More accurate diagnosis of colorectal cancer
A new quality of dental implant coating
New layers for elements made of aluminium and its alloys
Establishment of the SPIN-Lab Microscopic Matter Research Center
The T2K experiment in Nature

We are living in a time when we are suddenly faced with challenges that plagued our ancestors. All over the world we have well-equipped, modern medical laboratories, eminent scientists, we can send humans into space, but in the face of invisible viruses or bacteria we are still helpless, like people in the Middle Ages, when an extremely virulent strain of Yersinia pestis caused a black death pandemic. Most likely, it had come to Europe from the Caucasus on a ship carrying infected people to Messina in 1347, and from there it spread throughout the continent. The famous black death probably did not cause any major perturbations in Poland, but this does not mean that no miasma existed there. The walled up cities, lack of ventilation, neglect of personal hygiene – all this caused various diseases to spread, most often cholera. 

According to estimates by the Stuttering Foundation, there are over 70 million stuttering people around the world (about 1% of the total population). In the United States alone, there are 3 million people with this fluency of speech impairment. Living with stuttering was an experience shared by many famous figures functioning in the public space. Scientists from the University of Silesia are conducting pioneer research in the field of Speech Therapy for Individuals with Stuttering Disorders, referred to, mostly in Polish research, as Balbutologopedics, a sub-discipline of Speech Therapy, which deals with the diagnosis and therapy of speech fluency disorders, including, among others, stuttering and cluttering. Their research interests also include the influence of speech disorders on the quality of speech therapy, on the environment of stuttering people, and on the social perception of stuttering. With regard to the latter aspect, it is also very important to change social attitudes towards this phenomenon.

China is a civilization that, after centuries of glory (and faith in its own greatness), had collapsed in the 19^th century and was reborn as a world power a hundred years later, after the madness of the Maoist era. Today, Chinese leaders no longer hide their global aspirations, but they face limitations caused by the policies resorted to by other powers, but, above all, have to struggle with numerous internal problems that became apparent when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Xi Jinping himself, the most powerful leader of the PRC since Mao, once said that China could not become a superpower until 2049.

It takes only a few minutes of a sudden downpour to paralyze not only the traffic in the city, but also to flood houses, cellars, or public buildings. The cost of removing the losses is enormous. One of the tasks of the Silesian Water Centre, a unit at the University of Silesia, is to search for solutions of these problems and to indicate ways to mitigate and eliminate the effects of such phenomena. The complex problems associated with climate change can be mitigated by introducing a so-called blue-green infrastructure and appropriate urban and architectural solutions.

Surface water is the water we should use. Groundwater as well as the waters of the glaciers and ice cap, in turn, should be an untouchable resource. In Silesia there is a so-called anthropogenic lake region with numerous water reservoirs created as a result of human activity. These are mainly reservoirs with dams, cave-ins, and ponds. Sustainable water management was present in this region since the Middle Ages. This shows that already in these time people were struggling with water shortages and saw the need to save this resource.  Particularly noteworthy are the systems of cascade ponds, which performed flood protection functions, as evidenced by the large share of dry reservoirs and dikes across the valleys of streams which slowed down the flow of water. These systems also played an important role as a reservoir for animal and plant species, which is why the ponds were used for fish farming. At present, small water reservoirs or domestic ponds have disappeared and have been replaced by large dam reservoirs. However, the reconstruction of cascade ponds may be a way to build much needed small retention systems in Silesia today.

The ongoing climate changes in Central Europe have had a considerable and negative impact on the level of groundwater resources. The main objective of the DEEPWATER-CE project is to develop capacities for an integrated management of responsible public institutions in Central Europe with regard to a comprehensive and international approach to water resource planning and management and the adoption of MAR (Managed Aquifer Recharge) systems as a solution to water scarcity caused by climate change.

Water pollution has many sources. Most of them are related to human activities. Scientist distinguish, among others, point sources of water pollution, such as waste dumps and pollution resulting from agricultural and industrial activities. Pharmaceuticals present in water have become a new problem. They penetrate water in three ways: through municipal sewage, sewage from production plants, and from livestock breeding centers. Concentrations of pharmaceuticals are monitored, and at the same time the possibilities of their rapid detection and neutralization are checked. The Automatic Biodetector of General Toxicity of Waters (ABTOW), a system combining the properties of selected microorganisms – nitrifying bacteria and electrochemical sensors.

The nature of neutrinos is still being discovered. Observations from recent years have suggested that the analysis of these particles may bring us closer to understanding why the universe is primarily composed of matter. In order to study their properties, two powerful detectors were built. The close ND280 detector is located in Tokai, Japan. The Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) and Super-Kamiokande are also located there, i.e. 295 km from the J-PARC center, in a mine inside a mountain in the town of Kamioka. These places gave name to the T2K experiment – Tokai-to-Kamioka, which may bring us closer to explaining the difference between the observed amount of matter and antimatter in the universe. 

Sooner or later, everyone will probably come into contact with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. However, in order to survive, the virus must first reach our cells, and although it might seem otherwise, this is not an easy task.   The organism of every human being is equipped with a number of natural tools to effectively fight against this and many other microorganisms. As it turns out, our bodies have wonderfully equipped arsenals to defend us.

Questions about the time when bloody traces of past events are created, which enable the reconstruction of past events, occupy a special place in the field of forensic science. Paradoxically, the growing knowledge about the aging processes of blood – and thus the increased awareness of factors that can interfere with these transformations – does not bring us any closer to solving the problem of dating forensic traces. The problem seems to lie not so much in the lack of analytical tools enabling the tracking of time-dependent properties of the material, but in the inability to implement the proposed methods for routine analyses, in which – apart from the passing of time – the state of the evidence is influenced by a number of external conditions. The solution may be a strategy tailored to the specific traces secured on site, which is being developed by researchers from the University of Silesia in Katowice in cooperation with Italian scientists.