Февраль 2004 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Les scientifiques russes demandent à Poutine d'arrêter la fuite des cerveaux
• While the Oil Barons Sleep
• Russia Academy of Sciences may be exempt from paying for land
• First Russo-American technology symposium
• Viet Nam, Russia to strengthen research cooperation
• Uut and Uup Add Their Atomic Mass to Periodic Table
• Melting Siberian Peat Bogs May Unleash Huge Quantities Of Methane
• Russia reviving massive river diversion plan
• XXI century to be time of great discoveries in life sciences
• French Academy chief greets Russian academy on jubilee
• Une ébauche de décision finale sur l'ITER au mois de mars
• Le Russie planche sur un nouveau vaisseau spatial
• UD works with Russian academy on terahertz technology
• 7ème comité mixte franco-russe de coopération scientifique et technologique

Вновь разрабатывается советский план по изменению русла крупнейших сибирских рек с целью обеспечения водой засушливых районов бывших советских республик Центральной Азии.

Russian scientists are reviving an old Soviet plan to divert some of Siberia's mightiest rivers to the parched former Soviet republics of central Asia. Its backers say it will solve a growing water crisis in the region and replenish the now desiccated Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea. The $40 billion scheme could also gain international support. Recent increases in the flows of Siberia's rivers, probably due to global warming, have raised fears that a less salty Arctic Ocean could shut down the Gulf Stream and trigger icy winters across Europe. Diverting part of the flow of the rivers could prevent that.
But some experts say that the hugely ambitious scheme will cause social, economic and environmental disaster. The megaproject was rejected by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s. But in recent months it has won vocal support. Backers include Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, a possible successor to Vladimir Putin as Russian president, alongside central Asian leaders and a growing number of Russian scientists. One of the country's senior environmental scientists has told New Scientist he has resumed research on the project.
Thirsty crop
The proposed scheme would be roughly equivalent to irrigating Mexico from the North American Great Lakes. It would drive a canal 200 metres wide and 16 metres deep southwards for some 2500 kilometres, from the confluence of the north-flowing rivers Ob and Irtysh, to replenish the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers near the Aral Sea The canal would carry 27 cubic kilometres of water a year. Though this is just seven per cent of the Ob's flow it would bring 50 per cent more water to the lower Aral Sea basin.
The rationale behind the scheme is clear. Central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union are economically dependent on cotton, a notoriously thirsty crop. Today the region's two biggest cotton-growing nations, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, have the highest per capita water consumption in the world. Yet Turkmenistan says it intends to double cotton production in the next decade.
International plans to kick-start the economy of northern Afghanistan, on the upper reaches of the Amudarya, depend on taking as much as 10 cubic kilometres of water a year from that river. With climate models predicting big decreases in rainfall in central Asia, the International Crisis Group, an NGO based in Brussels, Belgium, recently forecast water wars in the region.
Already, the Amudarya and Syrdarya, which once had combined flows greater than that of the Nile, have been largely emptied by massive irrigation projects to grow the cotton. As the rivers died, so has the Aral Sea into which they drain. It has lost three-quarters of its water since 1960, leaving former ports up to 150 kilometres from the receding shoreline, and a salty wilderness where the sea used to be.
Dilapidated and inefficient
Meanwhile, irrigation canals in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have become increasingly dilapidated and inefficient. Few of the region's 50,000 kilometres of irrigation channels are sealed, so much of their water goes to waste. According to a World Bank study, some 60 per cent of water intended for farms does not reach the fields. Two years ago, while on a visit to Putin in Moscow, Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, revived the idea of diverting Siberian rivers. "Although it seems ambitious, it appears to be the only tangible solution to the ecological and other problems caused by the drying of the Aral Sea," says Abdukhalil Razzakov of the Tashkent State Economic University in Uzbekistan.
Now, after more than a decade without discussion of the project in Russia, it is back on the table. This week, Igor Zonn, director of Soyuzvodproject, a Russian government agency in charge of water management and ecology, told New Scientist: "We are beginning to revise the old project plans for the diversion of Siberian rivers. The old material has to be gathered from more than 300 institutes." In January, Luzhkov visited Kazakhstan to promote the plan. He says that central Asia would have to pay for the water, but behind the scenes Moscow sees the scheme as a way to rebuild its political and economic power in the region. It also wants to avoid a collapse of its southern neighbours' economies, which could send a flood of ecological refugees towards Russia. One-fifth of the population of the Karakalpak region of Uzbekistan has emigrated since 1990. But, as in the 1980s, the scheme will be hugely controversial in Russia. The chairman of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Dobretsov, has told New Scientist that the diversion "would threaten the Ob basin with eco-catastrophe and socio-economic disaster", destroying fisheries and upsetting the local climate.
Efficiency gains
Some environmentalists support the scheme as a means to revive the Aral Sea. But Oleg Vasilyev, a former head of the Institute of Water and Ecology Problems, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who backs the plan, says the water should be used primarily for irrigation, and so would never reach the Aral. Central Asia now fa?es a choice: begin massive reforms that will allow a more efficient use of water and less reliance on thirsty crops like cotton, or buy in water from outside. Nikita Glazovsky, a leading Russian geographer and former deputy environment minister under Boris Yeltsin, says the region's engineers "still find it easier to divert rivers than to stop inefficient irrigation". And reform has so far proved beyond the leaders of central Asia, whose methods of government have changed little since Soviet times.
If Russia pursues the plan, the global ecological repercussions are bound to loom large. In the 1980s, western scientists feared that reducing the flows of north-flowing Siberian rivers would damage the Arctic ice cap and upset global climate. Now the tables have turned, and the worry is more about the increasing flow caused by global warming. The Ob and nearby rivers pour seven per cent more fresh water into the Arctic Ocean than 70 years ago, and climate models indicate that flows could rise by up to 80 per cent by the end of the century. The arrival of such large volumes of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean could lead to a sudden breakdown of a global ocean circulation system that ultimately drives the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe warm in winter. Such a breakdown could leave Europe facing a new ice age as the rest of the planet warms. Work on the diversion project is unlikely to begin soon, and it faces many financial, political, ecological and design hurdles. But a project on this vast scale no longer seems unthinkable. China's south-north project to take water from the Yangtze river to the parched Yellow river is as large and expensive, and is under way. Some observers believe that Putin might like to leave the canal as a lasting symbol of his Presidency. According to Victor Brovkin, a Russian expert in climate modelling, now at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, "If Putin wants to respond to Bush's plan to go to Mars, this might be it."

XXI век станет временем великих открытий в науках о жизни и энергии, считают члены Российской академии наук.

MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) -- The twenty first century will be the time of great discoveries in life sciences and energy. "Research in such fields as biotechnology, pharmacology and molecular biology will open up new vistas in the practical medicine," a source in the Russian Academy of Sciences that celebrates in 280th anniversary Sunday told Itar-Tass. Russian Science Day is marked on February 8 since 1999 under a Russian presidential decree.
According to president of the Academy of Sciences Yuri Osipov "scientists will focus attention on the live organism and live cell in the current century." Osipov believes that their study opens new opportunities for the development of medicine. Russian scientists name nanotechnologies as another priority. "Further successes in microelectronics, optics, biotechnologies and creating radically new medicines are impossible" without nanotechnologies, he emphasised. "Medicines affecting selectively genetic programmes that are responsible for some or other diseases will be used for treatment soon," Academician Valentin Vlasov told Itar-Tass.
Energy will also change in the twenty first century. "The stocks of natural resources of oil and gas are rapidly exhausting and their restoration will take millions of years," the source said. Meanwhile "there are unique developments in hydrogen and thermonuclear energy in Russia," Academician Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi told Itar-Tass. He recalled that the international thermonuclear reactor project that became international "was worked out and made the first steps for the practical implementation in our country." Meanwhile he is confident that "hydrogen will be used sweepingly as an energy carrier for heating houses, car engines and even children toys already in twenty years." For his part, Sergei Nikolsky, 98, the oldest Russian academician, believes that "the main discoveries in the new century should be expected in biology and physics." "However without the state support many of them will not be put into practice and probably remain on paper," he told Itar-Tass.
The Russian Academy of Sciences was established by a decree of Peter the Great on February 8 1724. At present the academy comprises of 400 research institutes located all over the country, the Academy of Sciences presidium said. 18 academy scientists were awarded with Nobel Prizes. Academician Ivan Pavlov was the first Nobel laureate in 1904. The Nobel Prize was bestowed on Academicians Vitaly Ginzburg and Alexei Abrikosov last year.

