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After 12 years of operation, the COMPASS tokamak conducted the very last experiment on Friday, August 20. The Czech tokamak significantly helped in designing a much bigger project – the international tokamak ITER that will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. COMPASS now steps back to allow the new tokamak COMPASS Upgrade with world-unique parameters to “shine”.

Better women’s infertility prevention and also identification of premature menopause. This was the aim of a large-scale international research project involving 180 scientific institutions, including Czech researchers from the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics of the CAS. Additionally, the authors have been able to significantly extend the fertility period in mice by gene manipulation. The findings were published in the prestigious Nature journal.

Is it possible to produce water that is as conductive as, say, copper wire? Scientists have hypothesized that this may take place in the cores of large planets, where high pressure compresses water molecules to the point that their electron shells begin to overlap. At present, generating that kind of pressure on Earth exceeds human capabilities. However, an international team of researchers headed by Pavel Jungwirth of IOCB Prague has developed a new method with which they succeeded in making metallic water under terrestrial conditions that lasted for several seconds. Their paper was recently published in Nature.

HiLASE Centre as a part of the Institute of Physics of the CAS has achieved the world record in the speed production of laser-induced periodic nanostructures on stainless steel surface. The Laser Micromachining team led by Peter Hauschwitz applied a concept of multi-beam processing of record speed of 1909 cm2/min to create nanostructures on stainless steel.

When preparing policy in certain areas, the European Commission listens to the views of seven Chief Scientific Advisors. Eva Zažímalová, the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences has been appointed a member of this expert panel. Which is a great personal and professional honour. In her role as a Scientific Advisor she will be helping EU policy makers by providing her expertise, e. g. in epidemiology and social behaviour.

French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES) was established thirty years ago in 1991 when Central and Eastern European countries were just recovering from the decades of research isolation they had experienced locked behind the Iron Curtain. CEFRES aimed to restore the ties that had been broken between France and Central Europe in the area of science. This goal has been achieved, and currently CEFRES goes even beyond it. CEFRES organises workshops and conferences on historical, political science or philosophical topics in Prague and, since 2015, has been developing ambitious scientific programmes that could result in an application for a prestigious grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

Delegates of the Academy Assembly have elected new members to the CAS’s Academic Council and Science Council for 2021–2025. The elections took place through a specially designed electronic application.

Operation of the L3-HAPLS laser system in ELI Beamlines Research Centre at 0.5 PW level was demonstrated, consisting in compression of the full energy output pulses currently generated by the laser chain, in the Petawatt vacuum compressor.

The Czech Academy of Sciences, the largest research performing organization in the Czech Republic’s research, development and innovation system, welcomes that the political agreement on the EU 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework has been reached, making it possible to commence the next Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe from January 2021 as planned.

Methanol is a colorless liquid with a distinctive alcoholic odor. The scientists from the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS have now created and described a new way to produce it cheaply. For their discovery, they received the Czech Intellect award in the Invention category. If methanol can be produced economically, it could partially replace existing engine fuels.