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Humans in every civilisation have always been intrigued by the question of the origin of life. During thousands of years, numerous answers have been provided by mystics and clerics. Then, philosophers offered their own speculative solutions of this conundrum. Science entered the field not long ago. Systematic investigations of physical and chemical phenomena, which likely played a role in the origin of life, began in the middle of last century. Currently, it represents a strong research stream wherein also our Institute participates.

This year’s Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to three physicists for their discoveries in the field of black holes. A half of the prize announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was received by a British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose for proving that the formation of black holes is a prediction of the General Theory of Relativity, the second half of the prize was received jointly by a German researcher Reinhard Genzel and an American researcher Andrea Ghez for their discovery of supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Petr Šittner from the Institute of Physics has become one of the laureates of this year’s Academy Premium awarded by the Czech Academy of Sciences. The president of the Academy of Sciences only announced the four winners for the first time in the fourteen-year history of the prominent science award, in a departure from the traditional prize-giving ceremony.

Advantages of new technologies, such as 3D print, lasers or IT systems for collecting and analysing of large quantities of data will be joined under one roof at a new innovation centre and Digital Innovation Hub – Brain4Industry in Dolních Břežany. A conference called “Digitalization and 3D Print in the Practice of Czech Companies” outlined the advantages of the innovation approach being initiated there to the representatives of industry and research organizations.

Michael Londesborough's borane show and Martin Ledinsky's non-Newtonian fluid has become, without precedent, the biggest hit of this year's neighbourhood festival called The Different City Experience. In addition to science popularization presentations, participants could sew a bag, play ping-pong or watch an evening laser show.

Czech scientists in collaboration with their colleagues from Spain introduced a new type of polymers which have been unavailable by means of traditional methods applied so far. This polymer type could play an important part in the design of new components for nanoelectronics, such as new displays.

In a paper published in Science Advances, Libor Šmejkal with his colleagues from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague reports the discovery of a Hall effect in an antiferromagnet. It is another extraordinary work by an exceptional Czech talent who as a fresh PhD graduate already enjoys the reputation of an internationally leading figure in his field.

ELI Beamlines is a European research centre operating the most powerful laser system in the world. On the occasion of the 60^th anniversary of laser discovery, we spoke about the details of the inception of and the planned research at ELI Beamlines with Professor Jan Řídký, who conceived the project in cooperation with his colleagues.

During the International Conference on High-Energy Physics (ICHEP 2020), the ATLAS collaboration presented the first observation of photon collisions producing pairs of W bosons, elementary particles that carry the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces.