The ostensible ideal of the "harmonious" family life enjoyed by birds fails to account for the real story: forced compromises and the constant battle by each gender to secure advantages and dominance over the other.
Prenatal diagnosis makes it possible to begin treating a fetus with a medical condition as early as possible - perhaps even while still inside the mother's womb. In the case of untreatable defects and illnesses, it can enable parents to make a conscious decision about the further course of pregnancy.
Once embellishing nearly every magnate mansion, Baroque gardens are hard to find in their original form in contemporary Poland. Yet the principles by which such gardens were constructed can be experienced thanks to thorough post-war reconstructions in Białystok and Wilanów.
Keeping alive ten centuries of history preserved on the pages of rare volumes requires not just sturdy, modern facilities but also institution staff able to keep up with the times.
Władysław Kunicki-Goldfinger devoted his professional career to studying the smallest organisms. Yet while scrutinizing the world under the microscope, he maintained extremely broad perspectives about the world at large. Of himself he used to say modestly: "I am a so-called scientist".
A pioneering research project on Polish Sign Language (PJM) aims to thoroughly study this language's grammar and to develop a dictionary for it, so as to make the world of deaf individuals who use PJM more accessible. Such research is also helping us garner a better understanding of the most elementary mechanisms of the human language faculty.
Synthetic and natural polymers are frequently used in medicine and pharmacology. At the Center of Polymer Chemistry in Zabrze, we have developed an original method for synthesizing a biodegradable and nontoxic nano-polymer that can be used as a carrier to improve the therapeutic properties of medicinal drugs.
The term "biodiversity" has recently risen to the fore, not only in science but also in economics and politics. Maintaining biodiversity has become a universally recognized priority of environmental protection.
Nanotechnology is now rising to the fore of the most rapidly-developing fields of research. Nanomaterials frequently manifest new properties that differ from those characteristic for the morphology of bulk solids. Moreover, nanomaterials demonstrate certain micro-scale phenomena that are unknown for microcrystal objects.
Geologists' traditional motto - mente et mal/eo, or "by thought and hammer" - remains apt in modern times even though the hammer has been increasingly displaced by state-of-the-art equipment.
All living organisms face difficult conditions in the Arctic, but those which attempt to survive clutched to seafront stones, where they are lashed by water, wind, and ice, may face the toughest conditions of all.
Sexual interaction represents one of the most important dimensions of interpersonal contacts. Yet sexual needs are unique among mankind's biological needs, in that they are shaped by such powerful cultural and social factors.
In its eternal battle against winter in the South Shetland Islands, summer is slowly beginning to gain the upper hand. The warmer ground and water are causing extensive changes in the land and sea ecosystems, which are further complicated by human activity.
If evolution of species was not confined by any restńctions, organisms would reproduce right after being born, produce the maximum number of offspring, and live indefinitely. Such hypothetical organisms are dubbed "Darwinian demons" Certain organisms do resemble this "demonic" ideal...
The "big eye" fixed on the African sky, the SALT Telescope, has begun peering into the vast reaches of the cosmos. Are there great discoveries in store for it? Research findings have a way of taking everyone by surprise ...