Hyde Park Civilizace

She worked for Boeing, then for NASA, now for Virgin Hyperloop One. Or in other words - she worked on ion engines, developed the parachute that slowed down Curiosity before it landed on Mars and now is trying to figure out how to transport people at 700 km/h - Anita Sengupta. She says that everything thats happened in her life was serendipity. Was it really? How many calculations and tests did it take her and her colleagues to enable Curiosity to safely slow down by more than 1 000 kilometers per hour within a few minutes? And when will we be able to ride a Hyperloop? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…pace-engineer/

He took the first step towards creating a molecular machine - Jean-Pierre Sauvage, laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His study of photosynthesis opened up a new direction that eventually led to the development of nanocars. These would one day deliver drugs within our body, though he focuses on fundamental research. How did he start bonding molecules? Why is it so difficult to make artificial photosynthesis work and how was his life influenced by his teachers? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ierre-sauvage/

Extreme weather fluctuations, icebergs melting, ocean levels rising - these are just some of the impacts of climate change. And the consequences for mankind are huge and will get even bigger unless we manage to respond. But how? What are the possible scenarios, what influences them, what can governments do and what can we do as individuals? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…hillipe-ciais/

Most people's acts in economics are not driven by logic or rational thought but by their experience, says professor Vernon Smith who in 2002 received Swedens Central bank Prize in Economic Sciences, known as the Nobel Prize in Economics. He focuses on experiments describing how people behave when they trade. How does our decision-making change as we gradually gain more information? How have his experiments contributed to practice for example in the regulating transport? And why does he think that the main job of schools is to teach us how to learn? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ernon-l-smith/

"Operování je jako vrcholový sport." Říká jeden z největších českých specialistů v oboru páteřní chirurgie, profesor Jan Štulík. Ročně zvládne až 550 operací, některé trvají i 20 hodin. O novinkách v chirurgii páteře i o tom, jak se chovat k našim zádům. https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10441294653-hyde-park-civilizace/220411058090201/

From Switzerland to China and then to North Korea, thats the journey taken by the humanitarian Katharina Zellweger. She first came to North Korea in 1995, since then shes been there 70 times. She helped during the floods as well as famine. How did she deal with the North Korean regime? Is there a place in the country where she would like to go but was never allowed? And how is the North Korean society changing? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ina-zellweger/

He created the first synthetic gene and contributed to the development of new kinds of DNA that can help diagnose diseases. Synthetic biologist Stephen Banner - he also studies the origin of life itself, partially in collaboration with NASA. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…steven-benner/

I'm a maker of magma chambers, says volcanologist Kayla Iacovino who in her lab simulates what's going on under the surface in a volcano's magma chamber. But she also does a lot of field work - she worked in Antarctic, Chille or in North Korea. What is she able to discover about the past and the future of volcano? What helps her simulate such gigantic forces of nature like pressure and temperature? And why will she prefer hearing instead of goodbye "live long and prosper"? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ayla-iacovino/

I listen to neurons but brain speaks in symphony, that's why you need to listen to multiple neurons at once - says neuroscientist and anesthesiologist Divya Chander who works at Faculty in medicine of Singularity University. Using EEG she listens to the brain to find out what is really happening inside, this allows her to study our consciousness and new ways of helping people for example with Parkinson's disease or partial paralysis. How can we see thanks to our tongue? How can we implant ideas into a brain? And how is it that we still don't know we don't fully understand how anesthesia works? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…divya-chander/

The Feustels. Together, they represent a very broad palette of skills and interests, from geology and geophysics through speech-language pathology and neuroscience to aviation. Astronaut Andrew Feustel is on his third mission – he was on the ISS once before, for less than two weeks, and is the second to last person to touch the Hubble Space Telescope. On each flight, he took with him items connected to the Czech Republic – The Cosmic Songs and the Little Mole. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…-the-feustels/

