NUMBER THEME
THE SKY OF OUR SCIENCE
Biographical lexicon

Great minds of little Serbia

The Kingdom of Serbia, which later merged with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, aimed to develop as quickly as possible in the scientific and technological field, along with its socio-political development. From the first half of the 19th century, Serbia sent its most gifted pupils and students to European colleges and universities. These young people returned to their homeland as experts, equipped with diverse knowledge needed for the development of a small and newly matured country, with one goal: to help the faster development of their country and to connect it to Europe.
These educated young people were the true leaders of Serbia, which was almost a feudal state until yesterday. They played a significant role in Serbia's rapid scientific and social development and were later joined by others. Despite the political fate that often did not work in its favour, Serbia is today a bright spot of scientific and technological development, and in many respects, it does not lag behind the rest of the world.

MEDICINE

How can one extend their lifespan

Compared to a few centuries ago, people now live significantly longer lives, as evidenced by the growing number of centenarians around the world. For instance, at the start of the 18th century in the USA (based on official data from the US Census Bureau), there was only one centenarian for every 189,000 individuals. Today, there are more than 53,000 centenarians, representing one for every 5,800 inhabitants in America. However, the lengthened life expectancy has also led to an increase in chronic and degenerative diseases, with heart diseases being the most prevalent. People are not only interested in extending their lives but are primarily concerned with a longer "healthy life expectancy." Medical science, equipped with the most modern scientific and technological innovations, is particularly interested in studying people in their ninth and tenth decades of life to determine what contributes to their vitality and longevity.

CALENDARS

New Julian, following the Gregorian calendar

Milutin Milanković, a renowned Serbian scientist, was responsible for creating an accurate calendar during the last century. He "repaired" the reformed Caesar's calendar and made it almost perfectly accurate. The question that arises is why and how he did this. Additionally, is there a need for a more precise calendar today?
The Gregorian calendar was used to celebrate the new year on January 1st, 2024. However, in Serbia and several other Orthodox countries like Russia, Armenia, parts of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Macedonia, and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Julian calendar was used to celebrate the new year 13 days later. While this custom has been followed for a long time, it raises the question of why a more accurate calendar such as the New Julian or Milanković calendar has not been implemented to bridge the 13-day difference.
Milanković created one of the most accurate calendars to date, perfecting the already partially revised Julian calendar as per the suggestion of mathematician Maksim Trpković, almost a century ago.

EXPERIMENTS

Brain in a Bowl Between Nightmare
and Reward

In mid-2023, the Australian Ministry of Defense approved funding for a project called Dishbrain. The project aims to merge real human neurons with a computer chip. The announcement of this news grabbed the public's attention and caused a wide range of reactions.
It might be difficult to imagine, but the Dishbrain project involves connecting a tangle of living neurons (human and mouse) to micro-electrodes. All of these are placed in a bowl and used to play the game of "pong". At first glance, this may seem bizarre and unusual. However, it is important to understand the potential benefits and applications of this experiment. To begin, let's answer the question: what is the game "pong"?

TESLA

A world that will create electricity

Tesla published a "fairy tale about electricity" in the magazine "Manufacturer's Record" on September 9, 1915. He described the key actors in the story as having "stories more wonderful than any story from One Thousand and One Nights". Tesla spent a lot of time in libraries during his youth, especially during his studies in Graz and Prague. He carefully studied scientific literature, particularly in the fields of mathematics and physics. His numerous articles show that he was familiar with the works of all the scientists who contributed to the study of electrical phenomena throughout history. He studied the works of Gilbert, Galvani, Volta, Franklin, Ampere, Arago, Oersted, Faraday, Kelvin, and many other scientists, perfectly understanding every new step and progress in the science of electricity. Fascinated by electricity and the unusual phenomena that accompany it since childhood, Tesla wrote an article in 1915. In addition to an introductory and inspired review of the history of the science of electricity, he devoted a special part to his predictions of new inventions that he believed would mark the future in a wide variety of fields of electricity use.

PALEONTOLOGY

Hotspots of biodiversity

Gastropods, also known as snails, are the most abundant class of molluscs today. They have an asymmetrical body and come in various forms of shells. The fossil record shows that many groups of gastropods lived in the past, and they evolved into an extraordinary diversity during the Cenozoic era. Their body structure was quite flexible during evolution, which made them resistant to extinction. Since their inception, many groups have survived for long periods and have evolved into different orders, families, genera, and species through various adaptations. This has made gastropods a very numerous and diverse group that can inhabit various habitats. However, they have not conquered the air yet.
Gastropods have developed shells of various shapes, decorated with growth lines, ribs, spines, etc., during over 500 million years of evolution. Their sizes range from about 1 mm to about 1 m, and they first appeared in the Paleozoic era.

PALEOENVIRONMENTS

As if everything was huge

Palaeontology, like all sciences, began with researchers being fascinated by some phenomenon that was mysterious and needed to be explained. However, palaeontologists were initially captivated mainly by the size of fossils. In science-popular shows, it often seems that everything in the distant past of the planet was gigantic - from dinosaurs on land to giant reptiles in the air and water, and Carboniferous forests that produced quality hard coal. Even giant dragonflies and cockroaches roamed the earth. In the more recent past, during the Pleistocene epoch, we also saw large woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, huge cave lions and bears, and giant marsupials, snakes, and lizards in Australia. It appears as if everything was huge back then, unlike in today's living world. However, the reality was not quite like that.

BIOLOGY

Snakes - keepers of balance
in the ecosystem

Snakes, also known as Ophidia or Serpentes, are a suborder of reptiles that are closely related to lizards. They are the most numerous group of reptiles and there are approximately 4,000 species of snakes living on our planet. Out of these, around 400 are poisonous. Snakes can be found on all continents except Antarctica and most smaller land masses. However, some large islands like Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Hawaiian Archipelago, the islands of New Zealand, and many smaller islands in the Atlantic and central Pacific Oceans do not have snakes. Sea snakes are widely distributed in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

RAILWAYS

The lady is a former technical marvel

Exactly forty years ago, on April 15th, 1984, a large crowd of people gathered on the plateau area between the former Main Railway Station in Belgrade, the former Post Office 2, and the former "first left track". The event was a celebration of three significant milestones: one hundred years since the opening of the Belgrade-Niš railway, thirty years of workers' self-management in Yugoslavia, and the thirty-fifth Day of the Railwaymen of Yugoslavia. The attendees included officials in formal suits, delegations from numerous important state secretariats and bodies, and a large number of citizens who came to enjoy the festive program.
For the first time since May 1980, the famous "Blue Train" was exported from the depot in Topcider, placed on the platform, and prepared for the journey to Niš. The train was led by two powerful diesel-electric locomotives of the JŽ 666 series, named "Sutjeska" and "Neretva," both produced by the American "General Motors" (EMD JT22CW) in 1978 for the needs of a special train popularly called "Blue". Yugoslavia received four of these locomotives, with the remaining two traditionally named "Kozara" and "Dinara".
Today, "The Blue Beauty," which is long ago a museum exhibit, rusts and decays on the Sava Square in Belgrade.