Июль 2001 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Russia, Japan sign scientific cooperation agreement
• Soros Losing Hope on Russia
• Russian vessel returns after Antarctic expedition
• Scientists Attend Forum on Marine Technology and Economy
• Research vessel to bring scientists to Qingdao for forum
• TheStandard.com U.S. Nuclear Tracking Software Had Glitch
• Alfyorov To Head Nuclear-Waste Committee
• International oil conference opens in St Petersburg
• Russian scientist: Ban on Caspian sturgeon fishing may be too late
• Antimatter Not As Tough As Matter -- Thus We Exist
• Surveying the nuclear cities
• Russian scientists work to create hepatitis C vaccine
• Unique anti-cancer medicine produced in China
• ATI Co-sponsors Russian Technology Conference and Competition; ``High Tech-2001'' and ``Innovations-2001'' Features International Attendees and 1 Million Ruble Grand Prize
• Russian archaeologists find ancient treasure in Tuva grave in Siberia
• Russian Physicist Reveals New Information on Enigmatic Cylinders of the Pharaoh
• Russian Missile Blasts Solar Sail Into Space

MOSCOW, Jul 24, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Japan trade company Tokyo Boeki Ltd. have signed a bilateral agreement on scientific and technological cooperation in peaceful fundamental researches, a source at the RAS press service told Tass on Tuesday.
Tokyo Boeki Ltd. delivers state-of-the-art scientific and analytic equipment such as electron microscopes, microprobes, Roentgen microscopes and other equipment.
The sides intend to activate contacts of specialists and carry out joint research projects within the framework of the bilateral cooperation. In addition, the parties plan organise a constant exhibition of analytic scientific equipment in one of the RAS institutes.

The unconventional financier George Soros, who since 1997 has spent nearly $1 billion on philanthropic schemes in Russia, has joined human-rights activists in denouncing an apparently Kremlin-engineered edict requiring Russian academics to report all contacts with foreigners to authorities.
Soros denounced the directive issued by the Russian Academy of Sciences as a "return to the Soviet system" and warned that it will jeopardize his philanthropic and business investments in Russia.
According to Soros, there is "an ongoing tug-of-war between economic reform and political retreat" in Russia. He cautioned that "beyond a certain point these two tendencies can't be reconciled". The directive to academics orders the heads of institutes and research labs to maintain control of overseas trips by scientists who have access to state secrets. Foreign academics working in Russia also should be monitored. In recent months, Russian intelligence agencies have accused several academics of divulging state secrets to foreigners. Gennady Mesyats, deputy head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has defended the order, saying it is necessary because "the leak of perspective scientific research has become catastrophic".
While the edict has prompted criticism from human-rights organizations, Russian academics have remained restrained in their reactions. Olga Ladyzhenskaya, a professor at St. Petersburg's Steklov Mathematical Institute, says her institute has not yet received the directive. She adds: "It sounds very unpleasant, but I need to look into it before I decide".

После завершения экспедиции в Антарктику в Санкт-Петербург возвратилось научно-иссследовательское судно Академик Федоров

MOSCOW, Jul 05, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The scientific vessel, Akademik Fyodorov, of the Russian hydrometeorological service has returned to St. Petersburg after an expedition to the Antarctic, a spokesman for the service told Itar-Tass. The expedition was launched on March 1, 2001 and lasted for 127 days, including 55 in Antarctic waters. The ice conditions were good for the work despite the late period.
The vessel delivered cargo to Russian Antarctic stations. The personnel at the stations of Novolazarevskaya and Mirny was replaced, and the station, Progress, was closed.
The scientists also conducted research on sea water and ice in the eastern Antarctic, changes in the ozone concentration, and the state of bioresources.
Aboard the vessel were 105 participants of the expedition.

QINGDAO, Jul 15, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- An international forum on marine technology and economic development was opened Sunday in the Eastern coastal city of Qingdao.
There were 32 academicians in attendance from Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering and Russian Academy of Sciences, and nearly 200 scientists and entrepreneurs from around the world will focus on marine strategy, marine economy, marine life, marine environmental protection, marine minerals, and exploitation of marine water.
The latest research development in the above fields will also be demonstrated on the forum. Chaired by China Association of Science and Technology academician Zhou Guangzhao, the forum is jointly sponsored by the Development Research Center of the State Council, Ministry of Land and Resources, State Environmental Protection Administration, State Oceanic Administration, China Association of Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Society of Oceanography, UNESCO China Office and Qingdao Municipal Government.