The head of exploration missions on Mars. He managed exploration rover projects Spirit and Opportunity. He researches the surface of the red planet and participates in preparations for a human mission to Mars. The guest of Hyde Park Civilization was NASA astrogeologist James W. Rice, who came to the Czech Republic at the invitation of the Academy of Sciences of the CR. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…mars-missions/

From European Southern Observatory's headquarters, to La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. From planet hunter, spectrograph HAARPS, to the most advanced optical device on Earth, the VLT, to ALMA, array of 66 radiotelescopes in the altitude of more than 5 000 meters. We visited places that help us to learn more and more about the universe. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…atory-special/

A cleanup in the cell without which we wouldn't survive. That's autophagy - a process in which a cell gets ris of it's damaged or unnecessary parts and which seems to be also crucial in the fight against certain diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, diabetes or cancer. Autophagy was described by professor Yoshinori Ohsumi and for this he received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine - the world's most prestigious science award, yet he himself says his first big scientific success came when he was already 43 years old. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…cine-laureate/

It looks like nothing is the mother of us all says professor Edward Kolb - cosmologists and astrophysicist also known by his nickname Rocky. In his research he focuses among other things on the very beginnings of our universe, on dark matter and dark energy. How can we find out what makes up 95% of our universe and what properties does it have? What was there before the Big Bang and how should we imagine this nothing that has created us all? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…b-cosmologist/

He's the man who was there - during the last days of the MIR space station as well as the early days of the International Space Station. He was a member of the first crew that started the project of uninterrupted human presence around Earth that continues to this day. He is the first Russian to fly a spaceshuttle, he spent a total of 803 days, nine hours and 38 minutes in space. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ian-cosmonaut/

He described a system that allows our DNA to repair itself, without these constant repairs, we wouldn't survive. Professor Paul Modrich, laureate of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He entered the big world of science from a relatively close community of a small town. He started saving for college already in junior high school, he ordered his first radioactive material at age 15. For dozens of years he worked with e.coli bacteria and now his research helps physicians diagnose cancer. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…stry-laureate/

He builds machines that are thousand times smaller than a width of a hair. And with them he might cause revolution in medicine and in other fields. Professor Ben Feringa, laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He managed to construct nanocars that can drive and could in the future for example deliver drugs inside the body. The system could also help in the fight against antibiotics resistance. How exactly? And how do you build a car out of individual molecules? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…stry-laureate/

As the head of the Atlas detector, she was there when the Higgs boson was detected. As the head of CERN, she decides about the organization's future development. Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of the largest scientific center on Earth. She can combine music, mathematics and particle physics as well as coordinate physicist from all over the world including the Czech Republic. What have they already achieved at CERN? How does particle physics research help our everyday life? And what will be CERN's response to the Chinese plan to build a giant collider called Higgs Factory? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…neral-of-cern/

Seven rocky planet, three of them in the habitable zone and all of them close to Earth. At least from the cosmic point of view. That is the Trappist-one system. It was discovered partially thanks to the scientists from the European Southern Observatory and it's far from their only success. They have also found our nearest exoplanet, observed stars orbiting the massive black hole in the center of our galaxy and watched the development of sunspots. What does ESO expect from European Extremely Large Telescope? What is the practical use of our observations of the oldest visible universe? Those are questions for the director general of ESO, professor Pieter Timotheus de Zeeuw. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…n-observatory/

Go after your curiosity. You need to have more curiosity. Even more curiosity. But it’s not enough to be curious. You have to have passion. Says Professor Ada E. Yonath. She comes from a poor family, but eventually made her way to the highest levels of science. She studies ribosomes – factories inside cells that translate our genetic information and produce proteins. Without them, life as we know it wouldn’t exist. Few people believed her when she was starting her research – most colleagues tended to ridicule her. But she succeeded – and her research is important among other things for the development of antibiotics. Which is also why she received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…stry-laureate/

The first person who climbed all 14 eight-thousanders. The first person who climbed Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, the first person who climbed Mount Everest alone. A man who often went where no one went before. A man who says "summit is secondary, trying is the most important thing". Reinhold Messner. Mountaineer, traveller, adventurer. He crossed Gobi desert, North and South Pole and Greenland. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…er-adventurer/

