Октябрь 2001 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Russia, APR young scientists to discuss economy, history
• Telegen Appoints Dr. Boris Seleznev to Director of Engineering
• Researchers pursue bioterrorism detectors
• UN: Second Committee explores potential of information technology as empowering tool for development
• Control over Caspian Sea pollution planned
• Tech Company Employs Russian Scientists
• Int'l symposium on life safety to open in Volgograd
• State of the Lake conference studies Lake Michigan
• New Maps Indicate Little is Left of Europe's Last Wilderness Forests
• Nunn: USSR Weapon-Makers May Help
• Former Soviet scientist discusses anthrax-producing facility
• Parabolic Flights Faking Weightlessness Start Today
• Cosmonauts Take Spacewalk
• Russia Launches Molniya Military Satellite

Используя снимки, полученные с космических спутников, российские специалисты составили карты, которые показывают, что на территории северо-востока России осталось совсем немного девственных лесных массивов

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Using high resolution satellite images and old-fashioned fieldwork, a team of Russian experts has created new maps of the Europe's last remaining wilderness forests. What they saw was not pretty: Northern European Russia is not the endless sea of forest wilderness that many people imagine. Few forest areas remain undisturbed and all are in the remote far north. The results of their five-year effort, The Last Intact Forest Landscapes of Northern European Russia, was released simultaneously today in Moscow and in Washington, DC by the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch and Greenpeace Russia.
Only 14 percent or 32 million hectares of the boreal or northern forests of European Russia remain in relatively undisturbed large blocks of at least 50,000 hectares each.
Yet what little is left is at risk, since the most attractive parts for exploitation of these forests are unprotected by federal or local laws. The researchers say that the main threat is fragmentation by logging roads, geological survey lines, and fires that usually follow them. The environmental cost would be high if these remnants are logged.
"The significance of this work goes far beyond Russian forestry", says Dr. Alexander Isaev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a forest minister of the former Soviet Union, who reviewed the report together with scientists from Russia, Sweden and the U.S. "These are the last big forest wilderness areas of Europe and an important part of our common European heritage. We need to keep them wild and protected by law".
The authors of the report argue that these remaining intact boreal forests are comparatively cheap to conserve. "No forest guards are needed. The same remoteness and low productivity which has protected them until now will continue to do so", write A. Y. Yaroshenko, P. V. Potapov, and S. A. Turubanova. "Our last remaining examples of wild nature can be protected even under the very restrictive Russian budget for nature conservation".
These forests are unsuitable for sustainable wood production since they are poorly stocked and tree growth is slow. Timber revenues will not cover the cost of reforestation or silviculture and the cost of building forest roads. Less than five percent of the volume logged in the Karelia, Komi, Arkhangelsk, and Perm regions come from the remaining intact boreal forests of European Russia. Most of this wood goes to countries in Western Europe. Several companies have now pledged to avoid buying wood from the remaining intact forests of the world.
"The maps of the intact forests of European Russia will be valuable to many parties involved in promoting responsible forestry", said Susanne Bergstrand, environment manager at the home furnishings company, IKEA (http://www.ikea.com). It is one of the major supporters of the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch.
Mapping European Russia's intact boreal forests took a lot of detective work on the part of several Russian environmental organizations. They first looked at regular maps and excluded all obviously disturbed areas near roads and towns. Then they examined detailed satellite images to look for additional signs of disturbances, such as logging clearcuts, mines and agricultural fields, and then eliminated these areas.
They used them to outline blocks of intact forests greater than 50,000 hectares (i.e. at least the size of a square with a 22-km. or 14-mile side). Only sufficiently large blocks of forests are deemed capable of remaining intact, i.e. conserving natural, undisturbed populations of large animals while at the same time letting natural processes such as storms and fires run their course.
To verify the maps, the research team inspected 67 areas in the field to make sure that the satellite images were correctly interpreted. The resulting maps are the first of their kind, something which the Russian government has yet to create.
Later this year, Global Forest Watch and its Russian partners will release a similar map of the entire forests of Russia. This is expected to be the first such map of Russia.
The project succeeded by using a combination of new technologies, unprecedented cooperation among local Russian environmental groups, and a desire for transparency in the management of the country's natural resources. The maps and other information are made available to the public through the Internet ( or www.forests.ru or www.greenpeace.ru).
The same approach is being used to produce reports on the intact forests of Chile, Venezuela and Indonesia, all of which will be released in the next six months. Similar mapping work is going on in Canada, U.S., and Brazil. This is all part of a global effort to map and monitor the remaining frontier forests of the world - of which only half are left.
During the next 5 years, the Global Forest Watch network will span 21 countries and cover 80 percent of the world's remaining intact forests.

Бывший сенатор Сэм Нанн высказал предположение, что российские ученые и специалисты в области создания биологического оружия, могут стать хорошими партнерами американских ученых

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Scientists who worked on the Soviet Union's biological and chemical weapons programs could be key allies for America and should be added to the U.S. payroll, former Sen. Sam Nunn said Thursday.
The Georgia Democrat, who once chaired the Armed Services Committee, said the Soviets got further than the United States in developing such weapons. Ex-Soviet scientists could provide key information as America seeks to build a defense against chemical and biological agents, he said.
"The Russians have all sorts of scientists that know how to make weapons of mass destruction, and particularly biological", Nunn told the Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats. "They don't know how to make a living and don't know how to feed their families. We could step up to the plate and do something for our own security by engaging that community".
Nunn also suggested creating a partnership with Russia to share even the most highly classified scientific data. A similar partnership was formed between the United States and Germany after World War II, Nunn said. America and Russia already share some scientific information, but on a much smaller scale than what Nunn is proposing. The International Science and Technology Center, a cooperative effort among the United States, Russia, Japan and Europe, has nonproliferation as its focus, but also fosters sharing of information among former weapons scientists.
Dr. George Anderson, director of medical countermeasures for the Southern Research Institute in Frederick, Md., said Russian scientists could prove particularly valuable in developing vaccines for biological attacks. Unlike most American vaccines, which are largely chemical-based, Soviet vaccines often had live strains of the virus that would be used to protect against a larger outbreak, Anderson said.
American scientists have tried to steer away from live medical agents for fear many people would reject the doses, some fatally. But Anderson said the differing philosophies could make for a beneficial partnership.
"No classified information is being shared right now", Anderson said. "These collaborative projects are like projects two different universities would collaborate on in the United States".
Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the panel would take the proposal under "serious consideration".

Бывший советский ученый обсуждает возможность производства биологического оружия в России в настоящее время

STEPNOGORSK, Kazakstan (October 20, 2001 5:47 p.m. EDT) -- A former director of a once-secret Soviet facility identified as a leading producer of weapons-grade anthrax said he was unaware of any ex-colleagues being lured to work in biological weapons programs abroad - but did not rule out the possibility.
"Most of the specialists left for Russia in 1992-93", said Vladimir Bugreyev, who resigned over the summer from the facility near Stepnogorsk in the windy steppes of Kazakstan.
Bugreyev said that as far as he knew, no anthrax experts from the facility ever moved further abroad. "But I cannot be 100 percent sure, as I'm not in contact with all of them", he told Associated Press Television News on Friday.
U.S. officials suspect that some scientists from the former Soviet Union who worked on lethal germs from such facilities may have helped or still be helping regimes develop biological weapons.
In 1991, the plant near Stepnogorsk employed more than 700 people, including some 100 researchers. It was one of the top-secret Soviet facilities known as "mailboxes" - in this case, Post Office Box No. 2076.
The plant has been named as a leading producer of biological warfare material. According to estimates by Western experts, it had the capacity to turn out about 300 tons of weapons-grade anthrax in 10 months if fully mobilized for a war effort.
Its bank of bacilli is long gone, Bugreyev said.
A U.S. military team helping to decommission the plant as part of a joint U.S.-Russian effort to dismantle the former Soviet Union's germ warfare sites found anthrax spores in a pipe earlier this month, U.S. officials said.
Kazakstan, which inherited the facility when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, said there could be no connection between the U.S. infections and anthrax from Kazakstan and stressed it was meeting its commitments to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The plant at Stepnogorsk was built starting in 1982 to replace a factory in Russia where anthrax was accidentally released into the air in 1979, killing about 70 people. Today it is dilapidated and largely unoccupied, but security is still tight.
The Soviet Union joined the Biological Weapons Convention banning germ warfare in 1972, but officials later admitted the country violated the treaty until 1992, when President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree promising to comply with the convention.
Bugreyev said powder that carried anthrax in envelopes in the United States was probably prepared by lethal germ specialists, but that its origin was uncertain.
"One does not need a lot of money to make powder. It could have been made in the United States", he said.

Во Франции прошел первый из трех параболических полетов, имитирующих невесомость.
Эти полеты - один из этапов подготовки к экспериментам, которые будут проводиться на российском спутнике Фотон и Международной космической станции

The Airbus A-300 "Zero-g" takes off today from Bordeaux-Mйrignac airport in France for the first of three parabolic flights designed to carry out experiments in weightlessness before they are conducted in real spaceflight.
Parabolic flights are practically the only terrestrial means of reproducing weightlessness with human operators on board.
During a parabolic flight, the Airbus A-300 "Zero-G" pilot - flying at an altitude of approximately 6,000 meters, usually in a specially reserved air corridor above the Bay of Biscay - first performs a nose-up maneuvre to put the aircraft into a steep climb (to 7,600m). This generates an acceleration of 1.8g (1.8 times the acceleration of gravity on the ground) for about 20 seconds.
Then the pilot reduces engine thrust to almost zero, injecting the aircraft into a parabola. The plane continues to climb until it reaches the apex of the parabola (8,500m), when it starts descending. This descent lasts about 20 seconds, during which the passengers in the cabin float in the weightlessness resulting from the free fall of the aircraft.
When the angle below the horizontal reaches 45°, the pilot accelerates again and pulls the aircraft back up to steady horizontal flight. The maneuvres are repeated 30 times per flight.
During the October 15-19 parabolic flight campaign, the 31st organized by ESA, preparations will be made for experiments to be conducted later on a Russian Foton satellite and on board the International Space Station. The campaign will focus on physical sciences, life sciences and biology. Ten experiments proposed by international teams of investigators, five in physical sciences, three in human physiology and two in biology, including one from a group of students, will be performed.
In the physical sciences field, one of the experiments is related to fluid physics, a combustion experiment will study diffusion flames, another experiment will investigate plasma and the last two will study interactions of cosmic and atmospheric particle systems in the framework of an international research program.
In life sciences, three experiments will measure physiological parameters in human subjects and two biology experiments will investigate movements of plants and fish.
All these experiments have been reviewed and selected by peers prior to flight. A list of the experiments and scientists involved in the 31st parabolic flight campaign can be found at this URL.
The next (32nd) ESA parabolic flight campaign is scheduled for spring 2002 and will have a mixed complement of experiments in life and physical sciences, including experiments proposed by students.
Further information on ESA parabolic flights can be found on ESA's special parabolic flight internet pages at this URL.

