Август 2005 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Evolution Of The Kulikovo Field
• Le permafrost sibérien prend l'eau
• Key computer breakthrough
• Bar code of life
• Physicist, superconductor expert Anatoly Larkin dies
• Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world
• Living Cell Is Replaced By A Test-Tube With DNA
• Black Mark For A Fuggy Room

Скончался выдающийся российский физик Анатолий Ларкин, последние 10 лет работавший в Университете штата Миннесота.
Работы Ларкина позволили физикам всего мира добиться новых высот в понимании теоретической физики. Наибольшее признание ему принесли работы в области теории конденсированного вещества, в частности касавшиеся сверхпроводимости.

Anatoly Larkin, a physicist based at the University of Minnesota, died of complications from heart disease on Aug. 4 in Aspen, Colo., where he was attending a workshop. He was 72.
He is best known for his research in condensed matter theory, particularly superconductivity, which is the ability of some metals to conduct electricity without any resistance at a sufficiently low temperature.
"He was a great scientist. He got three extremely prestigious prizes. These prizes are second only to the Nobel Prize," said Boris Shklovskii, a university physics professor.
In a superconductive material, an electric current goes through it without creating heat or resistance, which means the current can run forever without dissipating. Superconductivity is a promising way to transmit energy over power lines because "you would be able to transfer as much energy as you want, as far as you want," Shklovskii said.
Larkin, a native of the former Soviet Union who came to the university in 1995, wondered about the imperfections in the superconducting material that pin down electromagnetic vortices, making them stationary.
If the vortices are pinned, the material makes a good superconductor. Larkin calculated how many impurities it takes to pin down a vortex, thus making a "perfect" superconductor, Shklovskii said.
Larkin was one of the founding fathers of the Russian school of theoretical physics. Many of his former students hold leading academic positions at universities and institutes around the world.
In the 10 years Larkin spent in Minnesota, he published more than 50 papers and coauthored a 600-page book, "The Theory of Fluctuations in Superconductors."
Larkin emigrated because he had worked with several physicists from the university, some of whom also came from the former Soviet Union. "There were enough people here who knew his work and needed him to help," Shklovskii said.
Allen Goldman, who heads the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, said in a news release that "Anatoly Larkin was a giant in the field of condensed matter theory and a great teacher of theoretical physicists. His ideas revolutionized thinking about superconducting in superconductors."
Family members also said that he was quite a teacher. His son Victor of Minneapolis said in Russian, as translated by Victor's daughter Maria of Minneapolis, that the family has received many tributes to the physicist. "He had great students and some of them are strong in their field," the family said.
Larkin, born near Moscow, worked as a researcher during the 1950s and '60s and earned his doctorate degree from the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. From 1966 until 1995, he was a department head at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Russia. For 21 of those years he also served as a Moscow State University professor.
He is survived by his wife, Tatiana, of Minneapolis; sons Ivan of Moscow and Victor of Minneapolis; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial service in the Twin Cities is tentatively planned .

Российские ученые Владимир Башкирцев и Галина Машнич, сотрудники Института солнечно-земной физики РАН в Иркутске, заключили с британским экспертом по климату Джеймсом Аннаном пари на 10 тысяч долларов о том, что в следующем десятилетии климат на планете станет более холодным. Россияне считают, что на изменение климата на Земле больше влияет изменение солнечной активности, чем выброс парниковых газов, то есть Земля нагревается и охлаждается, реагируя на изменения солнечных пятен. Ученые договорились сравнить средние температуры поверхности Земли, зафиксированные американским климатическим центром в 1998-2003 годах, с температурами, которые будут зафиксированы в 2012-2017 годах.
Если произойдет понижение температуры, то доктор Аннан в 2018 году будет должен уплатить 10 тысяч долларов. Если же температура повысится, то деньги будут выплачены самому доктору Аннану.

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.
The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan. The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.
Dr Annan, who works on the Japanese Earth Simulator supercomputer, in Yokohama, said: "There isn't much money in climate science and I'm still looking for that gold watch at retirement. A pay-off would be a nice top-up to my pension."
To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017.
If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.
The bet is the latest in an increasingly popular field of scientific wagers, and comes after a string of climate change sceptics have refused challenges to back their controversial ideas with cash.
Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years. No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only £200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms.
In May, during BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, to a £5,000 bet. Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks.
Most climate change sceptics dispute the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which suggest that human activity will drive global temperatures up by between 1.4C and 5.8C by the end of the century.
Others, such as the Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, argue that, although global warming is real, there is little we can do to prevent it and that we would be better off trying to adapt to living in an altered climate.
Dr Annan said bets like the one he made with the Russian sceptics are one way to confront the ideas. He also suggests setting up a financial-style futures market to allow those with critical stakes in the outcome of climate change to gamble on predictions and hedge against future risk.
"Betting on sea level rise would have a very real relevance to Pacific islanders," he said. "By betting on rapid sea-level rise, they would either be able to stay in their homes at the cost of losing the bet if sea level rise was slow, or would win the bet and have money to pay for sea defences or relocation if sea level rise was rapid."
Similar agricultural commodity markets already allow farmers to hedge against bad weather that ruins harvests.

Если заменить живую клетку пробиркой с ДНК и набором веществ, то можно получать белки проще и дешевле. Именно так поступили российские биохимики, синтезировавшие инсулин без помощи трансгенной кишечной палочки. Идею ученых финансово поддержали Министерство науки и МКБ РАН.

