Октябрь 2004 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Siberian scientists develop self-heating insoles
• UW researcher honored by Russian academy
• Russian Scientists Leverage Regulatory Know-How to Court International Healthcare Markets
• UM geologist's research in Siberia could change view the Earth's evolution
• Après l'annonce des réformes, le Kremlin donne "un signal positif"
• Science and Life journal marks its 70th jubilee
• La Russie envisage une mission de simulation martienne de 500 jours
• Russian Expedition Establishes Exact Location of Ancient Mystical Country Shambala
• Great breakthrough in cancer diagnostics
• Japan 2005 Expo to display frozen mammoth
• Laser Instead Of A Diamond Saw
• Pre-Amur Dinosaur Is A Newcomer From America
• Bulgaria, Russia Design Jointly Satellite
• Doubts cast on benefits of Kyoto protocol for Russia
• La Russie va construire un pas de tir spatial en Corée du Sud
• Russian Academy of Sciences to be modernized

Российские ученые разработали метод селективного анализа аминокислот, сахаров, жирных кислот и других органических соединений. Метод позволяет определить даже их мельчайшие количества (доли нанограмма) и может использоваться для обнаружения раковых клеток и диагностики рака на ранних стадиях, когда традиционные методы на это не способны.

An amazingly sensitive method for selective analysis of amino acids, sugars, fatty acids, and other vital compounds has been developed by Russian scientists. This method allows determining even their trace quantities (fractions of nanograms). It is applicable in identifying cancerous cells and diagnostics of cancer at the earliest stage, when traditional diagnostics fail to catch sight of the disease.
Dr. Igor Revel'sky and his colleagues from the Moscow State University have developed method that provides a 100-times increased sensitivity of detecting amino acids and other vital compounds, i.e., a highest precision of their detection. This can be used in controlling the quality of drugs and foods and, prospectively, may become an effective technique of cancer diagnostics that will be more reliable than traditional histology.
The Russian scientists propose to begin with the separation of a complex mixture (e.g., the contents of a cell suspected of cancer). They separate firstly water-soluble substances from the rest of the mixture and, then, treat each of the two obtained fractions with specific reagents. As a result, the analyzed substances become volatile and separable with the use of a gas chromatograph, in which they are diffused along with a carrier gas through a liquid or solid adsorbent for differential adsorption. Each component produces its own peak in chromatogram.
The next challenge is identifying the components and their concentrations. This is rather difficult, as investigated samples contain a great variety of components, and a universal type of detector with a high sensitivity is needed. Such a detector chosen by the Russian scientists is a mass spectrometer. This apparatus is rather expensive and requires special operation skills. It converts molecules into ions and then separates the ions according to their mass-to-charge ratio, which allows identifying atoms and isotopes. The scientists can identify the structure of initial substance using the obtained mass spectra, existing mass spectra data base, and special software. Finally, it is necessary to recreate the original mixture composition. This process can be compared with doing a puzzle, where a picture needs to be assembled from separate pieces. In the chemical analysis, the number of pieces and pictures is never known by analyst, so, it is a rather complicated task. Information to be processed is contained in the mass spectra of components of studied mixture.
Dr. Sobolevsky, colleague of Dr. Revel'sky, has explained us the applicability of their method. It allows detecting a wide range of substances, which can be used in food quality control and for research purposes. Actually, this method has an exceptional sensitivity and selectivity. It gives a unique possibility for studying the composition of different cell components. Particularly, the scientists have revealed significant differences between the composition of amino acids in a cell culture of adenocarcinoma of human colon and their composition in healthy cells of connective tissue. We continue our research now, but it is clear already that a cancerous cell can be distinguished from a healthy cell by the composition of amino acids. This promises a great breakthrough in cancer diagnostics.

Одним из главных экспонатов всемирной выставки ЭКСПО-2005, которая состоится в марте будущего года в Японии, будут хорошо сохранившиеся останки мамонта, найденные в сибирской тундре, севернее города Якутска. Организаторы ЭКСПО-2005 планируют поместить останки в особую лабораторию со смотровой галереей, чтобы посетители выставки могли наблюдать за учеными во время проведения исследований.

