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

Взаимодействие вещества и антивещества обусловливает, по мнению международной группы физиков, существование нашей Вселенной

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) -- Looks like antimatter is not all it's cracked up to be, a group of international physicists have announced in a finding which proves there is a good reason for our universe, made of matter, to exist.
The experiments set the stage for another debate, however.
After bashing a stream of antimatter particles against a stream of matter particles in mile-long tubes near Silicon Valley, scientists found themselves with some left over matter that the uninitiated would not have expected. Matter and antimatter blow each other up when they meet, as any Star Trek fan knows, which has left physicists working hard to explain how our universe, made up of matter, could exist, since around the Big Bang which started things there apparently were equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
The answer is that matter is a bit tougher than antimatter, at least as far as the recent experiments on a particle called a B meson are concerned, the team working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Palo Alto, California, announced.
That confirmed results of another experiment on a similar particle that has haunted physicists for decades.
"For 37 years people have looked and they haven't found anything beyond the original one", said Princeton University physicist Stewart Smith, a spokesman for the group.
"Physicists now know that there are at least two types of subatomic particles that exhibit this puzzling phenomenon, thought to be responsible for the great preponderance of matter in the universe".
The physicists drove electrons against positrons, a type of antimatter, in a 1.3 mile particle accelerator. A 1,200-ton detector, called BABAR, recorded how B mesons and their antimatter equivalents, anti-B mesons, were born and how they decayed, leaving a bit more matter than antimatter.
STANDARD MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE
The work fits nicely with the current view of the universe, the Standard Model, which accurately predicted that B mesons and anti-B mesons would be slightly different, or asymmetrical. "We don't have to invent new physics to explain our results", Smith. Russian physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov came up with the idea in 1967 that the universe of matter could exist because of the slight difference, also called charge-parity violation, or CP violation.
Sakharov in turn was explaining results of experiments with another particle, the K meson, which in 1964 showed the same behavior as particles in the Stanford-based experiment.
But in settling one debate physicists set the stage for another. The Standard Model is missing something, even if it is correct as far as it goes. The amount of matter it predicts is only about one billionth as much as exists, Smith said.
"There is something major out there that we don't know", he said.
"Either there is some new set of ghostly particles, maybe they are just too massive to have been produced in accelerators... or there is some completely new phenomenon that we have not been able to see that is there to have catalyzed the evolution of the universe. "
A top candidate for a bit of asymmetry might be neutrinos, another fundamental particle that has not been studied much in this regard, Smith said, but those experiments await.
The Stanford-based tests were conducted by more than 600 scientists from 75 institutions in Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Russia and the United States, and the results have been submitted for publication in the Physical Review Letters journal.

"THE MOST TERRIBLE THING IS THAT no one is waiting for us anywhere, either abroad or in this godforsaken country. " So said a scientific worker living in one of Russia's closed nuclear cities when he was interviewed recently by noted sociologist Valentin Tikhonov.
As Tikhonov found, such sentiments are all too common in the cities where Russia's nuclear weapons and missiles are built. His survey of Russia's nuclear workers, issued in early May, was commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Tikhonov, who is affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences, first began conducting surveys on the views of workers in the closed cities in 1992. His earlier polling provides a baseline for evaluating how attitudes have changed since then.
Russia's Nuclear and Missile Complex: The Human Factor in Proliferation paints a gloomy picture of poor living conditions, low salaries, and nuclear cities residents' increasing desire to leave the country, even as they become more despairing about the possibility of doing so.
A total of 500 employees in the nuclear and missile cities of Sarov, Snezhinsk, Seversk, Zarchniy, and Trkgorniy - in all, 2 percent of the total worker population in those cities - were interviewed.
The respondents needed no special inducements to reveal their thoughts: "The selected participants were so thankful for an opportunity to talk about their life.., that they were very cooperative and [needed no] financial motivation. "
The majority of nuclear experts in the 10 cities receive wages of less than $50 per month, an mount that is larger than it may seem at first glance, since living costs in the closed cities are considerably lower than in the United States.
However, the vast majority have not received any meaningful pay increases since 1992, despite major increases in the cost of living.
More than 60 percent of those surveyed suggested that a salary of some $250 would be adequate to their needs, demonstrating that significant improvements in living conditions should be within reach. (That, of course, is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it wouldn't take much money for the Russian government or private enterprise to raise salaries enough to keep the estimated 24,600 expert nuclear workers from looking elsewhere for work. On the other, it wouldn't be difficult for would-be weapon states to offer salaries high enough to lure the most desperate of Russian experts to work in their weapons programs.)
If there were an upturn in the Russian economy, it might be easy to raise income levels to a more desirable level in the closed cities. Unfortunately, as Tikhonov reports, "Specialists working in the atomic cities [have] actually suffered losses" during the recent period of reform.
While restrictions - like needing special permission to go abroad-were once compensated for by relatively high standards of living, more than 89 percent of the interviewees say their standard of living has declined since 1992. As one summed up his current situation, "I am simply fed up with this way of life. " Few members of the population express much hope for the future.
Nearly 60 percent say they have taken second jobs, and 70 percent of those say they earn roughly as much from outside sources as they do in their primary employment. More than two-thirds said it was their economic difficulties that forced them to moonlight.
At first glance, the number of workers with second jobs might be interpreted as an encouraging sign that the population is willing to find alternative means to support themselves, to show initiative, and to try to be entrepreneurial. On the other hand, through those additional jobs they may be more likely to come in contact with front companies or agents looking for workers with weapons-related expertise. Then, too, once the, initial taboo of working for entities other than the government is broken, it may be easier for them not to ask too many questions about potential employers.
Internal migration within Russia is problematic. A high percentage of workers in the closed cities have been provided with housing. But if they leave for Moscow, for instance, they would need to purchase housing there, something very few can afford.
Then there, are those who want to leave the country. Surprisingly, the total number expressing an interest in emigrating has declined since 1992. But this is in part a result of the frustrations many have encountered when trying to leave--arranging to leave is neither simple nor cheap.
Still, one in seven said he or she would like to work abroad. More disturbingly, a number of workers seemed not to care where they might end up or what kind of work they could be doing. Six percent of those who were interested in working abroad said they would work "any place at all, " and 46 percent said they would be willing to work in the military field for a foreign country. In raw numbers, more than 200 of those surveyed said they would work for anyone and do anything. And if one assumes that not everyone willing to do so would express that willingness openly, the number who might take any job could be considerably higher.
When asked what has prevented them from leaving the cities and finding better lives for themselves and their families, workers' responses were plaintive: "I would like to go abroad with great pleasure, but sometimes I don't have enough money even to buy cigarettes, so I am in the depths of despair. "
"Everything and everyone pose obstacles, no money either in the purse or in view, and no one has any use for us anywhere. In a word, it's a dog's life. "
"Everything - red tape, lack of money (I don't even have enough to get to Chelyabinsk), and the whole of this Russian bedlam - prevents me from going abroad. "
"No money, no connections, no nothing that could help me run away to where people live like human beings. "
Conditions in the cities now seem ripe for agents of would-be weapon states and/or black marketers to try to use discouraged Russian workers to obtain know-how and materials to build weapons of mass destruction and missiles. While internal security practices may have so far prevented mass migrations, the potential risk seems likely to grow along with the growing desperation of the population.
The results of Tikhonov's study and the apparent conditions in the cities make it all the more difficult to understand the Bush administration's move to cut funding for the Nuclear Cities Initiative, a U.S. program designed to help create new jobs in several of Russia's nuclear cities.
The administration favors reducing last year's already reduced budget of $25 million to a request for only $6.6 million. Experts within the program question whether this sum is sufficient to maintain operations in even one of the cities, let alone expand to new areas. While congressional supporters will try to restore the budget to this year's level, the lack of political support within the administration could threaten the very survival of the program.

