Июнь 2023 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Scientists create technique to print human tissue from living cells
• Tracking climate-driven shifts in fish populations across international boundaries
• Historic journey of mung bean: Evolution, migration, climate adaptation
• Dans les années 1930, quel pays a construit un ordinateur analogique fonctionnant à l’eau ?
• Russian physicists developed the fastest algorithm for the simulation motion of microparticles in a plasma flow
• Nature Index Annual Tables 2023: China tops natural-science table
• Neural network developed by SUSU scientists will increase the efficiency of wind turbines
• Seal depicting St George among finds found near Suzdal
• Researchers detect 14 new active galactic nuclei
• KFU researchers explain an anomaly in the structure of liquid bismuth
• Russia constructs underground research laboratory
• Asia’s largest cave hyena burrow discovered in Siberia

Специалисты Первого МГМУ им. И.М.Сеченова и ФИЦ химической физики им. Н.Н.Семенова получили полный аналог человеческой кожи, напечатанный на 3D-принтере и подробно описали каждый этап получения ткани из двух типов клеток. В будущем подобная технология позволит печатать органы и ткани для конкретного человека.

Russian scientists managed to create a technique for three-dimensional bioprinting of human tissue from living cells, an achievement that allows organs and tissues to be printed for a specific individual.
A team from the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University and the Semenov Center for Physical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences performed a full cycle of three-dimensional bioprinting and obtained bioequivalent tissue, an artificial analogue of living human tissue.
First, the experts took two types of human mesenchymal stromal stem cells (MSC): from adipose tissue and from the gingival mucosa. With them they made spheroids (aggregates of cells in the form of balls), which are used as building blocks in a 3D printer. At the same time, scientists specially prepared biocells for 3D printers.
In the course of the work, it turned out that tissue counterparts printed with a bioprinter have a number of advantages, as they showed greater functionality.
Another notable conclusion of the scientists is the importance of initially selecting the right material for bioprinting, since the properties of the future tissue counterpart depend on the original cells. Gingival mesenchymal stromal cells are more suitable for forming a vessel or bone, whereas adipose tissue mesenchymal stem cells are more suitable for skin transplantation.
During the study, the team obtained a living tissue equivalent to fully functional skin. In the future, it may be used to treat diabetic and trophic ulcers, non-healing wounds, burns and other defects that have difficulty healing with existing treatments. Furthermore, the acquisition of these bioequivalents would reduce animal studies and make regenerative medicine technologies more ethical.
According to the authors of the article, several Russian and world scientific schools are working in this direction. However, a study that describes, step by step, how to obtain an imprinted construct from two specific cell types has not yet been performed. The results of this work allow scientists to optimize the bioequivalent maturation and implantation protocol to accelerate and enhance its effectiveness. They are going to use the data obtained in subsequent developments, obtaining analogs of cartilage, vessel and bone.

Аляскинский научный центр рыболовства и Тихоокеанский филиал Всероссийского научно-исследовательского института рыбного хозяйства и океанографии объединили свои данные за 1982-2018 годы, чтобы проследить перемещения популяций 10 видов донных рыб по всему шельфу Берингова моря в условиях климатических изменений. Выявленные тенденции имеют важное значение для дальнейшего мониторинга рыбных запасов в Беринговом море и за его пределами.