TOKYO - Shuttle buses without drivers, trains floating on magnetic fields and other visions of the future will be on display at Japan's world fair next year. But Expo 2005's centerpiece will be rooted deep in the past - the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth.
The beast's nearly intact head, tusks and a front leg were excavated from the Siberian tundra in June, and Expo organizers plan to put them on display in a laboratory with a gallery so visitors can watch as scientists conduct tests.
"We want people to look at the future by starting with a perspective of the past," says Naoki Suzuki, the Japanese scientist overseeing the exhibit, which goes on display next March outside Nagoya, nearly 170 miles west of Tokyo.
For visitors, one of the biggest thrills will be viewing what experts say is the most intact mammoth head recovered in centuries.
Scientists, meanwhile, hope the preserved remains will yield clues to one of the great mysteries about woolly mammoths: why they became extinct some 10,000 years ago. Researchers armed with a subfreezing lab and state-of-the-art equipment plan to use advanced X-ray technology to peer inside the mammoth's head by generating a 3-D map of its brain. They will also examine muscle tissue to figure out how mammoths walked; study rocks, pollen and plants caught in the animal's fur and at the excavation site; cut into the tusks to determine the animal's age, what it ate and whether it was ill; and look for DNA in tissue to answer questions about disease and viruses.
"We can reconstruct details of the animal's life, such as its diet, its health history and the climate it encountered," says Daniel Fisher, a curator at the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology who is in charge of analyzing the tusks.
Mammoths first appeared in Africa as much as 4 million years ago, and they roamed the plains of Siberia for nearly 2 million years before suddenly dying off 10 millenniums ago. Scientists remain divided over the cause of the mammoths' extinction, with theories pointing at human hunters, a killer disease or climate change.
For more than two centuries, mammoth remains have been turning up in the Russian tundra above the Arctic Circle. The Expo's mammoth was excavated north of the town of Yakutsk, about 3,100 miles east of Moscow.
Until now, crude technologies have thwarted scientists' attempts to salvage soft tissue that might tell more about the giant beasts. Paleontologists normally thaw frozen mammoth remains with hair dryers, which can destroy muscle, organs and skin, leaving a parched fossil.
Doing that to the Expo mammoth might squander a rare opportunity. When researchers excavated the remains, they were astonished to find an entire head, wrapped in skin and hair and with both tusks. An attached ear and eyelid made it appear "as if it had just fallen asleep," says Suzuki, a paleontologist and computer-imaging expert at Jikei University in Tokyo.
"It's the closest to a perfect specimen of a mammoth's head we have seen in the last 200 years," he says. Though little of the mammoth's hindsection remained, the scientists found its right front leg with flesh and joints. Bones from its shoulder, back and ribcage were scattered nearby.
Working with Dutch paleontologist Dick Mol, French Arctic explorer Bernard Buiges, Alexei Tikhonov of Russia's Zoological Institute and other mammoth experts, Suzuki wants to keep the mammoth frozen for experiments and avoid slicing it up.
"Nowadays, you can view internal body parts without cutting anything," he says. Instead of dissection, they will rely on X-ray scans, powerful computers with 3-D technology and minimally invasive surgical techniques normally used on humans. Much is still unanswered about the project, including how much of Expo's $2.7 billion budget will go to the mammoth exhibit. The remains are still in Russia and it's uncertain when they will arrive.
Ross MacPhee, a curator at New York's American Museum of Natural History who is on the research team, says the head scans could show blood vessels, nerves and other brain tissue that are difficult to dissect.
Though computer images are no substitute for actual tissue, they may help paleontologists settle a dispute about whether mammoths and elephants are family members or cousins, MacPhee says. But he cautions that the tissues may be dried out after millennia of lying in ice. If there is no moisture left, "keeping (the mammoth) frozen while scanning will retard mold formation but it will not enhance structure," MacPhee says.

Физики из Санкт-Петербурга разработали прибор, позволяющий разрезать кристаллы сапфира на почти идеально гладкие пластинки толщиной в доли миллиметра. Вместо традиционной алмазной пилы используется так называемый пикосекундный лазер и оригинальная оптическая система. Прибор называется " Установка для лазерного скрайбирования сапфировых плат" и предназначена для того, чтобы из целой сапфировой пластины с намеченными структурами микросхем получить множество отдельных готовых микрочипов.