22 научных работника Тихоокеанского института Биоорганической химии отправились в Китай на международный симпозиум по исследованиям в области биоорганических технологий на научно-исследовательском судне Академик Опарин Восточно-сибирского отделения РАН

VLADIVOSTOK, Jul 10, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The Akademik Oparin research vessel of the Far Eastern Branch (FEB) of the Russian Academy of Sciences has set out from here on a voyage to the Chinese city of Qingdao to bring 22 researchers of the Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry who will take part in an international symposium on research in marine biotechnologies. The scientific forum is to be held from July 14 to 17.
An official at the FEB Presidium has told Itar-Tass that an international exhibition of biotechnologies will be held in Qingdao at the same time, with the research vessel itself being one of exhibits.
The Akademik Oparin is a unique floating oceanic research laboratory, which has to its credit more than 25 scientific expeditions to study the world ocean. A display featuring Russian scientists' achievements in the field of biotechnologies has been arranged on board the vessel.
The research ship recently returned from a voyage to the South Korean port of Tonghae where the 2nd Russo-South Korean forum on biotechnologies took place on board the vessel at the end of June.

Программное обеспечение,разработанное в США на базе Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server 6.5 и используемое в институте им. Курчатова и в Национальной лаборатории в Лос-Аламосе для слежения за ядерными материалами, дает сбои, которые могут привести к потере информации

Software used to track U.S. and Russian nuclear weapon resources had a glitch in it that could have caused information about the materials to be lost, a spokesman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, said Monday.
The software bug first came to broad public attention roughly two weeks ago when Bruce Blair, the president of the Center for Defense Information wrote an op/ed article for the Washington Post detailing the story of the flaw, its discovery by Russian researchers and the U.S. reaction. Blair has also posted extensive information about the Russians' findings and his correspondence with them on his Web site.
In 1995, Russian nuclear researchers at the Kurchatov Institute were given software developed and used by the Los Alamos National Laboratories for tracking nuclear material and based on Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server 6.5, NNSA spokesman Rick Ford said. That software was written using a special command language built into SQL Server, Steve Murchie, group product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft said.
Unbeknownst to both staff at both Los Alamos and Kurchatov, the custom-written code exposed a flaw in SQL Server 6.5 by stretching the abilities of the software's command language, Murchie said. The flaw came into play when large amounts of data were run against the program, causing files to become invisible and inaccessible, but still present in the database, both Ford and CDI's Blair said. Despite claims by the Kurchatov researchers, and repeated by Blair in his Washington Post piece, that the files would be permanently lost, Microsoft's Murchie said that the problem would not persist and that the files would eventually return. Officials at the Kurchatov Institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This glitch might have caused a serious security problem in which "any insider who understood the software could exploit this flaw by tracking the 'disappeared' files and then physically diverting, for a profit, the materials themselves", Blair wrote. However, an inventory of U.S. nuclear materials was taken and all were accounted for, the NNSA's Ford said.
The Russians informed their U.S. counterparts of the flaw in early 2000, who in turn contacted Microsoft. Microsoft offered a work-around and a bug fix, but both were declined by the Department of Energy, Murchie said. Instead, the agency chose to upgrade to SQL Server 7.0, he said, adding that Microsoft tests have found that version 7.0 does not contain the same problem that 6.5 did.
Upgrading to SQL Server 7.0 did not solve the problem, however, according to Kurchatov. In fact, SQL Server 7.0 not only did not fix the original problem, but also introduced a new security hole that could allow unauthorized users access to databases, Blair wrote. This was only a minor issue created if system administrator accounts were created without passwords, and has since been resolved, said Murchie.
Though the original software given to Kurchatov was the same as that being used at Los Alamos, the U.S. version of the software split onto a separate development path in 1996, resulting in "two separate, totally distinct systems", NNSA's Ford said. As such, any flaws found in the Russian version of the software may not be in the U.S. version, he said.
Both the U.S. and Russian systems have been fixed and the bug no longer occurs, according to NNSA's Ford. In his article, however, Blair wrote that "though a fix remains elusive, Kurchatov scientists also have shared a partial repair they developed". Though acknowledging that the Russians had upgraded to SQL 7.0 and that Microsoft had issued a patch for some problems, Blair did say Monday that "a patch may paper over a problem and it may or may not be a real fix".
"As far as I know, they are still concerned that the Microsoft patch was not the answer", he said Monday.
Microsoft disagrees with Blair and Kurchatov. SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 have both resolved the problem according to Microsoft's testing, Murchie said. The problem experienced in SQL Server 6.5 was a result of the command language, not a flaw in the program itself, and has since been fixed, he said. In fact, the very code that caused the problem in the first place should work fine now, he said, adding that there have been no reports made to Microsoft of the same problem since. "If it does exist and there's a customer problem, it has not been reported", Murchie said.

