ISSUE TOPIC

METEOROLOGY- Eole's moods

Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic's prediction came true. Meteorology, from multimillion-dollar empirical, quantitative-depressive science, in the middle of the last century, on the wings of mathematics, has finally found its place in a great constellation of exact sciences. This new character of time and climate science hasn't deprived her of old tools: observation, measurement and describing... but today they're incomparably more perfect and reliable. It has been helped by the turbulent development of modern technologies, especially powerful computer machines, telecommunications, various sensors. "For the last 70 years, meteorology has undergone dramatic changes and experienced exponential growth," said Dr Vladimir Djurdjevic, associate professor at the Institute of Meteorology at the Faculty of Physics in Belgrade.

REGENARATIVE MEDICINE

Restoration of damaged hip cartilage

For decades, joint problems have been successfully solved with orthopedic surgeries and with the help of implants or replacement of natural joints with endoprostheses, and in the last 20 years, numerous conservative methods have been applied, including injections of corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid. However, artificial joints are a therapy with a limited lifespan, because endoprostheses require replacement after a certain number of years, and conservative therapies often do not have the expected results, so modern medicine in this area turns to regenerative methods of treatment, in order to activate and strengthen internal regenerative capacities of the body. Thanks to its proven effectiveness, the innovative BS (Barać / Saftić) method could be the future in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the hip and knee. In one of the world's leading textbooks on regenerative medicine, it was recently presented as "the future that is already there." Dr sc. med. BrankoBarać, one of its creators, talks about a method that significantly improves the quality of life and, moreover, in some cases helps to not only delay the joint replacement operation but also completely avoid it.
 

MEDICINE

Cell as Software

In Silicon Valley, a new approach to medicine was formed that we could only dream of before. Using algorithms, artificial intelligence and numerous data, companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple... talk largely about the possibilities of cancer treatment, cell programming, artificial organ breeding, gene manipulation and prolonged life. Humanity is on its way to a technologically driven, digital world of healthcare. What does digital medicine of the future bring us? Thomas Schultz, author of the book "Medicine of the Future - How Silicon Valley Intends to Remove Diseases and Prolong Our Lives" writes that big companies have realized that by networking and analyzing vast amounts of data with the help of biochemists, physicians, IT and other scientists, this might lead to a new era in medicine.

MATH

Why do viruses like...

At the last event of this year's gathering in May, live sequel was announced, in September. That's right, September 21st, the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade opened its doors to mathematics enthusiasts. At the opening of a mathematical-dance performance titled "Dot is what doesn't have parts," the movements explored geometric notions, numbers, functions, and inter-room traffic. The idea for the travelling exhibition "Mathematicians Across Europe" was born in 2016 at the 8th European Congress of Mathematics in Berlin. A catalogue "Portrait Gallery" has been done, as well as an exhibition, comprised of photographic portraits with interviews by 13 mathematicians from different countries in Europe.

HUGO GUERNSBACK

The man who discovered the
unknown Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), an ingenious Serbian-American scientist, engineer and inventor, was creating science with his empirical researches. The results of these scientific and experimental researches and his patents, about 300 of them, represent technology, applied solutions that form the basis of the second industrial revolution and the essence of new breakthroughs in many areas of electrical engineering and engineering that have literally changed the scientific and technological picture of the 20th century. In all this, it is Tesla's visionary spirit that is the most important trait because of which his work is still so current even today. His visions and creativity have numbed the way for our new daily living, which is essentially marked by remote control, and an increasingly diverse world of wireless communications. During most of its extremely long and fruitful scientific and inventive work, Tesla most often worked in complete loneliness, experimented in his numerous laboratories, developed his own theories, discovered previously unknown physical phenomena and created solutions that the world often could not understand. Therefore, there were very few who were aware of the originality and the essence of his ingenious solutions, achieved well ahead of the time in which he lived and created. One of the few of Tesla's contemporaries who understood the great inventor and was literally captivated by him, and who considered his ideas and overall contributions salvation for all mankind, was Hugo Guernsback (1884-1967). Also the inventor himself, a pioneer of radioamateury in the US, the famous publisher of numerous scientifically popular magazines and an imaginative creator of visionary spirit, was someone who, like Tesla, was labeled "the man who invented the future". Thanks to mutual trust and respect, between 1915 and 1916, there is a fruitful collaboration between these two remarkable men has been taking place. During this period, a large number of articles will be published on Tesly's most significant achievements, and the culmination of that collaboration is the publication of Aussies' autobiographical articles titled "My Inventions".
 