St. Petersburg physicists have developed a plant that allows to cut sapphire crystals into almost ideally smooth plates being fractions of millimeter thick. The approach suggested by the researchers fundamentally differs from the traditional one. They suggest that sapphire should not be sawn by a saw, but split by laser.
It is quite common that a title like "A plant for laser scribing of sapphire wafers" would surprise an ordinary person but it sounds like music for specialists. It is an exceptionally useful, and unique device produced in St. Petersburg by the specialists of the MULTITECH company. It is intended to produce multiple individual finished microchips out of a whole sapphire plate with marked chip structures called "wafers" .
Microchips on sapphire and quartz substrates have been made so far in a simple and rough way: the crystal is slit by a thin metal disk with diamantine. The process is extremely unproductive. On the one hand, the disc possesses its own thickness that makes hundreds of microns. On the other hand, due to such rough processing the edges of the slit plates are covered by cracks all over. That is why a major part of the material is wasted – only one third or a quarter of feedstock can be used for the above purpose.
The device designed by the specialists of the MILTITECH company is based on fundamentally different principles. The device does not saw a crystal but incises or scribes it by laser. Speaking to the point, the device using a special laser produces deep and straight cracks in the crystal in previously selected spots and in preset direction. These cracks allow to easily and simply break the sapphire plate "cracked" by laser into multiple tiny microchips – for example, into small square of 1 mm x 1 mm in dimension. This is done by a small and also original instrument resembling a diminutive photograph cutter.
Peculiarity of the device is that instead of a powerful laser it is suggested to use a low energy laser but with a supershort pulse time, the so-called a picosecond one. An original optical system is also used allowing to focus the laser beam into a very thin sheaf being only several microns in diameter. As a result, the beam's energy concentrates in space and time and splits the crystal from inside without evaporating it. The device is shooting by short laser bursts – i.e., series of picosecond impulses. That is how point defects are formed resembling a perforation line. It is along these lines that the crystal splits, i.e. a deep crack goes from one defect to another, joining them.
Firstly, these transverse cracks are small and much less numerous than those formed while cutting the crystal by a diamond disc, and secondly, the cracks partly "overgrow" by themselves. The researchers made sure of that due to a microscopical television system also designed by them. Under computer control, the "cutting" is performed quickly and automatically. But there is one more valuable advantage. As the beam can be focused with extreme precision, the crystal can be cut when it is in the plastic packing. The packing will not be damaged by the laser beam as it is not focused on packing. This peculiarity is difficult to overestimate. It gives the opportunity to process chips not in the specially equipped facilities with filtered air – the so-called clean rooms, but in ordinary ones.

Останки крупного динозавра, жившего в конце мелового периода (около 70 миллионов лет назад), найдены на территории города Благовещенска палеонтологом Юрием Болотским, сотрудником Амурского комплексного научно-исследовательского института ДВО РАН. Исследования находки, проведенные Ю.Л. Болотским совместно с его бельгийским коллегой Паскалем Годфруа из Королевского музея естественной истории в Брюсселе, показали, что обладатель черепа принадлежит к роду и виду, новому для науки. Этот вид получил название керберозавр Манакина; его открытие позволило ученым установить пути эволюции и расселения ряда позднемеловых рептилий.

