“And how will I recognize you?” I asked Kateřina Schlöglová, a geology student at the Charles University Faculty of Science and the main organizer of the Mineral Resources for the Society conference that I was planning to visit. “You definitely won’t miss a female geologist in high heels. They look kind of out of place and dainty compared to her usual footwear – hiking boots.”

The interuniversity team of MUDr. Václav Liška, Ph.D., has been testing a software model of the liver tissue at the Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen which is able to compute the possibilities of the regeneration of an organ after  large surgery. It should  help mainly oncology patients soon.

More than 200 pre-school children and almost 250 elementary school pupils from the second district of Prague, which is also the home of the Faculty of Science, participated in the faculty’s special children’s day on September 13. In the faculty’s Botanical Garden, kids were exploring where gold comes from and what an engorged tick looks like under the microscope. The patient ones could even count how many flies a carnivorous plant can catch in an hour.

The race bearing the name “Taják” has probably the longest tradition among the regular contests organized by the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport (FPES). In the evening of Wednesday, October 19, the 42nd annual race was held – this time the venue of the Hostivař dam was chosen from among Prague’s woods and parks.

Are gardening colonies a relic of the past or are they still an important part of today’s urban society? What makes people travel to the garden areas? Will city gardens still exist in the future? Answers to these questions are being sought by a research team headed by Mgr. et Mgr. Arnošt Novák from the department of social and cultural ecology at the Charles University Faculty of Humanities.

“Research cannot be fully planned and you never know what you will discover”, says the Creativity Award recipient, assistant professor Martin Čížek from the Charles University Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, the co-author of a paper published in the prestigious journal Science. The theoretical physicist, whose calculations influenced the models of the formation of first nebulas and starts after the Big Bang, is a fan of the Big Bang Theory TV show.

The majority of Charles University students have no idea that water-pipe smoking is more harmful than cigarette smoking – according to a poll carried out by fourth-year students from the Charles University First Faculty of Medicine. Two thirds of almost 700 respondents displayed alarming ignorance as they believed that the hubble-bubble was safer than or equally harmful as cigarette smoking.

The Charles University Faculty of Science decided to organize an adventure suburban camp for fearless boys and girls aged 6–15 who are interested in nature and sciences. For a whole week from August 15–20 a varied and entertaining programme was prepared for the kids.

Pyšek on April 7, 2010 in the Great Hall of Karolinum. Professor Pyšek has spent two decades studying plant invasions, a topic he is also working on with his doctoral students at the Charles University Faculty of Science. Last year, 17 papers that he wrote or co-wrote were published in impact journals.

On April 27, 2010, RNDr. Jana Poltierová Vejpravová, Ph.D., received the prestigious Scopus Award for young scientists for her work which is a major contribution to experimental and theoretical description of spin states in solid-state matters. The awards were handed out for the first time in the Czech Republic by the largest publisher of scientific journals and databases, Elsevier Science.

Photo: Marie Čechová