Press releases

Czech scientists have demonstrated that electrical discharges similar to lightning occur in the Martian atmosphere. A four-member research team from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences achieved this based on measurements from the NASA MAVEN orbiter. MAVEN has been orbiting Mars since 2014, providing open data to the scientific community.

The beginning of the year marked an important milestone for the AlphaStar project, a contract research program at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS funded by Eckert & Ziegler Radiopharma. Led by Prof. Ondřej Lebeda and Dr. Jan Ráliš, the research team is developing a technology for the production of actinium-225 (²²⁵Ac). 

In the face of rapidly changing climate conditions, genetic mixing may be a key factor for species survival, enabling critical new adaptations. This is the conclusion of a research study conducted by a team of scientists from the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IAPG CAS), in collaboration with colleagues from Oklahoma University and Cornell University in the United States. Their findings could help reshape current approaches to the conservation of endangered species.

Different characteristics between northern and southern bank vole populations in Britain, due to differences in haemoglobin types, could affect their ability to adapt to a changing climate. Research by scientists at the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has shown that northern populations of these small rodents will “borrow” a more favourable haemoglobin variant, critical for adaptation, from populations adapted to living in the warmer conditions of southern England to survive climate warming. The ability to take advantage of the diversity of traits already present in populations and adapt to climate change through them will be critical to the survival of many plant and animal species, including humans.

Scientists from the international KATRIN experiment have determined the tightest direct upper limit of the mass of the neutrino - the most numerous particle that is all around us but escapes normal detection. The new result shows that the neutrino weighs less than 0.45 electron volts, about a million times less than the mass of an electron. A team from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences was also instrumental in the measurements, which were published in the prestigious journal Science.

At least eleven distinct species have been identified within what was previously classified as the spring fungus Sarcosphaera coronaria. The discovery was made by researchers from the Nuclear Physics Institute, the Institute of Geology, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with other research institutions and amateur mycologists from the Czech Republic and the USA. Their findings, which include the description of two entirely new species, was made possible by measuring the arsenic content using neutron activation analysis. The breakthrough study on the rare fungus was published in Mycological Progress.

The management of one of the largest Large Research Infrastructures (LRI) currently being built in Europe, the FAIR accelerator laboratory, spent two hectic days in the Czech Republic on November 24 and 25, 2022. 

Scientists at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS have the first-ever laboratory of accelerator mass spectrometry in the Czech Republic. In the presence of the President of the CAS Eva Zažímalová and the Minister of Science, Research and Innovation Helena Langšádlová, the laboratory was inaugurated today on the premises in Řež. The Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) method is used, for example, to determine the age of archaeological objects, to monitor the climate development or to observe nuclear weapons non-proliferation safeguards.

Over the next three years, nearly two hundred children and their parents, researchers at the Czech Academy of Sciences, will benefit from a substantial financial donation. The funds will go towards the administration of six children’s groups in Prague and subsidized places for children in Brno. The parents of the youngest children will thus find it easier to combine their childcare duties with those of their demanding scientific careers.

Overcoming a genetic disorder that leads to serious diseases, and examining the relationship between political party systems and social conflicts in the MENA region — these are the goals of two ERC Synergy Grants awarded to researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). Each grant provides €9.8 million in funding over six years.