Abstract
DURING the twenty years of the existence of the Czechoslovak Republic, the university authorities and scientific institutions of that country have not failed to realize the importance of research work in the natural sciences. Among the organizations which have fostered academic investigations is the Czechoslovak National Research Council (Československá Národní Rada Badatelská). This body has just issued its fourteenth annual report, in which reference is made to the work recently published and still in progress. Practically all branches of science are represented, and some of the investigations have been commented upon already in NATURE. From the report, too, it is learnt that several prominent Czechoslovak men of science have been invited abroad to describe their special contributions to recent advances in the different sciences. On the other hand, students from various European and American countries have spent some time in the laboratories at Prague and Brno, studying technique in chemistry (polarographic methods), archæology (excavations in Moravia), biology and physics. During the year under review the Council, together with other bodies, arranged for the International Congress for the History of Science which coincided with celebrations of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of J. E. Purkyně, the physiologist. The report also refers to the support the National Research Council has given to some fifty students (fourteen of whom were thus able to go abroad), which has permitted certain investigations to be undertaken or prolonged. These include special geological surveys, archæological excavations, a study of certain properties of heavy water, work on genetics, the ecology of certain lake flora, and biochemical examinations of fungal colonies in beech woods.
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The Czechoslovak Research Council. Nature 142, 285 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142285a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142285a0