The Szewalski Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery was established in 1956 to conduct research into the fundamentals of the performance, design, construction and development of machines and devices used for energy conversion in flows, to provide education and to implement new solutions in this area.
What exactly is a planet? Back when mankind only knew five roaming celestial bodies visible to the naked eye, the answer was simple. But the recent discovery of more and more planets circling our own Sun as well as distant stars has made it necessary to reconsider the meaning of the term .
Over thousands of years, amber has been used for decoration and as a kind of currency, magical substance, and medical cure. Coveted to this very day, amber has now become more than just a pretty stone - it holds sensational secrets for biologists.
Only a small minority of Poles surveyed believe that the prevailing social order is valid and fair. A clear majority believe that the wealthy must have come into their affluence via dishonest means, at the expense of those who are worse off.
The caliber of modern-day scholarly pursuits hinges not only on research now being carried out, but also on the careful nurturing of scientific heritage - the preservation and study of documents that trace the development of past achievements.
Lactic acid bacteria, utilized by mankind for millennia, are now earning a new place for themselves in the modern world in view of their vast diversity. They are beginning to be valued not only for their probiotic properties, but also intensively studied for potential applications in biotechnology, medicine, and pharmacology.
Ancient counterfeiters did not just copy coins of high denominations, made of gold and silver, but also forged "pennies;' i.e. low-value coins made of bronze, on a large scale. How were such imitations produced in late Roman Egypt, and did such forgers get away scot-free?
Like airplanes and money, boundaries are creations of man: they are not natural and have become one of the main obstacles to protecting priceless natural assets.
Early 20th century Polish social movements took great pains to preserve Poland's cultural heritage during the times when the Polish lands were under foreign partition. One such organization, known as the Polish Society for Preserving Relics of the Past, gathered together an impressive collection of photographs of historical objects. To mark the 100th year anniversary of these outstanding efforts, the Polish Academy of Sciences has launched a project to digitize the collection.
One of the options for reducing the rate of CO2 release, in order to stabilize its concentration in the atmosphere at some level, is the capture of carbon dioxide and its subsequent storage in either geological formations or in the ocean.
There can be no greater challenge for modem science than the discovery of how life began on Earth and whether suitable conditions for the existence and development of life may be found across the Universe.
After vast deposits of oil were discovered under the North Sea, Norway was transformed from a poor country into a very rich one nearly overnight: this demonstrates how individual countries' affluence is still frequently determined by what riches await discovery under their soil.
DNA polymerase is a kind of protein that performs an important function in copying genetic material - a fundamental process in the life of the cell. The high accuracy achieved in replication is only made possible by a wide diversity of polymerase types.
The ostensible ideal of the "harmonious" family life enjoyed by birds fails to account for the real story: forced compromises and the constant battle by each gender to secure advantages and dominance over the other.
If animals were unable to harness the signals coming in from their environs, their lives would be a chaotic affair. In the special conditions that prevail in Antarctic waters, chemical signals represent a particularly important source of information that acts to organize their way of life on the sea floor.
Can we predict the behavior of evolving systems? While it is sometimes easy to do so, as in the case of an ordinary, slightly tilted pendulum, there are some systems whose ultimate state is practically impossible to ascertain.
Our recognition and quantitative characterization of real-word phenomena cannot be complete (indeed being impossible in many situations) unless we account for the great role played by randomness.
Within the complex dynamics of the solar wind's fluctuating plasma parameters, there is a detectable, hidden order described by a chaotic strange attractor which has a multifractal structure.