As part of the series Progress in Molecular and Subcellular Biology, the Springer Publishing Company recently published a book entitled Long non-coding RNAs. The editor of the book is Đurđica Ugarković, Ph.D., a senior scientist at the Ruđer Bošković Institute and Assistant Director for Science. The book contains nine articles by distinguished research groups, including a group from the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics at the RBI.

On December 29, 2010, the State Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Croatia granted a patent for the innovation “NN'N'' -Tris-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-guanidine, No. P20040341, the procedure of preparation from carbodiimide and application in reactions of the transesterification of oil” to the inventors Mirjana Maksić, Ph.D., and Zoran Glasovac, Ph.D., researchers at the Laboratory for Physical-Organic Chemistry, Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Ruđer Bošković Institute.

Following recognition by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office (EPO) granted Patent No. 077000434.9 for a Mixed Bacterial Culture for Atrazine Degradation to Dubravka Hršak, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Center for Marine and Environmental Research of the Ruđer Bošković Institute.

The innovation is based on a new mixed bacterial culture with specific catabolic properties that rapidly and completely degrades Atrazine and other S-triazines pesticides in a wide range of concentrations and temperatures. Atrazine is a selective Triazine herbicide that has been used for broad and narrow leaf weed control for the past 30 years in over 80 countries throughout the world. Unfortunately, due to its mobility in the soil, it is one of the most significant pollutants of surface and ground water, sea water and soil.

As part of the lecture series Distinguished speakers at the RBI, the scientist Vlasta Bonačić-Koutecký of Humboldt University (Berlin) and the Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Science and Technology (ICAST) at the University of Split will deliver a lecture at 1 p.m. on January 25 in the Auditorium of Wing III at the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) entitled Metallic clusters as building blocks for optical and catalytic materials.

At 1 p.m. on January 28, as part of the lecture series Distinguished speakers at the RBI, the world-renowned scientist Prof. Zlatko Bačić of New York University will deliver a lecture in the Auditorium in Wing III of the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) entitled Squeezing hydrogen molecules in tight places: energetics, quantum dynamics, Raman, and inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy. 

We announce with sorrow that Academician Velimir Pravdić, an eminent scientist at the Ruđer Bošković Institute for many years, the founder and head of the Electrochemistry and Surface Chemistry Laboratory, and a distinguished chemist and expert on environmental protection, died in Zagreb at the age of 79 on January 15, 2011. Besides being an outstanding scientist, Academician Pravdić was a moral pillar of our scientific system. His passing is a great loss to Croatian science and society, especially for our Institute.

Today at 2, 3 and 4 p.m. in the Auditorium of Wing III of the Ruđer Bošković Institute, there will be the first showing of a feature film entitled SCI CSI. The film was produced by experimental physicists at the RBI. The plot turns around an investigation by an inspector and his associate of a murder that occurred at the RBI. After the experimental physicists offer their assistance and laboratories in the investigation, everything goes downhill. Approximately twenty RBI scientists have parts in the film, which was directed by the research fellow Deša Jelavić Malenica, who also wrote the script.

SCI CSI is intended for the general public. After showing the film at the Institute, the scientists would like to present it at several amateur film revues and the Trash Film Festival. This is a truly refreshing event in the Croatian scientific world.

The year 2011 marks the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Josip Ruđer Bošković, one of the most distinguished scientists of the eighteenth century. In honor of this scientist, after whom the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) is named, this year a series of scientific and scientific-popular activities will be organized in commemoration of this great jubilee.

In today's edition of the daily paper Jutarnji List, in an article entitled "People and events which Zagreb's citizens will remember 2010", RBI Director-general Dr. Danica Ramljak was named person of the year.

In the auditorium of wing III at RBI a celebratory event was held today entitled "The importance of cooperation and interdisciplinary approaches to solving the problem of urolothiasis, yesterday, today and tomorrow". This event marked the 80th birthday of Dr. Helga Furedi-Milhofer, emeritus professor and retired RBI research adviser and staff member of the Institute for Applied Chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.