It is important to have crazy ideas because crazy ideas are sometimes good ideas. And a good researcher is student forever. Says Claude-Cohen Tannoudji who recieved the 1997 Nobel prize in physics for the development of method to cool and trap atoms with laser. These methods allow us for example to measure time much more accurately. He was born in Algeria where he witnessed the landing of American troops during WWII. Later he also served in the army himself. The key person in his career however were his parents and teachers and mainly a physicist whom he calls a poet. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…sics-laureate/

He says he had two mid-life crisis. The first one when he got an idea and the second one when he implemented it. Today he is Nobel Prize laureate - professor Eric Betzig came up with a method that makes is possible to watch throught optical microscopes things that are only few nanometers big. One nanometer equals one bilionth of a meter. Scientist can now for example see proteins responsible for development of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson‘s disease. He was also able to surpass his own recognised research. He recieved the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and yet he says "I certainly don‘t know any chemistry". www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…stry-laureate/

You should look around and pay attention to something odd, says Daniel Schetman, professor at Technion, Israeli institute of technology. And he did find something odd. He found quasicrystals and that's why he received the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2011. However, he had to fight for recognition for years, many scientists rejected his discovery. What made him absolutely sure that he was right and they were wrong? How can quasicrystals be used in everyday life and what was the role of magnifying glass at the beginning of his scientific career? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…quasicrystals/

Around a quarter of million women around the world die every year of cervical cancer. Protection is vaccination. Prior to the development of vaccine it was necessary to find out what the cause of the disease is. And that is what professor Harald zur Hausen did. He discovered papilomaviruses that cause cervical cancer. Thats why he recieved 2008 Nobel prize in medicine. it was he who pushed for a development of the vaccine, although at first pharmaceutical companies were not sure whether its development would pay off. Who in his opinion should be vaccinated, how to make the vaccine cheaper for developing countries and whats the connection between red meat and cancer? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…cine-laureate/

In a special broadcast of Hyde Park Civilisation we visit Institute of plasma physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The reason is simple - our guest is head of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. ITER should bring a revolution into harnessing of power - clean, safe and virtually inexhaustible source of energy. Instead of splitting nuclei as in nuclear power plant tokamak fuses them together. How does it work exactly? Why does it need a temperature of 150 million degrees? And when will tokamak - exactly ITER - be fully operational?

This cultural cleansing is a warcrime that is now used as a tactics of war. Says Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, when she described the destruction of monuments - among others - in Syria and Iraq. How to prevent terrorists from destroying thousands of years old statues or buildings? What opportunities did UNESCO use? How does the organisation help the world to develop education and how does Irina Bokova as a candidate for the post of UN general secretary hope to change the UN? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ral-of-unesco/

After the beginnings of astronomy, after the times of Apollo programme and ISS a new era is about to start. It will include for example village on the Moon as well as journey to Mars. This is how the current of state of space exploration is decribed by the director general of ESA, professor Johan-Dietrich Wörner. He is the man who promotes the contruction of the space base on the dark side of the Moon. When and how should it be build? What states and companies he would like to engage and what about other projects like Ariane 6 rocket or Kopernikus satellite network? And what is his asessment of the participation of the Czech republic and the work of the Czech scientists? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…-space-agency/

Dr. Douglas Vakoch, President of METI International – an organization that keeps pushing the SETI project. Literally further into space. He and his team are searching for extraterrestrial civilizations and are working on a message that they want to send to space. How should it be written? What should it contain? Should we worry about a potential encounter? And what if extraterrestrial intelligence already knows about us. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…international/

„Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it.“ Said David Reitze, LIGO Laboratory Executive Director. And Einstein´s theory of relativity was proven. Moreover, scientists have opened a new window into space. They are comparing it to the moment when Galileo Galilei turned his telescope towards the stars and saw them in a different way than before. What could we learn? And what is it to be good for? The answers will be provided by Professor Benno Willke who led the development and installation of lasers thanks to which LIGO detectors captured gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ser-subsystem/

Professor Jerome Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of quarks – the smallest known particles in nature. He has been working at MIT for 65 years now, and one of his teachers was Enrico Fermi – one of the fathers of the first nuclear reactor and the atomic bomb. What was he like in person? What was the most important thing he learned from Enrico Fermi? And when will we learn more about quarks? He answered all this in Hyde Park Civilization.

A laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology. A president of the British Royal Society. A pilot, biker, innovator and experimenter who failed a university entrance exam six times. Sir Paul Nurse. He researches the division of cells – the fundamental question for cancer research. Why did he research only yeast his entire life? And what genetic secret did his family hide from him? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…royal-society/

He went to space five times. He was a part of the first US-Russian space walk. He kept improving the safety of space shuttles after the Columbia disaster. He violated NASA regulations to save equipment worth billions of dollars. How did it feel to walk in space? How did John Glenn, the first US astronaut, treat him during the spaceflight? And what did he take with him to the top of Mount Everest? Scott Parazynski. A guest of Hyde Park Civilization. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…stronaut-nasa/

Gerard 't Hooft. A laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics. He described how particles behave after they collide and elucidated the quantum structure of electroweak interactions. He says that we will have intelligent computers. And that Mars should be a one-way ticket only. And that we all should build a colony on the Moon from the Earth, from our living room. How exactly? He answered all this in Hyde Park Civilization. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…cal-physicist/

There are bloodlands between Hitler’s empire and Stalin’s empire. The victims of the biggest demographic and humanitarian catastrophe that man has ever caused in human history. A total of 14 million people died in less than two decades due to the politics of two leaders. History professor Timothy Snyder at Yale University describes this in his books Bloodlands and Black Earth. The expert on the Holocaust and the totalitarian regime in Central and Eastern Europe received the Prize of the Vision 97 of Dagmar and Václav Havel. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/22007/

A superstar among Egyptologists, a real Indiana Jones. This is how Dr. Zahi Hawass, the former Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has been dubbed. He is one of the world’s prominent Egyptologists and has lately become internationally recognized even outside of archeological circles thanks to his frequent appearances in documentary shows about the Egyptian civilization. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/21780/

If you want to do good, you should think about how to do the most good you can. The philosophy and attitude of an ever-growing number of people. This idea could be summed up into two words: effective altruism. How to do the most good? For whom? And how to live with the fact that we cannot spread ourselves completely thin? The philosopher Peter Singer, the author of the book The Most Good You Can Do, answered your questions. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/21190/

He was a Jew who survived the war only because his dad hid him in a closet when the Gestapo came. She was the daughter of a Wehrmacht soldier. He was a French lawyer. She was a German journalist. They met in the 1960s and fell in love. They started hunting war criminals and those who collaborated with the Nazi regime in France and Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Klarsfeld will answer your questions. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/21138/

Professor Roger Griffin, an Oxford historian, is considered the top expert on fascism. He also researches contemporary extremism and terrorism. What are the general elements of fascism? Is it only about the myth of regeneration and new creation? Why do some of its forms exist even today? And how has the perception of terrorism and the thinking of society changed after 11 September? Professor Griffin came to Prague for the first time ever. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…es-university/

Documentary films for millions of dollars or short videos on Youtube. Two ways to popularize science. Two enthusiastic scientists who go “out there” to convince people that “Science is beautiful. Science is important. Science is for everybody.” The anthropologist Niobe Thompson researches and explains evolution in the documentary series The Great Human Odyssey. The physicist Derek Muller tries to answer everyday life questions through science in short interactive videos on his Youtube channel Veritasium. We shot an interview with both of them at the festival Academia Film in Olomouc.