As the ocean warms, marine fish are on the move - beyond their traditional habitats and across international boundaries. Understanding these patterns of movement is essential to predicting change and managing climate-resilient fisheries.
A new collaborative NOAA Fisheries study looks at patterns of movement by multiple fish species across the entire Bering Sea shelf over decades. Alaska Fisheries Science Center scientists collaborated with Russian scientists to combine data from the eastern, western, and northern Bering Sea shelf. An innovative analysis distilled dominant patterns of fish movement over time from these data. The research advances our understanding of how the ecosystem is responding to climate change.
"International collaboration is likely going to become increasingly important for sustainable management of Bering Sea fisheries," said study lead Lukas DeFilippo, NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center. "As fish move into new habitats, we need to take a broader scale approach to monitoring to support sustainable fisheries management ."
Fish On The Move Across International Boundaries
The Bering Sea supports some of the largest fisheries in the world. As such, it has been relatively well studied. However, most research has focused on U.S. (southeastern, northeastern) or Russian (western) shelf areas separately. The goal has been to understand fish stocks within each country’s waters.
But in recent decades, unprecedented warming and loss of sea ice have driven dramatic changes in fish distributions. Scientists have observed large-scale northward shifts and increased movements between the east and west Bering Sea.
"We need to understand movement patterns on a shelf-wide scale so we can adapt our monitoring and management," DeFilippo said. "The western data that Russian scientists shared with us is key to characterizing those patterns."
Distilling the Dominant Patterns
The team set out to identify shelf-wide patterns of movement by 10 fish species over more than three decades. To accomplish this goal, they worked with University of Washington scientists, using an innovative method to analyze international survey data.
"Empirical orthogonal function analysis (EOF) can pull out the dominant signals from measurements over space and time," DeFilippo explained.
EOF is commonly used in physical oceanography. But it has only recently been applied to biological data.
The survey data spanned the years 1982-2018. Data for the east and north Bering Sea were collected from Alaska Fisheries Science Center bottom trawl surveys. Western data were collected by the Pacific branch of the Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography.
The groundfish assemblage studied included: Alaska pollock, Pacific cod, Pacific halibut, Alaska plaice, Greenland turbot, flathead sole, yellowfin sole, northern rock sole, yellow Irish lord, great sculpin.
Cold Pool Variations and a Long-Term Northward Creep
The study results corroborated one well-established pattern observed in previous research in the eastern Bering Sea. But they also revealed another, unexpected signal.
The expected pattern (Factor 2) showed movements correlated with the cold pool extent. The cold pool is a near-bottom body of water with a temperature of 2°C or less. It has previously been shown to be a key influence on species distributions and ecosystem structure for the Bering Sea. This signal varied each year or over stanzas of years.
However, the dominant pattern (Factor 1) showed movements that were independent of cold pool variability.
"We found a steady northward trend up until around 2011," DeFilippo said.
This pattern emerged when all species were combined - it doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are moving north. The trend was strongest for Pacific cod, Alaska pollock, and Alaska plaice. It affected northern rock sole, Pacific halibut, flathead sole, and Greenland turbot to a lesser degree.
The cause of the northward shift remains unknown. "We can speculate that it is climate effects not captured by cold pool changes. It could be physiology, prey availability, competition, fishing pressure, or predation," DeFilippo said.
Understanding Future Change to Build Climate Resilience
DeFilippo points to the importance of expanded monitoring to provide the information we need to adapt to climate change into the future.
As fish stocks like pollock and cod converge on the north from the east and west, continuing monitoring through the north Bering Sea Survey will be crucial. Some fish also may be moving deeper in response to warming. "Without that knowledge, we are missing part of the picture," DeFilippo said.
And international cooperation will be essential to monitoring and managing fish stocks in the Bering Sea and beyond.
"All of our data show that species are on the move, and they may not always be moving in ways that can be predicted using data from U.S. waters alone," DeFilippo said. "Marine animals cross international boundaries, and are likely to do so even more in the future. Tools to combine international data will be key to successfully monitoring and predicting change in transboundary ecosystems worldwide."

Бобы мунг, известные также как золотистая фасоль или маш, культивируются более 4500 лет и служат источником дешевого белка в регионах, где доступ к мясу ограничен. Биологи Тайваня, России, Австралии и США исследовали геномы более тысячи образцов бобов с целью изучить историю расширения ареалов возделывания и выявить факторы, влияющие на этот процесс.

The mung bean, commonly known as green gram, has played a pivotal role as a cheap protein source in regions where access to meat is limited. Spanning over 4,500 years, the cultivation of this humble legume has sustained civilizations throughout its history. While its migration routes and cultivation expansion have been a mystery, a new study by researchers at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences that was published in eLife reveals insights into the circuitous odyssey of this resilient crop.
The study, co-led by Sergey Nuzhdin, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, employed cutting-edge genomic techniques to trace the evolutionary trajectory of the mung bean. The team analyzed mung bean seeds from three global seed banks, including the Australian Diversity Panel, the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan and the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in Russia.
The research unveiled a distinctive path of cultivation and shed light on the factors influencing its expansion. Contrary to previous assumptions - based on the geographical proximity between South and Central Asia - genetic evidence suggests that the mung bean first spread from South Asia to Southeast Asia, and then finally reached Central Asia, including Western China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia.
Adapting to climate
Nuzhdin and his team of international scientists used an interdisciplinary approach that looked at population information, environmental conditions, empirical field and laboratory investigation, and historical records from ancient Chinese sources. Through this analysis, they discovered that divergent climatic conditions and farming practices across Asia shaped the mung bean’s unique trajectory, not deliberate human cultivation choices.
Nuzhdin was surprised that the evolution was not solely driven by human activity through domestication but instead was intricately intertwined with the mung bean’s adaptation to diverse climates encountered throughout its journey.
What the research unraveled was the existence of two distinct adaptations of the mung bean, each favored in specific geographic locations. The southern variant, originating in South Asia before 1068-107 CE, is characterized by larger seeds, favoring higher yields in regions with scorching climates. In contrast, the northern variant, originating in northern China around 544 CE exhibited drought tolerance and a short vegetative period during the summer planting season. The mung bean later spread to the rest of China and Southeast Asia including Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Genetic variations
While the study’s historical revelations are compelling in their own right, their implications have relevance to new ways of breeding crops. The mung bean’s genetic makeup, including its short growing season and resilience to extreme heat, hold significant potential for mitigating the impact of climate change on agriculture. Particularly in Southeast Asia, where prolonged heat waves and the severity and impact of flooding threaten valuable agricultural areas, these genetic variants could prove to be a game-changer in the face of climate change.
"Our findings offer a critical roadmap for breeders aiming to enhance mung bean production in the face of climate change predictions, especially in the southern regions. This fundamental research holds immense importance in guiding the selection of genetic materials for breeding programs," Nuzhdin said.

В 1930-х гг. советский инженер Владимир Лукьянов создал первый аналоговый компьютер, в котором в качестве рабочей среды использовалась вода. Устройство получило название «гидроинтегратор Лукьянова» и применялось для решения дифференциальных уравнений в частных производных вплоть до 1980-х гг.

Alors que les premiers ordinateurs étaient mécaniques et fonctionnaient sur des tubes à vide, il y avait d’autres écoles de pensée qui nous ont apporté un autre type d’ordinateur fonctionnant à l’eau. Le scientifique russe Vladimir Lukyanov a construit un ordinateur analogique dans les années 1930 qui s’appelait « l’intégrateur d’eau » ou « l’intégrateur de Lukyanov ».
Cet ordinateur a été construit pour résoudre des équations aux dérivées partielles. Il était particulièrement utile dans les calculs pour la construction en béton, permettant différents matériaux et conditions climatiques. L’appareil n’était pas numérique, mais utilisait de l’eau circulant dans une série de réservoirs, de tubes et de pompes interconnectés pour effectuer ses calculs. Lukyanov a découvert que l’écoulement de l’eau est à bien des égards similaire dans ses lois à la distribution de la chaleur, ainsi en construisant un ordinateur où le composant principal était l’eau, il a pu visualiser le processus thermique invisible.
Des solutions ont été trouvées en donnant une mesure de l’eau dans certains tubes (avec une précision à la fraction de millimètre près). L’appareil a été créé à l’origine pour résoudre les problèmes de fissuration du béton, mais il a ensuite inspiré des systèmes utilisant la même technologie dans des domaines tels que la géologie, la métallurgie, la physique thermique et l’ingénierie des fusées.
Ce système ingénieux offrait des solutions pratiques pour gérer les matériaux variés et les conditions climatiques extrêmes de la Russie. Cela peut sembler mystérieux par rapport aux technologies à base de silicium que nous connaissons aujourd’hui, mais l’intégrateur d’eau de Lukyanov occupe une place importante dans les archives de l’histoire informatique. Il a souligné l’adaptabilité de l’invention humaine, en utilisant des ressources facilement disponibles pour surmonter des défis complexes.
Un intégrateur d’eau a été utilisé dans la conception du Canal de Karakoum dans les années 1940, l’un des plus grands canaux d’irrigation et d’adduction d’eau au monde. Aussi la construction du Ligne principale Baïkal-Amour en Russie dans les années 1970. Les ordinateurs analogiques à eau ont été utilisés en Union soviétique jusque dans les années 1980 pour la modélisation à grande échelle.
Aujourd’hui, le Water Integrator est visible au Musée polytechnique de Moscou.

Физики из Объединенного института высоких температур РАН, НИУ «Высшая школа экономики» и Московского физико-технического института разработали открытый код OpenDust, позволяющий моделировать движение микрочастиц в потоке плазмы на порядок быстрее, чем существующие аналоги. OpenDust имеет удобный интерфейс, дает возможность настраивать параметры моделируемой системы и конфигурацию вычислительных ресурсов.

Understanding the mechanisms of interaction between plasma and microparticles is of a critical importance in various fields, including astrophysics, microelectronics, and plasma medicine. A common experimental approach for studying interactions between plasma and microparticles is to place microparticles in a flowing plasma of a gas discharge. In order to achieve a more accurate understanding of the processes occurring in such systems, scientists need fast and efficient tools for calculating forces acting on microparticles in a plasma flow.
Typically, plasma-physicists have to independently develop software tailored to a specific task, which is a significant investment of time and resources. Existing open-source programs frequently encounter challenges related to installation, documentation, and sluggish performance. A group of scientists from the JIHT, the HSE and, MIPT have developed a novel solution: a fast, open-source code which is easy to install and extensively documented.
The outcome - OpenDust - performs ten times faster than existing analogues. In order to accelerate calculations, the algorithm uses multiple GPUs simultaneously.
"OpenDust has a flexible, user-friendly interface written in Python. Users can define the parameters of a simulated system and configure computational resources. For instance, users have the ability to specify the plasma flow rate and the number of GPU accelerators needed for a calculation. The backend, which is the server component of the product responsible for the internal logic, is optimised for the high-performance computations and harnesses the power of multiple GPUs. This capability enables substantially increase calculations and process larger amount of data", explains Daniil Kolotinskii, study co-author and OpenDust developer, Junior Researcher at the Joint Institute for High Temperatures RAS.
The code, OpenDust, simulates dynamics of plasma media surrounding a system of microparticles. Scientists can use it to explore intricate physical phenomena within complex plasma, including self-organisation effects and instabilities. Additionally, the code can be applied in various fields of science and industry, such as simulation of plasma purification processes within industrial extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or studying active particle systems.
"Our code is the first-ever open-source program for the multiscale self-consistent simulation of microparticle motion in a plasma flow. OpenDust can serve as a versatile tool for simulating and studying diverse physical phenomena associated with microparticle motion in a plasma flow. The code has both academical and industrial applications. For example, it can facilitate the development of novel methods for efficiently removing dust from plasma in industrial lithography machines", says Alexey Timofeev, Leading Research Fellow, HSE International Laboratory for Supercomputer Atomistic Modelling and Multi-scale Analysis.

Журнал Nature опубликовал ежегодный рейтинг стран в области естественных наук за 2022 г., рассчитываемый по количеству публикаций в 82 международных журналах. Возглавил рейтинг Китай, впервые обойдя США; Индия впервые оказалась в десятке ведущих стран; Россия опустилась с 18-го на 20-е место.

The latest Nature Index Annual Tables underscore an unmistakable trend in the natural sciences: Western nations are losing ground while China continues to make gains. But underlying this well-established pattern is evidence for the rise of emerging nations and the possible effect of the events in Ukraine on Russian research performance.
Countries, territories and institutions are ordered by their Share, in 2022, of publications in 82 natural-science journals selected by Nature Index. Share, Nature Index’s key metric, measures each nation or institution’s contribution to the Index through the proportion of affiliated researchers they have as authors on each article. Adjusted Share accounts for the small variation in the total number of articles in the Nature Index each year to allow annual comparisons.
China’s adjusted Share in the natural sciences - which includes the physical sciences, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences and biological sciences - soared by more than 21% from 2021 to 2022, enough to comfortably surpass the United States for the first time (see ‘Shifting balance’).
"China has been trying to increase its international publications, and has particularly targeted the top-ranked journals," says Xin Xu, a higher-education researcher at the University of Oxford, UK. She notes that China’s adjusted Share in the multidisciplinary journals Nature and Science rose by 26% from 2021 to 2022, a clear sign that their strategy has succeeded.
In the same period, the adjusted Share for the United States across all of the 82 natural-science journals in the Nature Index dropped by 7%. Both the United Kingdom and Germany lost about 9%, another indication of a shift in the source of high-quality publications. "These results definitely show the changing dynamics" of global science, says Xu.
China also dominated at an institutional level. Half of the 20 institutions with the highest Share scores for natural-science articles in 2022 were based in China. Each of those Chinese institutions saw improvements in their adjusted Share between 2021 and 2022, while every non-Chinese institution saw a decline (see ‘Rising stars’). The only institution to come close to bucking this trend was the University of Cambridge, UK, which lost just 0.1% of its adjusted Share.
One subject area in which China is still behind the United States on Share is the biological sciences, a category formerly referred to as the life sciences in the Nature Index. China is catching up fast, however, with a 26% rise in its adjusted Share since last year’s Annual Tables. One institution, Fudan University, in Shanghai, increased its biological-science adjusted Share by 65% during this period.
India on the move
China isn’t the only country making gains. India’s adjusted Share rose by 5%, placing the country among the leading ten nations for the first time. This is a clear sign of progress, but India hasn’t come close to reaching its potential, says Eldho Mathews, a science-policy researcher at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration in New Delhi. He notes that the country continues to invest less than 1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in research and development (R&D), much less than China (2.4%) or the United States (3.4%).
In 2019, India passed Germany to become the fourth-most productive country in the world by the total number of research publications per year, according to Elsevier’s Scopus database. But that productivity hasn’t quashed concerns about quality. Mathews explains that university policies that tied promotions and hiring to the total number of publications helped fuel a surge of papers and created a breeding ground for predatory pay-to-publish journals with low standards. Reforms in 2019 by the University Grants Commission, the major funding regulatory body for Indian universities, have encouraged researchers to seek publications in higher-quality journals, a move that might have helped India improve its standing in the Nature Index and close the quality gap.
Even with incentives, universities in India - there are more than 1,100 of them - still struggle to make significant scientific impacts, Mathews says. "Most of the excellent outputs are from government research institutes, not from universities," he says. Mathews notes, for instance, that agricultural research institutes in India are highly regarded, while other institutes are making major contributions in the fields of biotechnology and climate-change mitigation. There is also steady progress in artificial-intelligence (AI) fields such as machine learning, he says.
Trouble down under
India entered the top-ten countries by Share by surpassing Australia, a country whose score dropped by 14% from 2021 to 2022 (see ‘Mixed fortunes’). That’s just one more sign of a scientific slowdown in a country facing many challenges, says Kylie Walker, chief executive of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a scientific society based in Canberra. Walker notes that federal-government funding of R&D as a proportion of the GDP has been in overall decline for more than a decade. She says that the pandemic also greatly affected the productivity of Australian universities, which strongly rely on the intellectual and financial contributions of foreign students. "Suddenly, things got very tricky, and we were not in a position of strength to start with," says Walker.
She says that one of the underlying problems is that Australia’s scientific system lacks efficiency and cohesion. "We have more than 200 different federal funding instruments, and they all have slightly different requirements and slightly different time frames," she says. Walker hopes that the administration that took office in 2022, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, will be able to revitalize the system, because the country has "such potential" to tackle some major research challenges, "not just for Australia, but globally". Ultimately, it needs to reclaim its reputation, she adds, to make Australia an attractive partner for international projects. "It’s impossible for us to get really high-quality science done if we don’t collaborate internationally."
Shuffling the deck
The latest Nature Index tables might also reflect other notable trends in global science and politics. Russia’s adjusted Share declined by 17%, the biggest drop of any country in the top 20. "The data undoubtedly point to a decoupling of Russian science and intellectualism from the global knowledge networks," says Simon Marginson, a higher-education researcher and director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at the University of Oxford. He says the invasion of Ukraine has forced many Russian scientists to abandon international projects. "Collaboration with Euro-American colleagues, previously welcomed by the state, now brings the risk of being named as a foreign agent," says Marginson.
Ukraine’s adjusted Share rose by 47% while Russia’s dropped, but this was based on a very small Share value compared with Russia.
Some trends lack any clear explanations. Japan - a country with a long history of innovation - saw its adjusted Share drop by nearly 10%. Xu says that researchers in Japanese universities have been relatively slow to embrace international collaboration, especially compared with researchers in China. Also, researchers in Japan continue to publish much of their work in Japanese journals that aren’t included in the Nature Index.
Xu also noted a sharp 15% drop for Singapore, a relatively small, geographically isolated country that faced serious challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. "International mobility is so important for countries like Singapore," she says. By contrast, Chinese research was able to thrive thanks to a robust domestic system that relied less on outside expertise, says Xu.
Some countries with comparatively modest scientific outputs managed to stay relatively steady in 2022. South Africa and Poland, for example, each rose by 3%, whereas Finland made slightly higher gains (4%). South Korea essentially held firm from 2021 to 2022, losing only 2% of its adjusted Share.
China’s rise in the Nature Index might slow in the coming years, Xu predicts. She points to a shift in national policy, starting in 2020, that encourages publication in domestic journals. Including 2022 Share data from the new Nature Index health-sciences category - which does not allow comparisons with previous years - also pushes China back into second place overall, behind the United States.
Going forward, Xu anticipates a scientific landscape in which no single country dominates publications or sets the research agenda. "We’re seeing a multi-polar world where new powerhouses are coming to the picture," she says. "It’s a more diversified picture of global science."

В Южно-Уральском государственном университете разрабатывается нейросеть, которая должна усовершенствовать работу ветряных электростанций.

