The Space Research and Technology Institute (SRTI) of BAS is organizing today an Open Day on the occasion of the International Day of Aviation and Cosmonautics. The Director, Prof. Georgi Zhelev, welcomed scientists and guests and recalled Bulgaria's successes as a space-faring country. In 2024 we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the flight of the first Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov. Bulgaria is already part of NASA's Artemis programme which will most likely become a stepping stone for a flight to Mars, Prof. Zhelev said and added that our country's participation could ensure the flight of a third Bulgarian cosmonaut. Scientists of SRTI are working on many projects in different fields, the director of the institute also said. The results of the scientific developments were presented [...]

A meeting of the Forum for Combating Pseudoscience on "Fake Science and the Fight against it" was held on 28 March in the "Prof. Marin Drinov" conference hall. In separate reports, Acad. Ivan Zagorchev and Acad. Christo Tsvetanov presented the contemporary view on scientific ethics and evaluation of scientific production as well as the enormous harm caused by the appearance of fringe journals, fake publications and other manifestations of pseudoscience. Prof. Evgeni Semkov revealed the fallacious nature of a number of fake sciences parasitizing around modern astronomy. The lecturers analysed the problem of fraud in science which was growing and was currently a worldwide problem. "Fake science" (pseudoscience) is the opposite of "science"; it is a set of ideas and claims that are not scientifically [...]