, COVID-19 disease and its medical, psychological, economic and social impacts. In an accessible manner, this document provides forecasts of the COVID-19 epidemic for the upcoming winter season and recommendations for citizens and institutions.
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