Along with giving his approval of a controversial nuclear-waste import law, President Vladimir Putin named local Nobel laureate Zhores Alfyorov to head a special committee that will oversee implementation of the project. Putin signed the law, which allows Russia to accept spent nuclear fuel for storage and reprocessing, at the Kremlin on Wednesday. Alfyorov's Committee for Issues on Reprocessed Nuclear Fuel is envisioned as a public information clearing house on the project, as well as a safety watchdog.
"The creation of this commission is not to calm fears, but rather to move in the direction of society to review the issues surrounding the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel", Alfyorov told a press conference at the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.
According to Nuclear Power Ministry officials, shipments of spent nuclear fuel could begin arriving in about a year.
Alfyorov, who is a Communist Duma deputy, has championed Russia's decaying scientific infrastructure since his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for physics in December. He has stated that he sees the waste- import program promoted by the Nuclear Power Ministry as crucial to solving that problem.
If the imports go ahead as planned, proponents of the law say that Russia could earn $20 billion over the next 10 years by importing about 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. The imported fuel is due to be stored until 2021 while Russia upgrades its reprocessing facilities with money earned from exporters such as Taiwan, Japan, China, and Iran.
But despite its success in the Duma and the Federation Council, the law has been vociferously opposed by Russian citizens and environmentalists, who have revealed their distaste for the project in demonstrations and polls. Opinion polls have consistenly shown that about 90 percent of the public opposes the plan.
Vladimir Slivyak, chairman of the environmental group Ecodefense, said in a telephone interview from Moscow on Thursday that the project "will turn Russia into the world's nuclear toilet". Opponents also say that rampant corruption and Russia's spotty nuclear-safety record cast doubt on the country's ability to handle the spent fuel safely.
The U.S. State Department criticized the law and demanded that strict safety measures and audits be put in place, said a department official by telephone, who declined to be named on Wednesday.
While conceding he had "no idea" how the money for imports would be accounted for, Alfyorov promised transparency, and said he "trusts implicitly his colleges at the Nuclear Power Ministry" who will be handling the finances.
Alfyorov will head a 20-person committee responsible for overseeing all deals under the law, and which will be empowered to reject those it considers dangerous. However, in making such judgments, the committee will rely on information provided by the ministry.
Although the rest of the committee has not yet been named, the presidential order stipulated that it include 20 people - five from Putin's administration and an equal number from each of the government, the Duma and the Federation Council. It is unclear when the committee will meet for the first time.
But the 71-year-old Alfyorov - although enthusiastic - demurred at his appointment, citing his partiality to solar energy as a clean and potentially inexhaustible source of energy. He said that he saw his acceptance of the appointment as a choice between the lesser of two evils, and voiced the hope that some of the money expected from the import project could finance solar experiments.
"As energy options, solar power is the cleanest. But the law [on importing nuclear waste] is the law", said Alfyorov. "No research money is being devoted to solar power, so I took this position because nuclear power is the next cleanest thing available.
The 21st century is the century of nuclear energy, not only in Russia but around the world". Alfyorov also confessed to his own lack of experience in nuclear physics. His Nobel work, completed 20 years ago, involved the use of semiconductors and led to the development of such inventions as compact- disc players and mobile telephones.
Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said at a Moscow press conference on Wednesday that the first loads of waste could begin arriving in a year, although media reports indicated some shipments are already on the way or may even have already arrived.
"We are in contact with foreign colleagues on this issue, but have no concrete customers at the moment", said Rumyantsev, according to Interfax. "We hope that during that time we can actively work on further safety improvements in our handling of nuclear waste", he said, adding that Russia could possibly corner 10 percent of the nuclear-waste reprocessing business by 2005.
Rumyantsev also welcomed the creation of Alfyorov's oversight committee, albeit with faint praise. "We're not going to discuss [the law], we are just going to fulfill it", Rumyantsev said. "The law signed by the president supports this home- grown production of nuclear fuel. And now, customers abroad will know that Russia will take its used fuel back".
Rumyantsev said that France and Britain have carved up the market for depleted nuclear fuel, and Russia will have to fight to secure a share. Reprocessed fuel can be used again, leaving small quantities of unusable radioactive waste.
The Nuclear Power Ministry is notorious for its reticence and secrecy. Rumyantsev's predecessor, Yevgeny Adamov, who authored the import plan, was fired in March following allegations that he had illegally continued to engage in business activities and had used his post to appoint his unqualified business associates to ministry positions.
This, according to the Greenpeace Moscow project coordinator Vladimir Chuprov, accounts for Alfyorov's cool reception by Rumyantsev and his own misgivings about the project. "Nothing about the Nuclear Power Ministry, especially its finances, is transparent, and Alfyorov is a liar or a fool if he thinks he can change that", Chuprov said in a telephone interview from Moscow.
"It is all a public-relations stunt, trying to make people think a 'civilian' organization will have some say in the process, when it has already been stated that all positions in Alfyorov's committee go to government suits".
Greenpeace has called for a national candlelight vigil to protest the passage of the law for 10 p.m. on Thursday. Chuprov said he expected "hundreds of thousands" to turn out.