8 февраля исполнилось 280 лет со дня основания Российской академии наук. Постоянный секретарь Французской академии и иностранный член РАН Элен Каррер д`Анкосс считает это событие большим праздником не только для ученых, но и для всех просвещенных людей.

MOSCOW,February 9 (Itar-Tass) -- Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences Helene Carrere d'Encausse believes that the 280th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences that was marked on February 8 is a great holiday not only for scientists.
Instituted 280 years ago in St. Petersburg by order of Tsar Peter I, the Russian Academy of Sciences united the most brilliant and outstanding people from all parts of Russia. The Academy's creation was not just a landmark in Russia's intellectual history. It also gave the first opportunity to unite the country's best intellectual forces for developing scientific life, Helene Carrere d'Encausse told Itar-Tass in Russian on Sunday, February 8.
Helene Carrere d'Encausse is the permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences and a prominent expert on Russia who has written more than ten books about this country.
France attaches great importance to cultural and scientific relations with Russia, Helene d'Encausse went on to say. She added that Peter the Great who studied the French scientific experience during his tour of France supplemented it considerably in his decree on the institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Though the French Academy was organized 400 years ago and still gathers together the best scientists, it doesn't have scientific institutions or education establishments and doesn't conduct any scientific research. Therefore, Russia and France develop scientific and cultural cooperation through direct contacts between their academicians.
"It's a great honour for me to be a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I am very proud of my membership," Helene Carrere d' Encausse said in conclusion.

Шесть участников проекта ITER (международный экспериментальный термоядерный реактор), собравшиеся 21 февраля в Вене, так и не пришли к окончательному решению, отложив его на начало марта.

Les délégations des six partenaires participant à la négociation relative au site d'implantation du réacteur thermonucléaire expérimental international (ITER) se sont réunis à Vienne, en Autriche, le 21 février dernier, sans toutefois parvenir à une décision commune.
D'après une déclaration commune de la Chine, du Japon, de l'Union européenne, de la Russie, de la République de Corée et des États-Unis, « les parties de l'ITER poursuivront leurs discussions, y compris sur l'exploration prochaine d'une approche de projet plus vaste de l'énergie de fusion. Toutes les délégations ont réaffirmé leur engagement en faveur d'un consensus sur une mise en ouvre conjointe de l'ITER»
Les partenaires ont convenu de convoquer une réunion d'experts techniques début mars, principalement dans le but de réaliser une analyse technique. Un porte-parole de la Commission a confié à CORDIS Nouvelles qu'une réunion finale visant à parvenir à une décision est également prévue courant mars, mais qu'il faut encore trouver des arrangements. Selon le porte-parole de la Commission, « les négociations sont toujours en cours, mais aucune avancée importante n'a été enregistrée au cours de la réunion de Vienne. L'Union européenne reste convaincue de sa capacité à persuader les autres partenaires de l'ITER de l'opportunité du choix de Cadarache (France). Interrogé sur les informations laissant entendre que le Japon serait prêt à mettre au point son propre réacteur si son site de Rokkasho-Mura n'était pas sélectionné, le porte-parole a déclaré à CORDIS Nouvelles: « Cette affirmation n'a pas été confirmée officiellement. Il va de soi que le Japon est libre d'agir de la sorte s'il le souhaite, mais l'UE attendra la présentation officielle des intentions japonaises avant de prendre position.»

Российские инженеры приступили к работе над проектом нового космического корабля, по размерам и вместимости вдвое превосходящим «Союз».

MOSCOU (AP) -- Les ingénieurs russes ont commencé à travailler sur le projet d'un nouveau vaisseau spatial qui serait deux fois plus grand et spatieux que le Soyouz, a annoncé mardi le directeur de l'Agence aérospatiale russe, Youri Koptev.
Le nouveau vaisseau pourra transporter au moins six astronautes et possèdera une section habitable réutilisable, a précisé M. Koptev lors d'une conférence de presse. Par comparaison, le Soyouz, qui a été mis au point à la fin des années 60, peut emmener trois cosmonautes et n'est pas réutilisable.
Le vaisseau conçu par l'entreprise RKK Energiya aura un poids au décollage de 12 à 14 tonnes, soit deux fois plus que le Soyouz.
M. Koptev a affirmé que le projet était bien avancé, mais il n'a pas donné de délai pour la construction du vaisseau. Il a précisé que le nouveau véhicule serait destiné au vol orbital autour de la Terre.

