All news

Medicine is one of the fields recording the fastest technological development. Virtual reality unravels new possibilities, enabling the performance of telemedical procedures and advanced training courses without experimenting on actual patients. Physicians specialising in plastic dermatology and clinical dermatology will soon have an opportunity to undergo training using a VR simulator. The equipment is to ensure a high level of realism thanks to double immersion. The market launch of the simulator is planned for 2020.

Inventiveness is not the exclusive domain of start-ups or large corporations - more and more frequently, innovative projects are devised even by secondary school students. They construct equipment and design applications not only for fun – often, they are inspired by higher objectives, such as removing barriers. It is upper-secondary school students who invented such objects as a smart GPS vest which recognises objects in the way of a visually impaired person, a Braille reader with a speech synthesizer, or an inductive loop for people with hearing impairment. An increasing number of brilliant inventions in the service of mankind are introduced by the youngest generations.

More than 80 percent of investment in the development of Polish start-ups is state-funded. The reason for this is the still underdeveloped private-funds market. The Polish market for high-risk start-ups is slowly catching up with the world in professionalism. About 10-20 percent of venture-capital funds in Poland can already be considered as top-performing funds. However, the percentage of those that aren’t working well is still too high.

The Polish priority National Space Programme, to be implemented over the coming 2-3 years, is going to be ready in the second half of the year. Poland is also in talks regarding the accession to the European SST Consortium which performs space surveillance and tracking. “The domestic sector has an opportunity to participate in the new financing perspective after 2021,” the President of the Polish Space Agency said. The Agency itself is also due to undergo major changes in the upcoming months. These events might elevate the use of satellite technologies in the country to a new level.

The ferrofluid flywheel will be used for controlling satellites. The invention by Polish scientists will facilitate research measurements on the near-Earth orbit. The scientists from the AGH are working on the design of a satellite orientation control system which will make it possible, for instance, to take more precise satellite images. The new system will be tested on the KRAKsat satellite, which will be launched into the near-Earth orbit in November 2018. The space industry is considered one of the most promising sectors in the world. In 30 years its private section will reach almost 3 trillion dollars.

Medicine lags behind the evolution of super-bacteria resistant to many types of drugs. As reported by the WHO, every year these bacteria kill 700,000 people – by 2050, this might be 10 million. Polish scientists want to prevent that by introducing a high-precision diagnostic system to develop complete bacterial resistance profiles.

Work on the PCR/ONE system is to be completed by 2020 to ensure the fastest detection of bacteria and viruses in the world. The system will be able to carry out an automatic analysis of the genetic material obtained from bacterial and viral pathogens. It will aim in particular at detecting Staphylococcus aureus, which causes, among other things, pneumonia, myocarditis, meningitis and phlebitis.

A number of space missions are planned for 2020s with the aim to explore the Earth's nearest environment. One of them is LOOP. Over the next five years the European Space Agency will be sending the first probe into space to land on the surface of Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars. Polish scientists are also part of the LOOP project. Their task will be to design the lander’s foot which will touch the planetoid's surface.

The Polish space habitat is the first such centre in Europe and a big step forward to sending another Pole in space. As many as five missions have been completed in the Lunares base. All these missions took place in conditions which will also apply to future bases on the Moon or Mars. In addition, scientific experiments are being made and innovative Polish technologies are being tested. This, coupled with a good infrastructure and well-trained staff, can become the beginning of the Polish space programme. In 2030 Poland might join the planned missions to Mars.

Programming education has become a permanent feature of education. In over 300 Polish schools children learn how to programme using Photon robots. These devices develop together with children, and are intended even for pre-school children. More and more initiatives of this kind are appearing on the market. Manufacturers provide devices which children can assemble and programme themselves using applications, usually based on the Scratch programming language.

Human biological rhythm depends on the light, including serotonin secretion, which conditions the quality of sleep and activity during the day. Thanks to a cocktail of light developed by Polish scientists, which consists of various wavelengths, it is possible to create conditions in space similar to those on Earth. A prototype already exists, and can be implemented after the tests. It will also find its use in greenhouses, hydroponic systems, bioreactors and even in depression treatment.

Scientists from the Medical University of Warsaw have discovered that oleaceine, found in extra-virgin olive oil, has a unique ability to prevent the atherosclerotic plaque in the neck artery from breaking and hence reduce the high risk of death due to a stroke or heart attack. However, Prof. Marek Naruszewicz, leading the research, stressed that these valuable properties can only be found in bitter, greenish and cloudy extra-virgin oil. The yellow oil, less expensive and milder in taste, has a much lower content of beneficial substances.