Remains of a dinosaur new to Russia have been found in the town of Blagoveshchensk and described by a Russian paleontologist. Previously, remains of the nearest relations of this pangolin – Kerberosaur - were found only in North America.
An unusual scull of a large dinosaur that lived in the Late Cretaceous (approximately 70 million years ago) was found in the territory of Blagoveshchensk by paleontologist Yuri Bolotsky, specialist of the Amur Comprehensive Scientific Research Institute (Russian Academy of Sciences).
Investigations of the find were carried out by Yu.L. Bolotsky jointly with his Belgian colleague Pascal Godefroit from the Royal Museum of Naturals Sciences in Brussels and proved that the owner of the skull belonged to the genus and species new to science.
The species was called Kerberosaurus manakini; this discovery allowed the scientists to determine the paths of evolution and settling of a number of the Late Cretaceous reptiles. Dinosaurs are one of the groups of reptiles widespread on our planet in the Jurassic and Cretaceous of the Age of Reptiles. They included giant pangolins and relatively small creatures of the size of a dog or a hen. Dinoraurs settled in various in-land habitats, dinoraurs varied from predators to herbivorous forms; they became extinct in the late Cretaceous (approximately 65 million years ago). The Kerberosaur described by Yu.L. Bolotsky and P. Godefroit belonged to the last representatives of this group of reptiles.
The Kerberosaur was a large herbivorous pangolin (according to Yuri Bolotsy's estimates, the length of its body made about 10 meters) belonging to the so-called hadrosaurs. Likewise other representatives of this group, the Kerberosaur had a flat and wide beak, somewhat reminding of a duck's one, however, it was about 1 meter long and supplied with numerous teeth which helped to grind the food. However, the head of the Kerberosaur had no high and hollow osseous crest typical of other hadrosaurs.
It is interesting to note that remains of the nearest (and even slightly more ancient) relations of the Kerberosaur were found only in North America; apparently, it is from there that its ancestors had migrated to the eastern Asia through the Beringia bridge. Such migration path is quite unusual: Asia is considered to be the fore-home for the majority groups of dinosaurs and other vertebrates found on the American continent.
The find of Kerberosaur proves that the ties between faunas of Asia and North America in the late Cretaceous were more complicated and diverse than it had been considered so far: exchange of species between Asia and North America was reciprocal. The Kerberosaur is by no means the first dinosaur discovered in the Pre-Amur Region. Already back in 1902, Russian colonel Manakin (a new pangolin species was called after him) found several fossil bones on the Chinese bank of the Amur River (near the village of Tsain). In 1915 and 1916, special digs were carried out in that area, in the 1920s, A.N. Ryabinin described three dinosaur species based on the materials of these digs.
In 1957, A.K. Rozhdestvensky also discovered bones of ancient reptiles on the Russian bank of the Amur River, Yu.L. Bolotsky has been conducting regular investigations of them since 1984. Yu.L. Bolotsly found unique "dinosaurs' cemeteries" in Blagoveshchensk and in the vicinity of Kundur settlement (south-east of the Amur Region), the digs of the "cemeteries" provided truly sensational results. It was in Kundur that in 1999-2001 an entire skeleton of a giant (10 meters long) hadrosaurs was found, the hadrosaurs was called Olorotitan.
As of today, the Kundur location of remains of dinosaurs and other Late Cretaceous vertebrates is the richest in Russia. The digs continue there and each field season brings new discoveries. This summer, bones of the hind extremities and pelvic girdle of a large hadrosaurs were excavated there. The finds have just been delivered to Blagoveshchensk and are waiting for being investigated; however, it is already clear that they belong to another dinosaur genus which is new to science.
Research of fossil reptiles is an extremely laborious, painstaking and expensive task. It is sufficient to mention that the bones which remained in the soil for several millions of years lose their former strength and fall to pieces very easily when excavated from the stratum. Each bone found during the dig should be immediately covered by a layer of plaster cast to protect it from destruction. Plaster blocks (their weight reaching sometimes several centners) are delivered to the laboratory, where the ancient bones are taken out of plaster, thoroughly prepared and impregnated with special compositions. Only after such treatment is completed, pangolin remains become available to scientific research.
Therefore, discoveries of new dinosaurs in the Pre-Amur Region have become possible only thanks to energy and enthusiasm of Yu.L. Bolotsky, his colleagues and assistants – and certainly due to their tremendous work.

Болгарские и российские ученые работают над совместным проектом небольшого спутника, предназначенного для исследования Земли из космоса. В частности, его предполагается использовать для предупреждения экологических проблем, а также для обучения молодых специалистов в области космических технологий.

Bulgarian and Russian scientists have been working on a joint project of small satellite designed to research the Earth distantly from the Space.
The bi-national team has already had talks with other Balkan countries to join the project, the Director of the Bulgarian Space Research Institute Prof Peter Getsov announced on the day of 35th anniversary of the research center.
The satellite will weigh not more than 50 kg carrying scientific equipment of another 15 kg, he added.
The project aims to retrieve remote-from-Earth information that could be used to prevent environmental problems (for example the greenhouse effect), radioactive risks in nuclear power plants and also for the training of young experts in cosmologic technologies.
The news broke on the day when the Space Research Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences celebrated 35th anniversary since its establishment. Three Bulgarian cosmonauts were granted honorary diplomas and badges, including Lieutenant General Georgi Ivanov, the first Bulgarian launched in space, and Alexander Alexandrov and his backup Krassimir Stoyanov.

После того, как Киотский протокол был ратифицирован Верхней палатой парламента - 139 голосов против одного, он должен быть одобрен российским президентом. Если протокол вступит в силу, Россия сможет получать доход от продажи другим государствам квот на выброс углекислого газа, поскольку сейчас в стране эмиссия парниковых газов в атмосферу много меньше требуемой нормы. Препятствием к этому является то, что на российских предприятиях не хватает контрольно-измерительных приборов, фиксирующих объем выбросов. Также в России нет общественных институтов, которые могли бы торговать квотами на выброс вредных веществ на международном рынке.