Делавэрский университет и Российская академия наук разрабатывают проекты устройств, испускающих терагерцевые сигналы. Подобные устройства могут быть использованы в биохимии, медицинской диагностике и раковых исследованиях.

The University of Delaware is working with the Russian Academy of Sciences on a project to develop novel devices that emit terahertz signals for applications in biochemical identification, medical diagnostics and cancer research. The research is being conducted at laboratories headed by James Kolodzey, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UD, and Miron Kagan, director of the Russian Academy's Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics, with funding provided through the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF).
"This CRDF program achieves synergy by combining the scientific strengths of the groups in St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia with the experimental abilities of the University of Delaware," Kolodzey said. The UD research team is recognized as an international leader in the development of terahertz nanotechnology, last year announcing it had discovered a means to harness the power of the terahertz frequencies in a palm-sized device using a semiconductor nanostructure.
Terahertz is the final frontier in the study of electromagnetic waves, according to Kolodzey, who said that in the frequency spectrum it lies between microwaves and infrared light. It is 1,000 times higher in frequency than microwaves, which are used in cell phones and ovens, and 100 to 1,000 times lower than visible light. Not much is known about the terahertz frequencies, Kolodzey said, and the UD team's research is in both basic science and in practical applications.
It is known that the frequencies are strongly absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, which makes terahertz a poor medium for long distance communication through the air, which is how the microwave frequencies are used. However, terahertz is of great value at closer ranges because of its strong interactions with materials, which could provide opportunities in chemical diagnostics and medicine.
In informing Kolodzey about the grant award, U.S. Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) applauded "the University of Delaware's commitment to science and its efforts to collaborate with institutions abroad."

26 февраля в Париже состоится 7-е заседание франко-русского комитета по сотрудничествву в области науки и технологии. Стороны подведут итоги по проделанной работе и рассмотрят возможности сотрудничества в новых областях.

Le ministère des Affaires étrangères participera à la 7ème réunion du comité mixte franco-russe de coopération scientifique et technologique qui se tiendra à Paris au ministère délégué à la Recherche et aux Nouvelles Technologies le 26 février 2004.
 Les deux parties échangeront d'abord des informations sur les dernières évolutions de leurs politiques nationales en matière de recherche et établiront le bilan de la coopération scientifique et technologique franco-russe à la suite du 6ème Comité Mixte du 10 décembre 2002; puis, elles procéderont à une analyse des actions en cours: la coopération entre l'Académie des Sciences, le CNRS, l'Académie des Sciences de Russie et le RFFI (Fondation Russe pour la Recherche Fondamentale); les travaux du laboratoire conjoint de mathématiques, du réseau de recherche Climat/Environnement, du réseau de recherche Lasers et techniques optiques de l'information, du programme de recherche Protéomique très haute performance, du programme de mobilité de chercheurs ; la coopération technologique sur la propriété intellectuelle, le réseau franco-russe des Centres d'Innovation Technologique; les actions en biotechnologie et bio-incubation, en biosécurité et en nanotechnologies. Toutes ces initiatives bénéficient du soutien financier du Département.
 Les deux délégations procéderont également à l'examen des nouvelles coopérations proposées pour 2004. Pour le volet scientifique, les discussions porteront sur la magnétoacoustique, la chimie (catalyse, supramoléculaire, polymères), la biochimie de l'ARN, la glaciobiologie et la physique théorique. En ce qui concerne la partie technologique, seront abordés l'identification de nouveaux outils de stimulation de l'innovation et le développement du Centre franco-russe de transfert de technologie.  Par ailleurs, une convention entre le BRGM et le Musée Géologique d'Etat Vernadesky de Moscou sera signée à cette occasion pour permettre l'installation d'un centre franco-russe de recherche pour la mise en évidence de gisements métalliques géants.

Начало дайджеста за ФЕВРАЛЬ 2004 года (часть 1)

предыдущий месяц

1998-2004

следующий месяц