MUPUS penetrator for the Rosetta mission
The MUPUS penetrator, an instrument equipped with a hammering device and a 40 cm rod carrying measuring devices, was constructed by a team from the Space Mechatronics and Robotics Laboratory at the PAS Space Research Center (the strongest center in the world making specialist devices of this sort). The instrument is part of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, underway since 2004. After 10 years in flight, MUPUS landed on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, attached to the Philae lander. It penetrated the comet’s surface and is sending measurement data back to Earth. This is the first space research of its kind carried out by European scientists.
Specialists from the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy took part in an experiment in which severed nerve fibers and motor ability was restored for Dariusz Fidyka, a man whose spinal cord had been severed. The team took cells from the olfactory bulb, isolating specifically the olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) together with fibroblasts. After 14 days in culture, the material was then transplanted by a team of specialists from the Neurosurgery Clinic at Wrocław Medical University. After six months of intensive exercise, the patient regained the ability to walk (using orthopedic parallel bars).