A project by SUSU scientists to develop the mechanical elements of blades for uninterrupted operation of wind turbines and quadcopters was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation. This will increase the efficiency of quadcopter battery utilization and reduce the cost of wind turbines for emergency shutdown and restart. The neural network being developed on the basis of a control system is designed to fine-tune the operation of the upgraded equipment.
Researchers from the SUSU Department of Industrial Thermal Power Engineering have come up with an idea to equip the blades of horizontal wind generators with mechanical elements similar to those found in aircrafts, which will increase the efficiency of wind power plants. With these elements, the blade will be less susceptible to deformation, and the wind turbine will be less likely to stop in high wind speeds. The cost of "strong" wind turbines (more than 2 kW) is over 100 thousand roubles.
These mechanical elements will help avoid complete shutdown of the wind farm. Instead, the blades will slow down to safe speeds. Continuous operation of the wind turbine will prevent power supply failure and will eliminate the need for a backup power source. In addition, the developed mechanical element can be used to, among other things, improve the operational capabilities of civilian quadcopters, which are used for maintenance of power and heating networks, and agricultural needs, such as cadastral works.
The ability to adjust the angle of the quadcopter's blades during takeoff and landing will reduce the amount of power consumed by the battery. Battery power will also be saved because the operator can turn parts of the blade up and down, left and right. Another advantage in this area of research is that the trajectory of the quadcopter will become more stable, and the probability of the device toppling over will be minimized.
Within this grant, scientists are also developing a neural network that will support higher quality operation of wind turbines and quadcopters. Neural networks are needed in industrial applications to collect data on operator errors and control systems that need to be avoided in the future.
"Our number one task is to develop blades with mechanical elements; our number two task is to develop a neural network to control this. The program will keep track of all kinds of operational errors and prevent them from happening in the future. For wind turbines this will be a fully automated system without human involvement, and for drones this will be a self-training network with human involvement," shared Konstantin Osintsev, Candidate of Sciences in Engineering, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Industrial Thermal Power Engineering.
The network will be able to correct the movement of the quadcopter, minimizing the influence of the human factor. This guarantees the lowest probability of negative outcomes.
"Let's simulate the situation: a quadcopter was in a stable position, but at some point it begins to fall. The operator adjusts the position of the quadcopter, trying to return it to its previous trajectory. At the same time, the network remembers the operator's mistakes and later at a later point, when the operator tries to perform a correction, the quadcopter adjusts its final decision. If the neural network algorithm will be able to correct all errors in its forecasts, then implementing this development will show promise," says the scientist.
The SUSU researchers are planning to create quadcopter and wind turbine models on a 3D printer capable of casting plastic materials. The quadcopter will be recreated in real size, and the blades of the wind turbine will be printed at a reduced scale.
SUSU scientists will conduct their research on the efficiency of blades equipped with mechanical elements in an aerodynamic stand. The aerodynamic stand will be purchased specifically for this project. In the aerodynamic stand, the blades are subjected to high-speed air flows. By looking at the directions of the current lines, the researchers will learn the trajectory of the air flow depending on the position of the mechanical elements. They can then come to conclusions on the optimal design.
The Russian Science Foundation has allocated 6.9 million roubles for the development of this study within a 3-year project.

При раскопках поселения XII-XIII веков в окрестностях Суздаля археологи обнаружили княжескую свинцовую печать с изображением святого Георгия. По мнению исследователей Института археологии РАН, печать могла принадлежать Юрию Долгорукому.

Archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences have uncovered a seal depicting St George during excavations of a 12th-13th century AD settlement south of the Russian town of Suzdal.
The settlement was first discovered in 2017 by the Suzdal Expedition, with ongoing research being conducted in 2022 to 2023. The team have found a rare lead seal depicting St George carrying a spear in his right hand and his left hand leaning towards a shield. Left of the figure is an inscription showing "GEOR", while surrounding the head is a punched halo.
According to tradition, St George, also called George of Lydda, was a soldier in the Roman army and a member of the Praetorian Guard for the Roman emperor Diocletian. After being sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith, he was venerated as a Christian saint.
Historically, the countries of England, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Georgia, as well as Catalonia and Aragon in Spain, and Moscow in Russia, have claimed George as their patron saint. The heraldic emblem of Moscow depicts Saint George slaying a dragon, which has been an integral part of the coat of arms of Russia since the 16th century.
Excavations of the settlement have uncovered 150 items made of metal, glass, stone, bone and ceramics, in addition to ordinary household items such as iron knives, a key, a whorl, lead weights, a whetstone, and a clay fishing sinker.
The team have also found decorative items such as a rings, beads, buttons, fragments of bracelets, belt buckles, and pendants depicting a cockerel, duck and a two-headed horse, as well as a rare fragment of an encolpion depicting the Virgin Mary and Child.
According to the researchers, the bulk of the objects date from the 12th to the first half of the 13th century and indicate the sphere of power relations and princely administration of the lands of North-Eastern Rus’.

Исследовав источники рентгеновского излучения с помощью космического аппарата «Спектр-РГ» и двух наземных телескопов, астрономы из Института космических исследований РАН идентифицировали четырнадцать новых галактик c активными ядрами. Все четырнадцать относятся к наиболее распространенному сейфертовскому типу, а шесть из них были обнаружены впервые.