Russia could benefit by up to $10bn from its ratification of the Kyoto protocol but its ability to do so may be hampered by a lack of the institutions and infrastructure needed to implement the treaty's requirements, according to climate change experts.
The Russian parliament's upper house voted to ratify the protocol on Wednesday, by 139 votes to one, with one abstention. It now awaits presidential approval and is likely to come into effect internationally next year.
The benefits to the Russian economy would come from Russia's ability to sell "carbon credits" to the rest of the world under the terms of the climate change treaty. These credits come from the difference between the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a country emits and the amount it is permitted to emit under the terms of the protocol, which requires countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by varying amounts compared with what they emitted in 1990.
Russia is on track to under-use its emissions allocation, however, because of the dip in the country's economic performance during the 1990s. This gives it an excess of emissions permits it can sell on the international carbon trading market that Kyoto will create. Point Carbon, a carbon consultancy, says Russia could earn up to $10bn by selling its spare emissions quotas this way.
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change in the US, said: "Russia will not run up against its[emissions] limits within the next period [under the protocol] until 2012. There is no question about that."
After 2012 Russia could be set lower caps on its emissions under the protocol. That might mean its industries had to put in place new techniques to lower their carbon output. But the Russian government could negotiate for higher caps.
In addition, Russian industries could earn further credits by implementing straightforward carbon efficiency programmes, said Abyd Karmali, director of European climate change strategy at ICF Consulting, an international energy consultancy. But climate change experts were concerned that the means of monitoring how much carbon Russian industries produced were not in place. Mr Karmali said: "Russia does not have the institutional framework in place yet to begin carbon trading."
Some experts, including presidential economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, say implementing the protocol could damage the economy by forcing carbon cuts on industry. President Vladimir Putin's decision to push ahead with ratification of the protocol was thought to have been calculated to win European Union support for his bid for World Trade Organisation membership.
Ezra Machnikowski, associate at Norton Rose in Moscow, said: "Ratification was about gaining political favours. I don't think it will have much effect in the short term but longer term Russia will have to invest heavily in energy efficiency."
Russia's ratification of the Kyoto protocol effectively salvaged the treaty after the world's biggest emitter of carbon, the US, decided not to ratify it in 2001.

Россия и Южная Корея подписали договор о строительстве космического стартового комплекса для запуска ракет-носителей в целях гражданского использования и научного исследования космоса. Россия также согласилась помочь отправить в космос первого южно-корейского космонавта.

MOSCOU, 27 oct (AFP) - La Russie va construire d'ici 2007 un pas de tir pour les lancements spatiaux en Corée du Sud, a annoncé mercredi le porte-parole de l'Agence spatiale russe (Roskosmos), Viatcheslav Davidenko.
Un contrat qui prévoit "la construction d'un pas de tir pour les lancements de fusées à des fins civiles et pour une exploration scientifique de l'espace" vient d'être signé par les deux pays, a indiqué M. Davidenko, cité par l'agence Itar-Tass. Le constructeur spatial russe Khrounitchev, qui participera à ce projet, s'est également engagé en septembre dernier, lors d'une visite du président sud-coréen Roh Moo-Hyun à Moscou, à aider la Corée du Sud à construire son premier lanceur spatial.
La Russie a aussi donné son accord pour aider la Corée du Sud à envoyer dans l'espace le premier cosmonaute sud-coréen d'ici 2007. La Russie propose d'envoyer le premier cosmonaute sud-coréen sur la Station spatiale internationale (ISS) à bord d'un vaisseau russe Soyouz, mais ce projet doit encore être approuvé par les agences spatiales des 16 pays partenaires du projet de l'ISS, notamment la Nasa et l'Agence spatiale européenne (ESA).

Модернизация Российской академии наук будет проведена силами самого научного сообщества, сообщил вице-президент РАН Николай Платэ.

MOSCOW, October 29 (Itar-Tass) -- The Russian Academy of Sciences will begin to be modernized by the scientific community itself, Nikolai Plate, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Tass. "The academy's structure is not ideal. It should certainly be modernized, and the small sums allocated to it from the budget should be used more rationally" he said.
"There is a waste of funds connected with the inefficient work of research institutions, and some of them are extremely weak", he said. The vice-president said, "Over the past two or three years we have reduced some 50 institutions". "Some of them are now under the charge of other agencies, other ceased to exist as legal entities, and their research was taken up by other institutions".
Plate said research institutions of various branches, most of which became state scientific centres would also be reviewed. "They include centres that have learned how to survive in present-day conditions by striking deals with consumers as the state funding is clearly not enough", Plate said. "Other institutions proved not viable", he said.
Plate said the reform should not result in a rift between the fundamental science and applied science. "The role of the fundamental science is to set the trends for the future technologies. If we concentrate on problems of applied sciences only, we will rapidly exhaust our reserve of knowledge and will not be able adequately to respond to the challenges of the market", the vice-president of the academy said.

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