ST. PETERSBURG, Jul 15, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The representative international Conference "Prospecting for and production of oil under difficult conditions" opens in St.Petersburg on Sunday. It will be attended by over 500 prominent geologists and managers from 25 countries, including Russia, Britain, Germany, Egypt, China, the United States, France and Japan. The first forum with broad international participation in Russia was co-sponsored by the Russian Nature Ministry, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the All-Russian Oil Research Geological Institute from St. Petersburg and co-sponsored by the American Association of oil geologists. Participants include top managers of transnational companies, including British Petroleum, Amoco, Conaco, Norsk-Hydro, Exxon- Mobil, as well as representatives from the top management of Russian companies -- Lukoil, Yukos, TNK, Tatneft, Sibneft and Surgutneftegaz. The conference will give special importance to the development of hardly accessible areas of the Arctic, director of the All-Russian Oil Research Geological Institute Mikhail Belonin told Tass on Saturday.

По словам директора научно-исследовательского института рыбного хозяйства международный мораторий на отлов осетра в Каспийском море может быть уже запоздалой мерой для сохранения этого вида рыб

MOSCOW, Jul 24, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The international moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea may be too little, too late to save the black caviar-producing fish from extinction, the head of Russia's Caspian Fisheries Research Institute said Tuesday. Last month, Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakstan agreed to halt sturgeon fishing for the rest of the year in an effort to protect shrinking stocks. Magomet Amarov, director of the institute in Dagestan, a Russian region on the Caspian, said fishing would have to be banned for at least 20 years in order for stocks to be replenished, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. At the current rate of poaching, no sturgeon will be left in the sea in 10 years, he said. Experts estimate that poachers catch about 10 times the legal catch. Amarov said residents of Dagestan alone own about 4,000 small fishing boats with powerful Japanese motors, which are used for poaching. Under the agreement reached last month, the countries have until next June to come up with a longer-term plan that would, among other measures, crack down on unlicensed fishing. Stocks of the Caspian's beluga sturgeon - which produces the most expensive caviar - have dropped by about 90 percent over the past two decades, victims of destroyed spawning sites, pollution and the end of strict, Soviet-era policing of caviar production.

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