How can we better detect invisible fingerprints, even on problematic surfaces? This is precisely the focus of the project “Increasing the Effectiveness of Methods for Visualizing Latent Fingerprints”, which involves the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, and the Forensic Institute of the Czech Police.
Jindřich Musil was born on January 19, 1934, in Březina. After graduating from the University of Defense in Brno in 1957, he started to pursue his career in science; first as a researcher at Tesla, then, from 1961, at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Plasma Physics and the Institute of Physics.
The Czech Academy of Sciences today awarded the Otto Wichterle Award to a total of twenty-five scientists. The 2025 awards were presented to four laureates from our institute by Radomír Pánek, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
A patented method of protecting the surface of fuel cells from corrosion, which will extend the life of fuel cells under both emergency and standard conditions, could be used in all 94 nuclear reactors in the United States. Innovative solutions were patented in the Czech Republic by Irena Kratochvílová, František Fendrych, Andrew Taylor (for the Institute of Physics) and Radek Škoda, Jan Škarohlíd (then for the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Czech Technical University) already in 2015.
It is almost a decade since the Fukushima nuclear disaster sent shockwaves around the world, and triggered a mass shift aware from nuclear power due to safety concerns. Since then Japanese scientists have been working with scientists in the US and Europe to find ways of preventing any future recurrence. A European team at the Czech Academy of Scientists believe they now have a solution that has received EU-wide patent protection.
The patented solution of scientists from the Institute of Physics and Czech Technical University prolongs the lifetime of nuclear fuel rods under nuclear reactor accident and working conditions by coating the surface of fuel rods by a thin polycrystalline diamond layer.
Polycrystalic diamond layers significantly reduce corrosion of standard and accident conditions of a nuclear reactor.
For the first time, scientists noted the success in proving that, at low temperatures, the localizes water molecules tend to align, exhibiting so-called incipient ferroelectricity.
The prestigious prizes of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic for the best projects accomplished in applied research in 2015 were awarded at the official ceremony in the new building of the National Museum in Prague on October 22nd, 2015. Among four award-winning projects, there were two projects that included teams from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS).
An awarded project cope with vaccination for Lyme disease. Currently, the disease can be treated only by rapid application of antibiotics in the early stages. However, a great number of patients is not cured in time and many have life-long health consequences. The uniqueness of the vaccine is given by the fact that it operates on a wide variety of Borrelia, which are the main agents of the disease.
The unique status of the FUNBIO centre in a present academic sphere lays not only in the topmost technical equipment but mainly in very specific, useful and nowadays frequently required physical view on biomaterials.