The world’s most famous evolution biologist: Richard Dawkins. He claims that genes are selfish and that God does not exist. In his opinion, religion contaminates the mind just like a computer virus. Richard Dawkins popularizes biology, criticizes religion and provokes. The interview was broadcasted live from the deconsecrated Corpus Christi Chapel of the Olomouc Seminary. Richard Dawkins was the main guest of the festival Academia Film in Olomouc. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ary-biologist/

One of the twelve people who walked on the Moon. Charles Duke. The pilot of the lunar module of Apollo 16. He spent 71 hours on the Moon. He was the voice of NASA when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and communicated with Neil Armstrong during critical moments. And as a backup member of the Apollo 13 crew, he caught the German measles, which caused a change in the prime Apollo 13 crew. Charles Duke was answering your questions. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…-of-apollo-16/

In his opinion, the current education system is not perfect: children memorize dates or lists of literary works, receive information in a passive way and have very little room for creativity and activity. This and many other traditional teaching methods do not allow children to utilize all their potential. Steve Hughes, the director of the Center for Research on Developmental Education and the former president of the US Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology, uses modern neuroscience insights and searches for ways of improving the education of even the youngest children. Do the innovative trends, such as Montessori or Waldorf, provide a solution? Who prefers the traditional education system and who does not? And what about children with different disorders, such as an ADHD? Could they be considered “normal” in a different education system? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/20157/

Robert Woodrow Wilson, a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics – an exclusive guest of Hyde Park Civilization. “How was the universe created? By the Big Bang. And here is the proof – we measured the cosmic microwave background radiation,” Robert W. Wilson could say in 1964. He and his colleague Arno Penzias thus confirmed the answer to one of the key questions of mankind: “What was at the very beginning?” How did they measure the radiation? What role did pigeon droppings play in this discovery? What did he like and dislike when working at the famous Bell Laboratories? And what should physicists focus on now? www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…und-radiation/

Andrei Zubov was dismissed this spring from his post at the State Institute of International Relations after he wrote an article criticizing Russia’s conduct during the Crimean crisis. Officially for “immoral behavior.” Professor Zubov is the head of the authors of the book The History of Russia in the 20th Century. He replaced Alexander Solzhenitsyn as the editor-in-chief. What is modern-day Russia like? What is life in Russia like for those who criticize Russia? And is it possible to describe the history of such a complicated country without being biased? Andrei Zubov wants to live in Moscow to be able to point out the mistakes of the Russian government as best as possible. Our conversation is in the original version. Professor Zubov speaks in Russian while the moderator speaks in Czech.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, the largest science center on the Earth is celebrating 60 years of its existence. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the CEO of CERN, came to Prague for a short time. What is elementary particle physics about? What tools does it use? What image of the micro world does it provide? What are its future prospects and what is the role of CERN in all this? Take a peep into the world of particles with Hyde Park Civilization. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…ector-of-cern/

Programmer Llewellyn Falco is e.g. the author of the project Teaching Kids Programming. Professor Jack Copeland is a philosopher who specializes in computers and keeps the Turing Archive. Will computers be able to think one day like humans do? And what do they expect the near future of computers to be? We shot this at Academia Film Olomouc. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…english/16509/

Denis McQuail, an English scientist specializing in media and communication theories. He wrote more than 12 books on mass media that focus on the usefulness and danger of mass communication. What is the importance of mass media? How do they affect individuals and groups of people? Are media in a crisis? See what one of the most famous media theoreticians thinks about it. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…edia-theorist/

O české přírodě a čtení z letokruhů stromů. O rostlinách, keřích i nejstarších stromech. O českých zahrádkách i o tom, co - jak říká - "musí být k snědku". www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…0411058090118/

Lawrence M. Krauss considerably contributed to dark matter research and is so far the only holder of the awards of all three most prestigious physical companies in the world. The magazine Scientific American dubbed him one of the socially most involved intellectuals of our times. He stars in the film Unbelievers where he, together with such icons as Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and Woody Allen, fights for critical and rational thinking in society. He was nominated for the Grammy Award for his commentary to the music in the cult film Star Trek. We broadcasted live from Academia Film Olomouc. www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1044129…d-cosmologist/