Using the Spectrum-RG (SRG) spacecraft and two ground-based telescopes, Russian astronomers have observed X-ray sources in the eastern Galactic sky. The observational campaign resulted in the detection of 14 new active galactic nuclei. The findings were presented June 6 in the journal Astronomy Letters.
An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy, more luminous than the surrounding galaxy light. AGNs are very energetic due either to the presence of a black hole or star formation activity at the core of the galaxy.
Astronomers generally divide AGNs into two groups based on emission line features. Type 1 AGNs show broad and narrow emission lines, while only narrow emission lines are present in Type 2 AGNs.
Recently, a team of astronomers led by Grigory Uskov of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, has investigated hard X-ray sources in the eastern Galactic half of the sky. For this purpose, they employed SRG's ART-XC and eROSITA telescopes, as well as the 1.6-m AZT-33IK telescope at the Sayan Observatory in Russia and the 1.5-m Russian-Turkish telescope (RTT-150) at the TUBITAK National Observatory in Turkey.
"We present the results of our identification of 14 X-ray sources detected in the eastern Galactic sky (0 < l < 180°) in the 4-12 keV energy band on the combined map of the first five all-sky surveys (from December 2019 to March 2022) with the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope onboard the SRG observatory," the researchers wrote in the paper.
The study detected 14 new AGNs relatively nearby, at redshifts between 0.015 and 0.238. They all are hosted by Seyfert galaxies - one of the NLSy1 type, three of the Sy1 type, four were classified as Sy1.9, and six as Sy2. The X-ray luminosities of these active galactic nuclei were measured to be within the range of 1-100 tredecillion erg/s, which is typical for AGNs at the present epoch.
The astronomers constructed broadband (0.2-12 keV) X-ray spectra and managed to derive black hole masses and bolometric luminosities for four of the newfound AGNs. These values were found to be 12-260 million solar masses, and 170-1,800 tredecillion erg/s, respectively. They also found that in four AGNs the intrinsic absorption exceeds 1,022 cm−2.
Summing up the results, the authors of the paper noted how important their discovery is for the ongoing AGN search. They hope to build a large sample of these objects based on their hard X-ray emission.
"The result obtained will help to obtain a large (about 2,000 objects), statistically complete sample of AGNs selected by their emission in the hard 4-12 keV X-ray energy band on completion of the planned eight sky surveys," the researchers concluded.

Казанские физики обнаружили в жидком висмуте квазистабильные структуры в виде цепочек из атомных триплетов и определили, что именно они являются причиной структурных аномалий в расплаве висмута, отсутствующих в большинстве других однокомпонентных расплавов.

The work was carried out within the framework of the project "Theoretical, simulation, and experimental studies of physical and mechanical properties of amorphous systems with inhomogeneous local viscoelastic properties" supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, headed by Professor Anatoly Mokshin.
"We have found for the first time that liquid bismuth contains quasistable structures in the form of extended chains formed from 'triplets of atoms' - triplets of regular geometry. Directly these structures are the cause of the so-called 'structural anomalies' registered by X-ray and neutron diffraction experiments in bismuth melt, but absent in most other single-component melts. This scientific result was obtained by combining the traditional experimental technique of X-ray diffraction and a numerical experiment on first-principles modeling of molecular dynamics," says the Professor.
Bismuth is used in the pharmaceutical industry for the manufacture of medicines, in electronics for the manufacture of magnetic memory devices, in metallurgy for the manufacture of fusible alloys, in the nuclear power industry as a liquid metal coolant in combination with lead.
The discovery made by KFU scientists makes a significant contribution to the understanding of physical processes occurring at the level of atoms in melts of polyvalent metals such as bismuth, and opens the way to the development of new methods for obtaining (forming) nanostructures based on metal melts.

В Красноярском крае идет очередной этап строительства подземной научно-исследовательской лаборатории, предназначенной для изучения возможности глубинного захоронения радиоактивных отходов в гнейсовых породах Нижнеканского скального массива. После проведения исследований будет принято решение о строительстве собственно хранилища.

