The Topic of this Issue

India – from Vedas to the Mars

In many fields and by many parameters India is already ranked very highly in global terms. This society, the second biggest in the world in terms of its population (second only to China), has for thousands of years had an intensive development of scientific and creative thought. It is only in recent decades that the world seems to start gradually to grasp that there is a new great power being created south of the Himalayas. India is already now among the top countries with respect to scientific research and application of new technologies; its universities are among the best of the world, and India has experts in all relevant global teams dealing with natural sciences.
India has for a long time been a nuclear power, it produces space vehicles and sends them to the Earth's orbit, as well as around the Mars' orbit and to its surface, and recently India has succeeded in its first attempt to send a probe to travel around the Mars and send back data about the red planet.
Aton scientists of India have for at least half a century been at the very top of scientific achievements globally; great volumes of energy is generated from nuclear plants. New plants are being planned and constructed to support the continued development of the country based on energy from nuclear sources.

Asteroids

A View to the Edges of the Solar System

Apart from planets and their satellites, the Solar family is also made up of a great number of smaller bodies, mostly grouped in two major belts: the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and the Kuiper belt of ice asteroids, planetoids and small planets further away from the orbit of Neptune, which is the origin of short-period comets. Long-period comets originate from much greater distances, from the very disperse Ort cloud of ice asteroids, which are so far away that they are not accessible for any form of observation. There is a special scientific interest today in asteroids of the main belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Much of this has been accessible for observation and study thanks to the powerful telescopes that have been launched into the stratosphere.

Cosmology

There Was No Big Bang

While the physicist at the Geneva's CERN are increasingly convinced that the recorded events and the Large Hadron Collider do gradually begin to confirm the standard model of physics, although it describes only about 5% universe, the Canadian scientists Ahmet Farage Ali and Saurya Das have proposed a theory according to which the universe was not created in the Big Bang. They described their model in the book „Cosmology from Quantum Potential“ published in the prestigious magazine „Physics Letters B 741“ (2015).
The idea is original and the approach is new, maybe even unexpected, so it deserves popularity – said Prof. Maja Burić of the Belgrade Faculty of Physics, project manager of the project „Implications for Physics of Modified Space-Time“.

Jupiter

Fantasy or Reality on Europe

It has been speculated for a long time that underneath the ice of the Jupiter's moon Europa there is a gigantic ocean. The most recent excitement was created last year when it was announced that the space telescope „Hubble“ noticed a small trace of water coming from the southern pole of Europa, meaning that Jupiter's satellite is firing its interior into the Cosmos. This led experts to conclude that the Europa moon is an ideal target for orbital probes searching for possible living organisms in space.
The other Jupiter's moon, Io, is also very active. There are constantly volcanic eruptions on its surface releasing electrified particles of sulphur and oxygen into the space.

History of Aviation

Yugoslav Royal Air-Force

Since 1918 the armed forces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia incorporated military air-force. Between the two wars, the air-force had grown from a small unit with the rank of a regiment into a complex independent military system which, at the beginning of 1941, consisted of 4 air-force brigades with 8 regiments, 2 independent air-force groups, a number of training and other units and auxiliary services; 1800 officers, about 2000 pilots, and about 940 aircrafts of different types.
The country also developed aircraft industry. Soon this industry was capable of meeting a big portion of the demand of the army. The French military industry was at that time the biggest supplier in all military fields. This development continued until the German attack on Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Geology

The Earth's Magnetic Field

The appearance of the Earth has changed during the 4.6 billion years since its creation. Mountains came up and over time subsided, continents and oceans moved and shifted to great distances. History of the Earth is characterised by great climate changes – from extremely cold and practically completely covered in ice to very hot. Changes on our planet have led to the disappearance of and evolution of new life. However, one of the major changed in the Earth's interior which is increasingly attracting the attention of scientists is the change in the Earth's magnetic field.
Geologists have for some time been pointing to the fact that the magnetic field in getting increasingly weaker, and that it could happen that it is lost completely and cause the change of magnetic poles – which would mean that the southern and the northern pole would be interchanged!

Nanotechnology

Manipulation of Matter

Man has always had interest in infinitely small things. Yet, manipulation of sizes started only after scientists could see individual atoms and molecules, thanks to special apparatus, and thanks to understanding of how matter behaves on the nano-scale. Manipulation of individual molecules and atoms enables present-day nano-engineers to create matter with unique features promising quick advances in all sectors of industry.
On nano-scale, the laws of physics that we know (gravity law) continue to exist, but their effects are decreased while the effects of other laws increases, such as in the case of Van der Waal's forces.

Medicine

Chronic Hepatitis C – a Curable Disease!

The different forms of virus hepatitis includes also the „children's disease“ but also very severe chronic diseases causing severe damage to the liver. Of special epidemiologic significance is the hemapatitis caused by virus C, which can persist for decades to inflict damage to the liver. It is usually discovered by coincidence in an already advanced stage. Dr Ljiljana Jemuović, infectologist and gastro-enterohepatologist of the Belgrade General Hospital Bel Medic presents how to fight this widespread and harmful disease.

Surgery

Circumcision Protects Health

A big share of the world population, almost one fifth, traditionally opts for circumcision of male children. This practice, according to some contemporary research, is the best form of defence against urinary infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Dr Marko Milosavljević, a specialist of pediatric urologic surgery, an associate of the General Hospital Bel Medic, explains when circumcision is indicated, at what age, and what benefits it offers.

Mycology

The Forest Lantern

The dictionary of foreign words offers a definition that bio-luminescence is the luminescence of living organisms (such as: fireflies, algae, bacteria, fungi and some fish), or that it is giving out of light by some living organisms due to certain chemical processes inside their bodies.
The conspicuous greenish or yellowish light which sometimes occurs in nature at night, especially after heavy rainfall and high temperatures, has always created fear among people and thus motivated people to attribute to this light some mystic features.
In the region of Sandžak in Eastern Serbia it is believed that this light is emanated by the buried treasures for which time has come to “manifest itself“. Whoever notices these signs must undertake certain actions and make a sacrifice in that spot. Still, how come there is light in mushrooms?