Congratulations to Mathis Leeman, Nina Nováková and Vojta Blahušek for their great presentations at Student Scientific Conference SVK 2021. Today Mathis presented his results on chemical gardens, Nina on myelin figures and Vojta on liquid marbles. Well done, keep going!

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need

Our interanational student Mathis Leemann from Switzerland made a short film titled "Chemobrionics". This film had a world premiere today at the 25th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in the section Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz.

The title of this 5-min length audio-visual chemobrionics related project is a quotation by Cicero and it was chosen with the aim to show, that in the same way as Roman garden was designed for thinking, philosophizing and discourse, the chemical gardens can also open the door to philosophical questions such as what life is and how it originated, how we distinguish the biological systems from their chemical counterparts. Our video focuses on showing the beauty of silicate chemical gardens composed of plant-like tubular structures made of metal salts placed in a water glass. The viewer is be puzzled by the hypnotic slow growth of the structures and the manifold of colors they can produce. Tiny aerial air bubbles, flowing inner solutions, thick and alien-like structures changing colors let the audience perplexed, dreamy, wondering why nature is presenting such delightful sight. Furthermore, extracts of Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, The Origin of Life by John Desmond Bernal and Mechanism of life by Stéphane Leduc are added to deepen the experience. The inspiration for this audio background was taken from Julyan Cartwright’s works focused on the chemical gardens, their history and mentions in the literature.

• Director and producer: Jitka Čejková
• Editor: Mathis Leemann
• Camera operator: Mathis Leemann, Jan Havlík
• Experiments: Mathis Leemann, Jan Havlík, Saniya Ustunn
• Voice: Declan Garvey
• Music: Chopin - Raindrop Prelude (Op. 28 No. 15), performed by Petr Mazúr

This  film is based upon work from COST Action CA17120, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives  across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.

Jan Spitzer, a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Queen Elizabeth College at the University of London, has had a long career in chemistry and polymer science, as Associate Professor, and Research and Development Manager in synthetic latex industry. He is the author or coauthor of numerous peer-reviewed papers, technical articles, and book chapters. He studied University of Chemistry and Technology Prague and he visited after many years  his alma mater today. It was our honour to be his guide and get his recent book How Molecular Forces and Rotating Planets Create Life  - The Emergence and Evolution of Prokaryotic Cells.

The International Society for Artificial Life announced the winners of the 2021 ISAL Awards. The awards were presented to recipients during the online 2021 Conference on Artificial Life organised in Prague. I am very honoured that one of the awards went to also to me!

Distinguished Early-Career Investigator Award - to recognize an individual who is early in their career, but has already made important contributions to the field of Artificial Life.

Alan Dorin said during the ceremony: "Jitka is a strong contributor to the ALife domain, both technically, and to the ALife community. This year, as you can see, she has done a fantastic job of organising a specially themed ALife conference, building on the 100th anniversary of the word "robot". She put together a fabulous book, soon to be released, of essays by a wide range of scientists, on the play RUR, and she is working hard behind the scenes to build links and bridges across the ALife community. On the technical side, she is prominent in chemical robotics, with exciting ways to apply to ALife. She applies minimal cognition principles to chemical robotics Her work has led to some creative droplet experiments, which have re-vitalized the "wet" ALife tradition."