Russia has begun work on construction of an underground research laboratory (PIL - Podzemnaya Issledovatelskaya Laboratoriya) at the site of the Zheleznogorsk branch of radwaste national operator NO RAO in Krasnoyarsk. "Several countries are undertaking such developments, and we are not lagging behind ", said Vasily Tinin, director of state policy in the field of radwaste, used fuel, decommissioning and renewable energy at Rosatom. The work is being done within the framework of the Federal Target Programme "Ensuring Nuclear and Radiation Safety for 2016-2020 and for the Period Until 2030" (FTP-YaRB).
The underground research laboratory at the Yenisei site is a research complex in which, in 2025-2040, it is planned to study natural and engineering security barriers, handling technology and final isolation radwaste and other factors affecting safety. Based on the results of the studies, the characteristics of the rock and the design of the facility for drawing up the safety justification will be clarified as the basis for a decision on a deep geological repository. which a decision will be made on the construction of a point of deep isolation of radioactive waste.
A detailed research list for PIL was developed in accordance with Russian regulatory documents and international recommendations, approved by Rosatom in 2019 and was included in the Comprehensive Research Programme to justify the safe construction of the PGZRO (Punkt Glubinnogo Zakhoroneniya Radioaktivnikh Otkhodov - Point for Deep Burial of Radioactive Waste), its operation and closure at the Yenisei site.
Research in underground mining is already underway and it is planned to put PIL into operation PIL in 2028, after which long-term experiments will be launched. "First of all, we will establish a facility for scientific research and only after the scientists give a positive opinion and public discussions have been held, will a decision be made on the construction of PGZRO. Now our main task is to organize construction of PIL", said Sergey Peshkov, director of the NO RAO Zheleznogorsk branch.
"Russia supports the world practice of the final isolation of radioactive waste in deep formations, as well as the main requirement for the reasonable isolation of these wastes due to their high risk," says Dmitry Ozersky, director of the Krasnoyarsk branch of the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBRAE RAS). "Scientific research is being conducted on this topic, at IBRAE RAS and more than 150 tasks in various areas are being investigated. The list of our collaborators is quite wide. It includes scientific organisations responsible for the development of the theoretical basis for handling radwaste, and production associations ensuring the development of applied science."
The programme comprises three stages:
• Stage 1. The energy complex for PIL which was completed in 2022 to supply electricity and water for mining.
• Stage 2. Construction of PIL, now underway. This includes: construction of ventilation and auxiliary shafts with a horizontal bridge between them (for studies of a rock mass over five years or more and confirmation of the long-term safety of radwaste disposal; construction of a technological shaft and the remaining horizons.
• Stage 3. PGZRO - construction of a facility for deep isolation of radioactive waste based on the results of all studies and obtaining the necessary licences.
During June, construction continued at PIL and a three-dimensional laser scanning of the surface of the rock mass was undertaken by IBRAE RAS. The research work includes the study of the rock mass, carried out in parallel with the construction of the mine shafts of the laboratory.
The construction process is carried continuously with scientists constantly present at the construction site recording the geological and hydrogeological parameters of the massif as the depth of the shafts grows. Currently tubes penetrate loose rocks and weathered areas of the rock massif. In the future, drilling will be carried into the main rock mass, which will be of greater interest to scientists.
The three-dimensional laser scanning took place in the period when the broken rock has already been removed, but the concrete lining has not yet been put in place. The scanning produces a cloud of points, from which a three-dimensional digital model of the shaft section is created. Digital models at various intervals are planned to be combined into a single 3D model that visualises the basic geological information. This model will be demonstration material, reflecting the state of the massif for both expert organisations and the public.

Пещера Инейская в Республике Хакасия оказалась крупнейшим в Азии древним логовом гиен, обитавших в ней более 40 тысяч лет назад. Уральские и сибирские палеонтологи обнаружили в пещере около 400 кг костей как самих гиен, так и съеденных ими животных, от лягушек и птиц до носорогов и мамонтов.

Scientists from the Ural Federal University in Russia have discovered a large den of ancient cave hyenas in the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia. It is the largest known in Asia, and in it the researchers collected around 400 kg of bones from other animals dating back 42,000 years, reports the university website.
The discovery took place in the Ineiskaya cave. Studying the den will allow us to better understand the lifestyle of extinct predators, in particular, what they ate and how they cared for their young, as well as the climate of that time. The scientists managed to find two intact skulls of cave hyenas (Crocuta crocuta spelaea), something very rare.
The cave is also unique in that the bones it contains are on the surface (no digging was necessary to access them) and have been preserved intact, plus some of them are inside the ice. Finds include large animals such as mammoths, Merck and woolly rhinos, woolly bison, yaks, noble and northern giant deer, and gazelles.
Predators are represented by ancestral remains of the brown bear, fox, and wolf. Rodents include marmots and other small animals that have yet to be identified. The scientists also found remains of frogs, toads, birds and fish, according to Dmitry Malikov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
By studying the remains of the Merck rhinoceros, the scientists established the dating of the finds: 42,000 years.
Bite marks are visible on the bones of large animals. Some of the skeletons are arranged in the correct anatomical order, indicating that the hyenas dragged parts of their bodies into the cave. In addition, a large number of cub bones were found, such as the skull of a young hyena, many lower jaws and milk teeth.

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