STOCKHOLM, Jul 23, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Several groups of scientists in Russia, where the world's first hepatitis C strain has been obtained, are working to create and test vaccine for this disease.
Academician Valery Chereshnev, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Itar-Tass on Monday that the project involves five to six groups. The greatest progress has been achieved by the Institute of Immunology which is combining the vaccine with immunomodulators in order to get a reaction from a human organism.
"Hepatitis C vaccine is a 'trouble spot' for scientists around the world. Research is being conducted by all leading countries. But so far only we have the strain. However this leadership is ephemeral. Today we have it, but tomorrow it will be gone", Chereshnev said. "It takes time and a lot of money to introduce vaccine. Let alone the fact that all vaccines must be properly tested".
"Such testing is being conducted in Russia, but it is too early to talk about the results. Experiments show that the vaccine is highly affective. However the human population is not homogeneous. Ecological pressing reduces the immune reaction. And it is not clear as yet how the human organism will respond to vaccine in this situation", he said.

В сентябре в России будут продолжены испытания противоракового препарата, созданного китайским учерым Li Dapeng, который работает в Институте китайской медицины и является иностранным членом Российской академии наук

BEIJING, Jul 09, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- A unique anti-cancer medicine, called "Kanlight", has appeared in China. It is the world's only anti-tumour injection based on vegetable substances. Spokesman for the "Kanlight" Pharmaceutic Company of Zhejiang Province Xiong Shaowen told Itar-Tass by telephone on Monday that "this is the most effective and promising medicine against cancer, on which great hopes are now being pinned".
Clinical tests of the medicine were started in the United States, but practical studies are to be continued in Russia in September. After the medicine is patented, it is planned to set up a joint Sino-Russian enterprise to develop and produce "Kanlight". Shaowen noted that the delegation of Russian scientists, which visited China a short while ago, had evinced great interest in the new medicine.
It was developed as a result of many-years-long studies, carried out by Li Dapeng, a staff member of the Zhejiang Institute of Chinese Medicine, who is also foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The medicine proved very effective when it was tested in China, especially in treating grave forms of malignant tumours, when surgical interventions are no longer possible. "This is an important breakthrough in the fight against cancer, " the company's spokesman believes. It is worth noting that "Kanlight" is a large pharmaceutical enterprise, which has subsidiaries in all the provinces of China.
The origin of the medicine is linked with a dramatic episode. When the laboratory, where it was developed, caught fire several years ago, the author of the medicine rushed into the blazing building, risking his life to save the formulas and notes from the flames.

С 20 по 22 июля в Красноярске прошла Российская конференция "High Tech-2001" и "Innovations-2001", в которой принимали участие ученые, специалисты и официальные лица из боле чем 10-ти стран, включая Россию, Канаду, США и Китай

BERLIN, Jun 21, 2001 (Business Wire) -- Advanced Technology Industries Inc. (OTCBB:AVDI) Thursday announced that it is a co-sponsor, along with the Administration of the Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Research Institute of Physics and Engineering at Krasnoyarsk University ("NIFTI"), of "High Tech-2001" and "Innovations-2001. " Running from June 20-22, 2001, the three day conference will feature scientific lectures and presentations by scientists, researchers and international dignitaries representing more than 10 countries including Russia, Germany, the United States and China. The conference will be hosted by Chairman Veniamin Sokolov, academician, Vice-Chairman Serguei Katcherov, deputy governor of the Krasnoyarsk Krai and Deputy Chairman Prof. Vladimir Kirko of NIFTI. It is anticipated that more than 90 presentations, lectures or discussion panels will be delivered over the three day period.
High Tech-2001 has been organized into five functional areas: Establishing applied science and high-tech production; Development and application of new materials; Applied optics and medicine physics; Nuclear and industrial waste management; and Alumina production. The goal of the conference is to foster the continued development of technologies, in the above referenced focus areas, emanating from the "closed cities" of the Former Soviet Union for commercialization in Western, non-military markets.
Due to the political changes that have occurred due to the demise of the Soviet Union, world-class scientists have been left without significant funding to continue their research and develop commercially viable products. High Tech-2001 serves to fill this void through the introduction of financing and commercialization sources with highly respected scientists and intends to further promote the cross-border commercialization of technologies that have been derived from formerly top-secret research. Technology presentations and papers are not limited to Russian scientists.
As part of the conference, the "Innovations-2001" competition will award the winning scientist with a grand prize of 1 million Rubles. Presently, 12 technologies remain eligible for the prize. The winning scientist and technology will then be allowed to enter the International Centre for Advanced Technologies incubator jointly owned by Advanced Technology Industries ("ATI") and NIFTI.
Further, ATI will have the opportunity to invest or review numerous technologies with the intention of commercializing said technologies on a global basis. The competition jury of "Innovations-2001" will consist of Chairman Dr. Victor Nevzorov, Krasnoyarsk regional committee for science, Peter Goerke, Vice President of ATI, Oleg Ivanov, Administration of Krasnoyarsk Krai and Alexander Tchuprov, deputy Mayor of Krasnoyarsk city. The "Innovations-2001" competition and grand prize are limited to Russian scientists.
The conference and competition co-sponsors intend that "High Tech-2001" and "Innovations-2001" will be the first in a series of annual technology conferences aimed at furthering the research of world-class scientists and researchers located in the former "closed cities" of Russia.
The conference and competition serve to further strengthen the alliances that ATI has developed over the past 18 months with institutes of the former "closed cities" of Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk local and regional governments. In this time frame, ATI has participated in the formation of three new business entities: The International Centre for Advanced Technologies; Sibconverse; and the International Laboratory for Nuclear Waste Management. These entities represent what is envisioned as the first of many future joint ventures and projects created through partnerships between ATI and institutes, governmental agencies or scientists located in the Krasnoyarsk region.

Российские археологи обнаружили в Сибири могильник, в котором находилось более 1000 украшений из золота и бронзы, датирующихся 5-м веком до н.э.

MOSCOW, Jul 11, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Russian archaeologists found a treasure trove containing more than 1,000 pieces of gold and bronze jewelry and other items in a 5th-century B.C. grave in the southern Siberian region of Tuva, a news report said Wednesday. The grave, uncovered in the remote republic's Piy-Khemsky region by scientists from the northern Russian port of St. Petersburg, apparently contained the remains of a tribal chief and his wife, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. It was located inside a burial mound at a depth of 4.5 meters (15 feet) and passed unnoticed by grave robbers who have plundered many other ancient graves in Tuva, which borders on Mongolia, the report said.
Among the finds were gold and bronze jewelry pieces, coins, iron weapons and armor, clothes and kitchen utensils. Tuva authorities said they would transfer the finds to St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum for study, after which they would be returned to Tuva for museum display.

Ancient Artifacts May Yield Contemporary Health Benefits -

SOUTHWICK, Mass., Jul 24, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Ancient Egypt continues to keep secrets buried beneath the sands of time. Nothing could stop Russian physicist Dr. Vladimir Kovtoun, however, from digging for an explanation on an elusive Egyptian artifact he now refers to as "Cylinders of the Pharaohs. "
Kovtoun originally spotted the cylindrical objects in the hands of Egyptian statues while visiting a museum near Saint Petersburg, Russia. Kovtoun queried Egyptologists and historians, but no one could provide an adequate explanation as to their purpose. He began his own extensive research, and discovered that a set of cylinders was unearthed at several archeological sites including one in Iraq. As to the Cylinders' identity in the hands of the statues, archeologists speculated that the cylinders were perhaps a truncated version of the staff and baton, a roll of papyrus, or a bolt of cloth. These possibilities did not account, in many cases, for the size, color and style of the Cylinders.
Years after Kovtoun's initial inquiry, he discovered a handwritten manuscript called "The Secrets of Life and Death, Egypt, India, Caucasus" which held a chapter on the mysterious Cylinders, their true function and the formula for replicating them.
According to Kovtoun, the manuscript explained that the Cylinders were used by Pharaohs and Priests to "re-energize and re-organize" the body's bio- electromagnetic field, creating health and longevity.
Kovtoun brought the replicated cylinders to research facilities in Russia where scientists discovered that they do exhibit a measurable beneficial effect on patients with a variety of disorders. Russian athletes have also begun using the Cylinders and are claiming better performance and faster recovery.
The Cylinders of the Pharaohs are now being tested by several U.S. scientists. Thus far the scientists have discovered that the Cylinders create a micro ampere voltage when held in people's hands. They are looking for an explanation as to how or why the Cylinders may have an effect on health.

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