COMPUTERS

Window Alternative

The average computer user certainly knows almost all or at least something about Windows; but how widely is known about completely free and in many ways quite satisfying alternative - Linux? Unlike Microsoft's non-free product, the result is already well known: there is a valid operating system, at the moment Win 10, while all older versions are shutting down and disappearing because support for them is shutting down; this requires new investments in hardware to track new trends, which is certainly not a small expense. Linux's is a whole different story and a perfectly decent alternative. Norwegian computer enthusiast Linus Thorwald created a UNIX-based operating system (something similar to DOS on the Windows platform). Over time, he realized that he couldn't solve all the problems on his own, so, with the operating system itself, at that moment known as Linux, he put the computer code on the Internet for everyone who wanted to download it; and anyone who wanted to add in writing.

COSMONAUTICS

A dragon and an increasingly large crew

The breakthrough into the cosmic space began more than six decades ago as a rival competition between the two then-superpowers, USSR and the US. The cosmic race was started by the Soviet Union and the United States, in order to preserve the prestige of superpower, had to respond with its own cosmic craft. The breakup of the USSR was followed by co-operation between Russia and the US and the construction of an international orbital station, the ISS. Since the completion of the Space Shuttle program, in 2011, American astronauts were flying to an orbital station exclusively in Russian "Sojuz" because NASA wouldn't adapt the cosmic spacecraft CEV Orion for missions to the ISS. After nine years, the practice was interrupted by the first flight with the crew of spacecraft "Dragon 2" company SpaceX, which is the fifth type of spacecraft produced in the US. The "Dragon 2" spacecraft is a project started in 2008, with the initiative of the company's owner, Ilone Musk. The road to the final form of the craft was very long and thorny. The company developed "Falcon 9" rockets carrying "Dragon" capsules in a unmanned variant designed to supply the international orbital station ISS. The project was funded by NASA. There have been 20 such missions. Based on its experiences, Space X company has developed a "Dragon 2" spacecraft with a capsule and cargo division in variants of "crew" (intended for transporting astronauts) and "cargo" (for cargo transportation).

MYCOLOGY

Pot Planet

When it comes to mushrooms, it should be noted that by diet they are divided into symbiotic (myopic), saprob and parasitic species. The first one, by the way of nutrition, enters in a very complex community with plants (useful for both partners), and the second uses ready-made food from the substance (they are the subject of our exhibition), while the third is pathogen and causes numerous diseases of living organisms. Just because we see mushrooms in out flower pots or our room trees doesn't mean, as some think, that the pots have been infected, but that the most nutritious species have behaved in their pots. Among the compressive species, which we tentatively call pots, are most commonly those from the genus Lepiot, Macrolepiot Leucoagaricus, Leucoprinus.

FIRES IN THE WORLD

Is our planet on fire?

Wildfires in many parts of the world during 2019 and 2020 have attracted the attention of the public, the media and, of course, scientists. Is it a natural phenomenon, the consequences of climate change or something else? Experts' scores don't match. Extremely intense fires engulfing vast areas have been raging throughout 2019 and 2020 in many places in the world. The media provided detailed reports from Australia, Central Asia, the west of the United States, Siberia, China, parts of the Arctic, the Amazon. It is known that wildfires have been sweeping our planet from 470 (according to some sources 350) million years ago, have an impact on the Earth's surface and atmosphere, and that human societies have long learned to live with them. Is anything changing now? 2020 analysis shows that climate change could have had about a 30 per cent stake in unthicked fires in Australia's chicaries in 2019 and 2020, according to "Carbon Brief", a British website that covers the latest developments in climate monitoring, and policies relating to the climate and energy sector). Globally, climate change is increasingly associated with weather conditions suitable for the emergence and spread of fires.