If a living cell is replaced by a test-tube with DNA and a set of substances, it is possible to get proteins in a more simple and inexpensive way. That was done by Russian biochemists synthesizeing insulin without help of transgene Escherichia coli. The researchers' concept was funded by the Ministry of Science and Molecular and Cellular Boioplogy, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Insulin for diabetics has been obtained so far by utilizing biotechnological synthesis. The basic material for the presious hormone - proinsulin protein - is obtained from transgene Escherichia coli, which is grown up in large quantities. However, Russian researchers have decided that it is too complicated to educe a single protein from an entire, although tiny organism, and invented a way to do without bacteria. Specialists of the Institute of Protein (Russian Academy of Sciences), Moscow State University and Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry decided to replace live bacteria by their extract and artificial reactor.
Biochemists involved a reactor of German production for proinsulin synthesis. The reacting mixture was placed in it, the mixture consisting of Escherichia coli extract, its transfer RNA, enzymes (that are in charge of manipulation with nucleic acids), amino acids and mineral salts. The matrix, from which proinsulin molecules were "printed", was an artificially acquired plasmid - DNA molecule coding the sequence of amino acids in proinsulin.
The researchers faced challenges of a new method. Initially, a considerable part of synthesized protein precipitated in the reactor, which testifies to incorrect coagulation of a protein molecule. The researchers managed to avoid this by having changed reacting mixture volume, decreased temperature and concentration of bacterial extract. Adding detergent substances in the reactor was also helpful.
After the reaction was over, the liquid was separated from the sediment on the centrifuge, and the quantity of proinsulin was chemically determined in its fractions. To check its quality, the researchers produced insulin from proinsulin through non-complicated reactions, and then looked if it would activate human insulin receptor (this is the substance which the hormone reacts with first of all). The intensity of new insulin was compared to that of Danish company's insulin, which had been used for a long time. It should be noted that as of today synthetic insulin proved three to four times weaker than the traditional one. However, biologists are not inclined to pessimism and they assume that this is a temporary situation. For the time being, the lack of efficiency can be made up in their opinion at the expense of high productivity - more than 1.2milligrams per milliliter of reactor. High productivity ensures low prices for new insulin, which is also of no small importance.
The idea to go in for production of synthetic proinsulin occurred with the specialists of the Institute of Protein (Russian Academy of Sciences) when they managed to get in a similar way some proteins that are generated with difficulty in bioplast.

Прибор под названием "Пассивный химический дозиметр", разработанный казанскими учеными, поможет определить уровень токсичных соединений в воздухе, в частности, количество таковых в непосредственной близости от курильщика.

A device called "passive chemical dosimeter" will help to identify the quantity of poisonous substances and to determine particular substances inhaled by interlocutors of a smoker. The device is being developed by the Kazan chemists, financial support being provided by the International Science and Technology Center.
The smoking-room of the Lenin State Library - this is the proper place for catching eligible bachelors, as a heroine of the Oscar-winner film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" assured her friend. Alas, as the Kazan chemists claim, this is not the sole thing one can catch in a smoking-room. The device they are developing with sponsorship of the International Science and Technology Center allows to determine the quantity of poisonous substances threatening with oncological diseases got into the organism of any person who was simply sitting the smoking-room for some time. In the future, these will be personal dosimeters - similar to those which allow to promptly determine the radiation dose caught by a person in a radioactive contamination zone.
The concept of operation of chemical dosimeters invented by specialists of the Kazan State Technological University is rather simple. It is necessary to take a plate of a multiple-purpose sorbent applied to an undercoat and to impregnate the sorbent with a special compound. It will react with the compound hazardous to health that are formed in the air in the course of tobacco smouldering. It would be better if reaction products were tinted in different colors. Then, the sorbent's color and intensity of coloration will help to determine the quantity and the kind of poison a visitor of a smoking-room happened to encounter. And also the dose of these substances a visitor caught during the time (s)he spent in the smoking-room, as it is highly unlikely that (s)he was sitting there in a gas-mask.
To begin with, the chemists found out what substances particularly hazardous to health may be found in cigarette smoke. It has turned out that they are numerous and diverse! Although, for competent people this has been no secret for a long time: smoke contains the entire assortment of heavy organic synthesis plants, but smokers seem to prefer not to think about it. But it is worth knowing that the greatest danger lies not in the smoke they breathe in with each inhalation, but in what is elegantly flowing from the tip of a cigarette while they hold it in hand and simply talk or think, i.e. when tobacco smoulders by itself between inhalations.
However, it is particularly in the intervals between inhalations that the major part of tobacco - almost three quarters of it - burns down. It is the so-called by-product smoke that contains most of carbon monoxide, benzopyrenes and aromatic amine - which are extremely harmful substances. It is fearful, but the content f amine (which causes urinary bladder cancer) is generally 30 times higher in the by-product smoke than in the basic smoke. Do the persons - who naively assume that if they do not inhale but simply hold a cigarette alight or sit next to a smoker, the smoke is not dangerous for them - know about that?
Having learned what is necessary to identify, the chemists synthesized the required compound. The compound does react with carcinogenic amine, tobacco smoke components, without reacting with other compounds, which, unfortunately, may be found in the air of megapolis - spirits, sulfur oxide, nitric oxide and many others. Then the sorbent plates impregnated with this compound were standardized: the plates were placed for different periods into the chamber with known quantity of target toxicants, and then the researchers washed off everything accumulated on the sorbent and carried out identification by ordinary analytical methods.
At last the moment of truth came - the plates were hung in the University smoking-rooms and in the chemical laboratory where the air is necessarily "saturated" by various odours including rather dangerous ones. It has turned out that it was not for nothing that chemists previously got milk "for insalubrity". In the room itself, there were not too many toxicants found, but in the vicinity of the draught where chemists stand during the synthesis, there were pretty much of them. However, it would be good to drink more milk for the persons who are fond of sitting in a smoking-room or having fun in a club or discotheque with a lot of smokers. Sometimes, they catch the higher dose of carcinogenic substances than chemists do particularly if they are breathing in cigarette smoke for hours.

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