Over two thirds of people in the Czech Republic do not know what the most frequent cause of death related to smoking. It has been shown by a survey, which was conducted in March by 5^th year students of the Charles University 1^st Faculty of Medicine. Around 18,000 Czechs die of smoking-related causes every year.

The “Academic Lessons for Economic Policy” conference took place on May 12 in the building of the Institute of Economic Studies in Opletalova Street in Prague. Attracting great interest from students, experts and the general public, the conference also celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the Faculty of Social Sciences and 20 years of state-independent economics in the Czech Republic.

The Fernando Gil Award, which includes a generous monetary prize, is sometimes called the Nobel Prize for philosophy. The first annual award was granted to Professor Ladislav Kvasz, a member of the Department of Mathematics and Didactics of Mathematics since 2007, for his book called Patterns of Change: Linguistic Innovations in the Development of Classical Mathematics, which bridges the disciplines of mathematics and philosophy.

Between September 22-25, Prague hosted the annual meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE). Dr. Jan Lebl, head of the Paediatric Clinic of the Charles University 2nd Faculty of Medicine led the organisation team and was appointed the president of Society for this year.

On November 16, the night before the Students Day and the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, notable academics and young researchers received the annual Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka Foundation Awards. Among the guests that gathered at the Lužany Chateau were Professor Jiří Drahoš, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Professor Václav Havlíček, Rector of the Czech Technical University, Mr. Michal Lukeš, General Director of the Czech National Museum and Professor Ivan Wilhelm, Czech government’s Commissioner for European Research and a Hlávka medal laureate. Charles University was represented by the prorector for doctoral programmes and academic qualifications, Professor Ivan Jakubec.

“Tuberculosis was and still is a disease of the poor but you may also contract it when you are overworked and employed at a government ministry, for example. All depends on your susceptibility to TB and on who you come into contact with,” said Prof. MUDr. Jiří Homolka, DrSc., head of the First Department of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases of the Charles University First Faculty of Medicine and the General Teaching Hospital, at an event to mark World Tuberculosis Day.

Jan Chmelarčík graduated from the Master’s programme in sinology at the Charles University Faculty of Arts and is now a postgraduate student at the Institute of Musicology, focusing on the ritual music of Southwestern Shandong. He is also an active performer of Chinese music – he is one of the few Czechs to have mastered the 21-string zheng zither; along with his former classmates, he is also a member of the Kungpao China Rock Revival Band.

The world’s leading journal in the field of genetics has published an article co-authored by Ondřej Libiger, a doctoral student of the Charles University Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, on statistical analysis strategies used to study links between DNA variants and diseases. For eight years now, Ondřej Libiger has been working at the University of California and the Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego, California. Later this spring, he will defend his PhD. thesis at the Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové.