Сентябрь 2003 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• US, Russia launch new program to prevent bioterrorism
• U.S. Scientists Using Russian Radioactive Isotope on Tumors
• Mintera Vice President and Chief Scientist to Speak at National Fiber Optical Conference -NFOEC-
• Russia’s Global Treasure
• Kazakhstan: Scientists Discuss Using Mathematics to Tackle Environment, Development Issues
• Russian educators canvass campuses
• Map for Protection of Sea Animals
• Portrait of an Envious Person
• Cosmonaut, specialist to present program Sept. 22 in Pittsburg

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The United States and Russia launched a new program to prevent would-be terrorists from obtaining biological weapons from former Soviet military research facilities, the State Department said.
The so-called "BioIndustry Initiative", or "BII", builds on understandings reached in 2001 between US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the department said in a statement.
To kick off the program, the department has awarded a 1.7-million-dollar contract to the Boston-based Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology and Moscow's International Science and Technology Center, it said.
The two groups will work to achieve the "targeted transformation of former Soviet biological weapons research and production capacities by creating US-Russian research partnerships," the department said.
They intend to link Russian scientists, physicians and engineers in an effort to solve medical and scientific problems associated with biological weapons plants and stocks, it said.
They will also create ties between US and Russian institutions aimed at identifying "innovative technologies and commercialization opportunities" for former Soviet biological weapons scientists, researchers and facilities, it said.
The department bills the BII as its "newest proliferation threat reduction program."

Cancer researchers at the University of Maryland are using radioactive material from Russia's nuclear stockpile to study a new approach to tumors.
The radioactive isotope, called actinium, is in scarce supply in the United States, but scientists at the university are getting the material in several shipments as part of a federally funded partnership with Russian oncologists and scientists, according to a Baltimore Sun report.
The exotic isotope is appealing to researchers because its rays are powerful but go a shorter distance than other isotopes' rays. It has been used in studies of such blood-borne cancers as leukemia.
Scientists at the university's School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine are working on it with solid tumors. They have developed an approach to directly deliver the isotope to tumors and kill the blood vessels that feed them.

LOWELL, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Sept. 8, 2003 -- Mintera Corporation, the leader in 40G transport solutions for metro-core, regional, long-haul and ultra-long-haul applications, today announced that Dr. Pavel Mamyshev, Mintera Vice President, Chief Scientist and co-Founder, will speak at the National Fiber Optical Engineers Conference (NFOEC) in Session E2: 40Gb/s and More on the topic of "Introduction of commercial 40Gb/s systems: How easy will it be compared to previous technological transitions?" on Tuesday, September 9, 2003 at 1:30 in the afternoon in the Valencia Ballroom, Room 414A/B at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Dr. Mamyshev has more than twenty years of experience in nonlinear fiber optics and high-speed optical data transmission. He received his Ph.D in Physics and Mathematics in 1985 from Moscow Physical Technical Institute. His Ph.D thesis was devoted to generation of ultra-short laser pulses and propagation of these pulses in optical fibers. Before co-founding Mintera in 2000, he was with Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies working on high capacity fiber optic transmission systems. Prior to joining Bell Labs in 1993, he was a Leading Research Fellow, Head of Nonlinear Fiber Optics group at General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences.
About Mintera
Mintera is the technology leader enabling the migration to 40G optical transport in metro-core, regional, long-haul and ultra-long-haul optical networks. Mintera's flexible multi-service 40G product-set, protected by multiple pending patents, enables service providers to seamlessly upgrade their existing infrastructure to 40G in an evolutionary fashion and enables research and development labs at the carriers, systems suppliers, component manufacturers, research institutes and universities to experiment with 40G transmission at an affordable cost. Mintera opened its doors in October 2000 and raised $26,000,000 in its first round of equity financing in December 2000. Venture capital firms Court Square Ventures, Star Ventures and Portview Communications Partners are lead investors in the company.

When most Americans think of Russian nature, they think of environmental catastrophe-Chernobyl, oil spills, pollution. Yet Russia, with one-eighth of the Earth’s land area, has one of the world’s premiere systems of strictly protected areas, called "zapovedniks." Few people outside Russia know of the system or its important part in sustaining the global ecological balance. Large tracts of virgin forest play a role in global ecology comparable to rain forests. Intact areas of wilderness allow large-scale animal migrations. Scientific data long collected in the zapovednik system could shed light on global climate change and ecological trends.
Russia’s first strict nature reserve-Barguzinsky Zapovednik-was founded in 1916 on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal to protect the endangered Barguzin sable. By the 1940s, the system had grown to 31 million acres. But in 1951, Josef Stalin cut the reserves down to fewer than four million acres, opening up protected areas for exploitation. Scientists fought to restore the system and today Russia’s 100 zapovedniks cover 83 million acres or 1.4 percent of the country. Zapovedniks harbor natural wonders, from the geysers and volcanoes of Kamchatka to the mountains ringing Lake Baikal and the last fragments of European steppe. Reserves were created to save critical habitat for endangered species such as the Siberian tiger, saiga antelope, Russian desman and black stork.
"Nowhere else has a country made such a commitment to strictly protecting nature as in the zapovednik network," says Margaret Williams (no relation to the author), director of the Center for Russian Nature Conservation (CRNC) in Washington, D.C. "In the U.S., we have no public areas that are entirely protected from human impacts. That is the founding tenet of zapovedniks." Williams became enamored with zapovedniks after volunteering in two Russian reserves and went on to establish a center to support exchanges between Russian and American wilderness managers.
Today Russia is struggling to uphold its commitment to conservation in the face of economic woes. During the breakup of the Soviet Union, government funding for the system fell 90 percent. Protected areas struggled to keep their experienced staff and safeguard their territories from poachers and economic exploitation. Realizing that the future of this important natural legacy was in the balance, international conservation agencies such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank provided emergency funding in the early 1990s.
Russian scientist Victor Nikiforov approached WWF in 1991 with a plan to protect fragile Arctic habitats from growing pressures of oil and gas development. Two years later, with $50,000 from WWF, Nikiforov organized the Great Arctic Zapovednik, the world’s largest strictly protected nature reserve. In the next few years, Nikiforov’s role was paramount in the creation of four other zapovedniks, increasing the acreage protected in the Russian North by 50 percent. Nikiforov is concerned that these lands might once again come under attack. "The Russian Arctic harbors some of the last global reserves of fossil fuels," he says. "The current policy of the Russian government promotes extraction of natural resources, while nature conservation and the environment have dissipated into the background." Recent large-scale development projects backed by western companies call for construction of oil pipelines and chemical processing of gold in close proximity to Arctic zapovedniks. Damming of rivers, commercial logging and extraction of fuels and metals also threaten the integrity of protected lands.
Economic pressures on protected areas accelerated in 2000 when Russian President Vladimir Putin abolished the State Committee for Environmental Protection, which managed the zapovednik system, and transferred its functions to the Ministry of Natural Resources along with the country’s burgeoning national parks system. Environmental impact assessments and protected areas planning is now in the hands of those most interested in developing Russia’s natural resources. If ensuring protection of zapovedniks is not a government priority, then the public must be enlisted to help safeguard Russia’s natural heritage.
In 1996, Irina Sannikova had been working as a ranger in Khakassky Zapovednik in southern Siberia for only a week when a grass fire sparked her interest in working with the public. She invited a local television station to report on the damage human-induced fires caused to steppe habitats and discovered that local people were interested and wanted to know more. She organized lectures in schools, printed a newsletter, and invited people on excursions to the protected lands.
Realizing that environmental education activities cost money, and with the government only supporting staff salaries, she decided to find other funding. Wielding her charm and worthy cause, Sannikova won support for education activities from local businesses. Then she went to the Deputy Director of the Sayan Aluminum Plant in her region-one of the largest plants in Russia-and was given the funds she needed.
With support from business and industry, Sannikova established a regional foundation for environmental education, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for her activities. With public support gaining momentum throughout Russia’s zapovednik system, she helped create a national foundation for zapovedniks called Protected Russia.
"Russian industry is starting to blossom, and nature should blossom right along side it," Sannikova says. She has won support not by focusing on conflicts between nature conservation and development objectives, but by unifying people in industry and environment. "Every zapovednik needs a Sayan Aluminum Plant," Sannikova says. "One step at a time. You don’t get berries in the spring-first you get flowers."

Ученые обсуждают возможность применения математики для изучения влияния деятельности человека на окружающую среду и других проблем устойчивого экономического развития

Computer technology and satellite data have seen major advances over the past two decades. This in turn has spurred great improvements in weather and environmental forecasting, including the tracking of air pollution.
Now researchers are exploring whether mathematics can be used to expand our understanding of environmental issues even further. Scientists from all over the world gathered in the former Kazakh capital Almaty recently discussed how to use math to measure the ecological impact of human activity on the ecology, and to improve sustainable economic development. Some 500 delegates attended the four-day conference. Omirzaq Sultangazin heads Kazakhstan’s space research institute, which co-organized the meeting with the U.S.-based International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation. "The protection of the environment is a very important issue for Kazakhstan," he told RFE/RL. "The country produces oil, gas, coal, and other mineral resources. And the side effects of these activities are being discussed at this conference, in the context of pure mathematical calculations."
One of the advantages of mathematics, researchers say, is that it can be used in tandem with complex environmental or economic models to determine whether certain situations can produce more than one possible outcome. "We are discussing the possible use of the latest technology - such as computers and other sophisticated equipment - to evaluate the side effects of industrial activities. By using a mathematical approach, we are trying to find ways to solve economic and ecological problems. This is critical for sustainable development," Sultangazin said.
Discussions included the effective use of land and water resources as well as demographic control. Participants also discussed the cooperative use of space data to forecast earthquakes. The conference also tackled two of the gravest environmental threats to Kazakhstan. One is radiation in Semipalatinsk, where the Soviet Union tested almost 500 nuclear weapons. The radiation continues to adversely affect the health of the local population. According to the Semipalatinsk perinatal center, only 10 percent of pregnant women in some rural areas nearby are healthy due to weakened immunity systems.
The other threat is the gradual disappearance of the Aral Sea over the past 30 years, which has had a dramatic effect of human health, brought on by malnutrition and disease, partly caused by the spread of salts, pesticide, and the residues of chemical fertilizers on the growing amounts of exposed seabed.
Lord Julian Hunt is a professor of climate modeling at University College London. He explained to RFE/RL that computer technology and satellite data can be used to the benefit of both economic development and the environment. "In northeast Brazil is the best example, which is an area which has sometimes very high drought and sometimes a lot of rain. By using methods based upon looking at the sea temperatures of the ocean, and then looking at statistical methods and also using computing models, you can tell whether it will be a very dry year with drought conditions or not. And the people in that part of Brazil make use of this forecast every year," he said.
Hunt continued: "The spreading of GMO, genetic modified organisms - how far do they spread? What is the probability of them spreading? All this is being done by mathematical modeling. And it’s quite a complex business of the atmosphere and the plants and so on. This is another area where human impact has to be considered."
Sultangazin highlighted the important role that Kazakhstan’s space-research institute has in modeling the effects of human activities on the environment. For instance, he said, the institute has been working on the direction and quantity of salt and sand spread by the wind from the former seabed of the Aral Sea.
Sultangazin also noted that his institute first reported about the seven-degree difference between the temperature of the soil in Semipalatinsk and in neighboring areas.
Grigorii Chernyaevskii, a researcher with the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that Kazakhstan’s own Baikonur cosmodrome, which is used by the Kazakh space agency, is itself affecting the local environment. "It is known that the Baikonur space complex has a negative effect on the environment," he said. "But it is difficult to say to what extent - I cannot say whether it is to a small or big extent. I am convinced that special calculation and research works are needed to clarify that."

Делегация российских деятелей в области образования начала свою недельную поездку по Соединенным Штатам. Цель поездки - ознакомиться с уровнем образования в США и взять все самое ценное для проведения реформ в России

FALLBROOK, - A delegation of Russian educators, which began a weeklong tour of county learning institutions in Fallbrook, was impressed with our technology and our focus on students' welfare - but not with our math.
As in this country, one delegate said, education reform is on everyone's lips in Russia these days.
"Education goes in waves, and in Russia it is on the wave of reform," scientist Aleksandra Velikanova said through a translator.
The purpose of the trip for the eight officials was to observe all levels of education available in the United States and take home useful ideas. The tour began Monday at a Head Start program at Fallbrook Street School and ends tomorrow at the University of California San Diego.
Velikanova, 33, heads modernization of education resources at the Center of Professional Education in Samara, a city of about 1.2 million people in eastern Russia. She said her task is to keep programs in Russia that are working and to implement new ones that are working in other countries, including the United States.
It was also an opportunity for educators from both countries to get acquainted and to realize that they face similar problems, such as a lack of money and what to do with children after school.
"The kids are the same," Russian visitor Marina Aleshina said. "Also the same is there are students and teachers. What is different is that your elementary, junior high and high schools are at different facilities. In Russia, all the grades are taught in one facility."
Aleshina, 38, has a background in university instruction and is a deputy committee chairwoman for an administration of education committee in the city of Saratov in the Volga River Valley region. She helps implement education policy.
Russian schools are becoming much more student oriented than in the past, Aleshina said, but the tour demonstrated that much more attention is paid to a student's health and welfare in the United States than in her country. She would like to change the Russian approach.
The Russians deluged translator Larisa Voronina with questions to ask their hosts during tours of Live Oak Elementary School, Potter Junior High School and Fallbrook High School.
Petr Morozov, 53, a minister of public and professional education and director of a political group called People's Choice, said he was impressed with Fallbrook High, especially the computer lab and the television studio.
"It is professionally oriented," Morozov said. "Here, students have the opportunity to test their professional interests."
Morozov said he also liked the idea of special-needs students being mainstreamed with the rest of the student body. But he said he was puzzled that math is not as important in the United States as in Russia, where students "learn more earlier."
During the visit to Potter, delegates examined an algebra book used in the eighth grade and recognized it as sixth-grade-level work in their schools.
"Maybe it is not important for everyone to excel in math," Morozov said. "Maybe it is important for some to excel in other things."
They all loved the music program at Potter, and were impressed by the level of technology throughout Fallbrook schools.
The delegation also planned to visit MiraCosta College in Oceanside and California State University San Marcos. The UCSD visit will concentrate on graduate programs.
Open World and the Center for Russian Leadership Development at the Library of Congress brought the six women and two men to the United States. Members of Fallbrook branch of the American Association of University Women were the hosts for the delegation, which was accompanied by two translators.
Fallbrook AAUW President Mary Dimon, President-elect Linda Gregg and member Joyce Esbensen made the contacts with Open World and prepared numerous applications to bring the Russians, said Esbensen, who kept the group on schedule Monday.
County Supervisor Bill Horn arranged for the delegation to observe county Department of Education programs, such as Monarch School in downtown San Diego, which serves homeless teens, and Sierra Vista High School in Vista for mentally disabled and handicapped students.
They were also scheduled to visit Reins, a therapeutic-riding program for physically and mentally challenged children near Fallbrook, and a Boys & Girls Club. The visitors also have mixed in some sightseeing. After arriving Saturday, the Russians toured Old Town San Diego, where they sampled Mexican food. After a stop at Balboa Park, they rode the ferry to Coronado and had dinner. Before leaving they will have the opportunity to shop, go to a pool party and a luau. Their general impression of California? Two thumbs up means the same in any language.

The Russian of the WWF has managed to summarize vast experimental data accumulated by Russian maritime biologists and geographers. This effort resulted in the Map of maritime protected natural territories of Russia. The map contains well-known preserves and reserves completely or partially located on the sea coast, and in addition, the map depicts 27 maritime areas worth becoming specially protected territories.

The issue has become now extremely acute as regards to what territories should be protected in the spacious seas surrounding Russia: active development of the shelf is underway, and the process will embrace more and more new territories. To avoid aggravation of ecological crisis, it is important to pick out the zones, which can not be affected in any circumstances without consulting with scientists.
The map charted by the biologists of the foundation embodies the Russian approach to environment protection. Its main concept can be articulated as follows: people are capable of causing irreversible changes to nature. Therefore, to establish a reference point and to understand how some natural community looks in the natural environment, it is necessary to make some typical areas preserved. As a result, the Russian preserve system differs a lot from the American system of national parks where beautiful places are protected as it is pleasant to walk there. The European approach is also different from the Russian one - due to high density of population, natural memorials are protected in Europe.
The majority of territories which in maritime ecologists' opinion should be protected, is located on the northern and eastern coasts of Russia. Only two small regions have been marked in the southern seas. "In the Black and Caspian Seas people are so actively performing economic activity that there remain almost no virginal areas, says Vasily Spiridonov, Ph. D. (Biology), Coordinator of Maritime Program of the Foundation. We have singled out two regions. In the Black Sea these are so to say seaside morasses which occurred at mouth of the Kuban River. And in the Caspian Sea - at mouth of the Samur, which flows along the boundary between Russia and Azerbaijan. An isolated shoal of sturgeons lives there. It is very difficult to protect the fish and we wish to try a new approach: take a small territory inhabitied by isolated sturgeons and try to organize control over people's activity in this territory."
Much more territories which have not been affected by people's activity are located in the Far East. One of the hardest impacts on in that region, as well as in the seas of European North, is deep-water creeping. Large metal balls are attached to the drag-net. They are required to ensure that the lower part of the drag-net moves near the bottom. These balls roll along the bottom and mix everything on the bottom. Besides, the drag-net scoops out some of the animals, other animals easily pass through the meshes. As a result, several years of creeping change drastically the section of the sea bottom and community of organisms inhabiting it. Fortunately, creeping is prohibited in some areas of the Sea of Okhotsk. For example, since the Soviet era limitations have existed for fishing and catching sea food in some zones of the western shelf of Kamchatka and near the Southern extremity of Taigonos peninsula. In these zones colonies of hydroid polyps are located in the form of peculiar bushes undergrowth, where the Kamchatka crabs propagate and their whitebait becomes mature. There are no plans to develop minerals in these areas, but to preserve inviolability of these lots in the future, it would be good to assign to them a stricter legal status of specially protected territories.
A very interesting area is located in the south-east extremity of the Sea of Okhotsk in the vicinity of the Shantarskie Islands. The ice melts very late there, however, the summer is rather hot as the Islands are located in the same latitude as Moscow. That results in the mixture of the trans-polar climate and that of midlatitudes. Therefore, about a hundred of ice whales, making the population of the Sea of Okhotsk, spend summer months here. Their fate is more or less happy in contrast to tragic situation of gray whales: oil-field development has been started in the area of the Bay of Piltun (Sakhalin), where whale females arrive to give birth to and to nurse babies. The guarded zone near the bay is the object of long struggle between ecologists and oil industry workers, the outcome of the struggle is still unfavorable for whales. However, maritime biologists view no serious problems with the Island of Moneron at the southern extremity of Sakhalin. Here is the zone of extremely transparent water and unique tropical creatures, for the sake of which the people fond of underwater journeys are ready to fly to the end of the earth. The national park in the vicinity of the island will ensure future significant revenues from international tourism.
People's activity had serious impact only on the Barents Sea out of the seas of the Arctic Ocean. The major necessity in this sea is to establish the preserve in the center of it, near Goose sand-bank. That is not maritime biologists' caprice: the region in the "kindergarten" for the whitebait of precious fish, for example, cod, its shoal being drastically damaged by active commercial fishery. Should the sand-bank remain unprotected, the quantity of fish would not be restored, and that will influence the level of future catch.
The Pechora Sea, separated from the White Sea by Kanin Peninsula, and from the Barents Sea - by the island of Kolguev, is in the same position as the Sea of Okhotsk used to be ten to fifteen years ago: significant reserves of oil were also explored here and their development will start soon. As a result, the organisms inhabiting the area are jeopardized, particularly a unique community formed in Cheshskaya Bay near the sand-banks populated by barnacles Balanus improvisus. These overgrowing animals resembling not barnacles but white cockle-shell form extensive garland colonies, around which multiple organisms settle down. This territory located in Cheshskaya Bay is worth, in the Foundation's opinion, becoming specially protected.
If we move further to the east, a large zone to be protected is located between the Lena estuary and the Novosbirsk Islands. That is the so-called the Lena water opening. Even in winter, when the ocean is covered by ice both from the north and from the south of it, the space of open water is preserved. The Lena water opening is very interesting for the researchers, and for sea animals it serves the location where they can find food in wintertime. There is no direct threat to this area now, but when active traffic is restored along the Northern shipping lane, the problem may arise. To avoid unnecessary conflicts, the researchers believe that the biosphere testing area should be established there: economic activity will be allowed in the area, but it will be carried out under biologists' control.
One more area in the Arctic Ocean which should have the position of specially protected territory is Chaunskaya inlet in Chukotka not far from Pevek. Here the kelp is the basis of the community. This is the only place where the kelp can be found in such high latitudes - normally kelps inhabit fifteen degrees further south. "After we have developed the map, systematic effort can be started to protect these territories, while there remains something to protect there, says Vasily Spiridonov. There is a very instructive example. At the time when the Commander Islands were assigned the status of particularly protected zone thanks to Academician Zhirmunsky's endeavor, fishery by deep-water drag-nets was still unknown. As a result, this is one of few sections of the bottom which was not ploughed up by drag-nets. If the Sakhalin Bay of Piltun had been assigned the same status in due time, there would have been no conflict now with oil industry workers because of the whales' 'pasture'. If actions to protect the territory are started in due time, such conflicts can be avoided in the future."

Russian psychologists have investigated disposition to envy with various social and age groups of the population to gain an understanding of this phenomenon. In their opinion (rather unexpectedly), students are more envious than employees of the public sector of economy.
Российские психологи исследовали склонность к зависти у различных социальных и возрастных групп населения, чтобы понять это явление. По их мнению (довольно неожиданно), студенты более завистливы, чем служащие общественного сектора экономики

It is common knowledge that envy is a drawback, however, few people can honestly confess to themselves that they are totally deprived of this feature. The society considers envy a negative, socially unacceptable phenomenon. Nevertheless, few researchers have tried to evaluate its scope and negative consequences for individuals' fate, economy and culture of the state. So far, there has not been a single attempt made in Russia to measure and investigate envy.
Such attempt has been undertaken by the researchers of Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), under the guidance of Kuanyshbek Muzdybayev, Ph.D. (Psychology). The aim of the effort is to investigate the attitude towards other people's success and luck in various social groups, their disposition to envy and description of its characteristics. Within recent years, the scientists carried out two researches at the interval of several years. In both cases, they questioned 700 people, including representatives of seven social groups, each comprising approximately 100 individuals: workers, employees of the public sector of economy, employees of the private sector, executives of companies, students, unemployed and pensioners. The samplings took into account the differences by sex and age.
It has turned out that adults go through three periods when their disposition to envy reaches its peak: 18-24 years, 30-34 years and 55-59 years. In all the three cases, envy is apparently connected to comparative assessment of their own achievements at a relevant stage of life. Students reveal the highest disposition to envy. The lowest level of disposition is manifested by employees of the public sector of economy. In comparison to them, slightly higher level of envy is demonstrated by pensioners, workers, unemployed and employees of the private sector.
No particular gender differences in disposition to envy has been revealed, however, men at the age of 30 through 34 are more envious to other people's success than women of the same age. Besides, male workers show slightly more envy than female workers - in other social groups no such difference was found.
Psychologists have compared changes in life of the highly envious and low envious respondents within the last nine years since the start of economic reforms in Russia. The most envious people turned out to be less fit in the course of transformation of the Russian society. They are to a larger extent displeased with their social and material position, their relations with surrounding people became more aloof, they are dissatisfied with their life in general. Envious respondents are not loyal to their milieu and the whole world. People seem to them biased, aggressive, cynical, selfish, vindictive, dishonorable, etc. They also tend to arbitrarily extend the boundaries of permissibility: in their opinion. various forms of dishonest behavior are acceptable - from ticketless travel by public transport through pilfering, aggressiveness in the intercourse, sexual incontinence and unscrupulousness.
The researchers have revealed two common regularities as regards to success and luck. First: people's envy grows as the person who previously had the worst results (for example, was a bad pupil) achieves success. Second: in the case of a successful lottery winning, envy grows pro rata to the amount of winning.
Envy is the feeling known since ancient times. Envy is hostile to any superiority be that material well-being, high awards, excellent job, beauty, etc. Envious persons not only cause discomfort to more successful people, they, if possible, ruin lucky persons' fates. The indispensable condition for envy to rise is impossibility to possess the features of a more successful rival. That results in the urge to take away, deprive, destroy luck or the very competitor. Therefore, envy is far from harmless.

A Russian cosmonaut and a former Russian Mission Control specialist will present a multi-media program and answer questions at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 22, in Pittsburg's Memorial Auditorium.
Cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and Dr. Alexandre Martynov will present "From Mir to Mars," a program about the International Space Station and space science collaboration between the U.S. and Russia. Included in their free presentation will be original film footage that was not included in the documentary about the space station.
Usachev has been on more than a dozen space flights, including several of six months or more. His first space flight was in 1994, a 182-day flight on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Usachev's most recent flight was on the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia as the commander of the second expedition to the International Space Station in 2001.
Martynov, now head of the Foreign Relations Department for the Administration of Korolev, worked in the Russian Mission Control Center from 1968 until 1992 as the head of the Ballistics Department. He designed re-entry modules and controlled their flights to provide soft landings on Earth, Mars, Venus and other planets of the solar system. Martynov holds a Ph.D in physical science and is the author of 120 scientific articles and six books dedicated to spacecraft motion control in planetary atmospheres. He is also involved in a space program that attempts to predict dangerous phenomena such as hurricanes, dust storms, industrial pollution, among other research topics.
In addition to their presentation, Usachev and Martynov will bring with them various items of space memorabilia, some of which will be for sale.
This program is sponsored by the Pittsburg State University College of Education, the PSU Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Pittsburg USD 250, Pitsco, the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center at Greenbush, the BIE Project Grant at PSU, the PSU chapters of ISA and IEEE, Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium, and Comfort Inn and Suites of Pittsburg.

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