Космонавты вышли в открытый космос для проведения научных экспериментов

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Two Russian cosmonauts took a spacewalk Monday to hang science experiments - and a sign advertising Kodak - outside the international space station.
"Don't rush it. Just take it easy", Russian Mission Control cautioned as the men popped open the hatch 250 miles above Earth.
It was the second spacewalk in as many weeks for Mikhail Tyurin and Vladimir Dezhurov. Last Monday, they went out to attach a cargo crane and other equipment to the newest addition to the space station, a Russian docking compartment that doubles as an exit for spacewalkers.
This time, the cosmonauts ventured a little farther on the Russian side of the orbiting complex. When informed they were the first spacewalkers at a particular spot, one of them joked: "You're right; we cannot see any footprints here or handprints here".
Tyurin and Dezhurov installed a Russian experiment to evaluate contamination from jet exhaust. Then, in a much more difficult job, they attached three suitcase-size trays of experiments provided by the Japanese Space Agency.
The trays contain hundreds of scientific samples, including paint, metals, adhesives, film and silica aerogels, a type of ultralight foam. Scientists want to see how the materials fare in the harsh environment of space and, in particular, how well they protect against space debris.
The $1 million worth of science samples will be returned to Earth for analysis in one to three years, along with any tiny bits of embedded space junk. Japanese researchers hope to study the fragments to see where they came from.
Before going back inside, the cosmonauts removed a placard depicting the Russian flag and replaced it with a sign for Eastman Kodak Co. Both the flag and Kodak placards are made of materials that the Russians want to test for durability.
The 1-by-11/2-foot sign is red and yellow, with the Kodak logo and the words "Take Pictures. Further".
In a deal announced last year, Kodak agreed to set up an Internet site to provide views of space station construction. The Russian Space Agency promised to deliver and operate cameras in and outside its service module, and to erect a sign showing the Kodak logo.
Russian space authorities are veteran pitchmen, having frequently launched commercial banners to the former Mir space station (news - web sites) and even commercial products to this space station, called Alpha.
The spacewalk ended, after six hours, with a few tense moments. The cosmonauts could not get a latch on the hatch to close properly behind them and they had to use a pry bar to force it into position.
Russia's Mission Control near Moscow was in charge of the spacewalk. NASA flight controllers observed from Houston.
One more spacewalk is planned during the crew's expedition, in early November.
Culbertson and his crew are midway through a four-month stay. Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to pick them up in December.

The Russian Space Forces launched a military communications satellite today from the Northern Cosmodrome in Plesetsk, Russia. A four-stage Molniya-M rocket blasted off from the Launch Pad 3 at Site 43 of the space center at 15:34 Moscow Time (7:34 a.m. EDT) and ten minutes later successfully delivered the Molniya (Lightning) spacecraft into the initial orbit, Nikolai Dovedenko, spokesman for the Russian Space Forces told SPACE.com.
The fourth stage of the launcher was then expected to fire again to push the spacecraft into its final highly elliptical orbit with the inclination 62.8 degrees toward the Equator. The launch was previously scheduled on October 11.
Unlike traditional communications satellites, which spend 24 hours for one rotation around the Earth and seem to "hang" over the same point above the Equator, Molniya spacecraft are delivered into orbits where they make one rotation around the Earth in about 12 hours. On its way around the planet, the Molniya climbs as high as 40,000 kilometers in the apogee (the highest point) over the Northern Hemisphere, descending as low as 470 kilometers in the perigee (the lowest point) over the Southern Hemisphere. As a result, the spacecraft slowly drifts over the Russian territory, disappearing from the view of the ground control stations only for a short period of time.
In order to provide uninterrupted communications over the Russian territory several Molniya satellites have to work in tandem. A previous launch of the Molniya spacecraft took place on July 20, 2001. The satellites can be used to transmit television and radio signals for both civilian and military users; however, the newest birds are expected to serve the military.
At present the Reshetnev Center in the Siberian town of Zheleznogorsk builds the Molnia satellites. However, the system was originally developed in the 1960s at Sergei Korolev's OKB-1 design bureau, known today as RSC Energia.

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