Ноябрь 2005 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Plane-Trees Used To Grow In Siberia 85 Million Years Ago
• Russia, China to Jointly Explore Moon and Mars
• Health Of Crops Depends On "Protein Wars"
• Smart Spring - Moscow Scientist Invents Unusual Water Purification Filter
• Tuberculosis: Diagnosis Will Be More Precise
• Les chercheurs russes se plaignent de la faiblesse de leurs moyens
• Nine Finnish and Russian universities planning joint degrees
• Genotype Of Long Life
• Chine Pollution au benzène d'une rivière: Désastre écologique à Harbin
• Glonass-M flight trials set for completion in 2006
• Baikal Is Held Hostage Of Transneft
• The nose is good, but the sensor is better, or chemists from Voronezh are on guard of health
• Les droits de propriété intellectuelle : Les renforcer, c'est garantir les avantages fiscaux

22 ноября в Москве состоялась встреча министра образования и науки РФ Андрея Фурсенко с министром образования и науки Финляндской Республики Антти Каллиомяки. Особое внимание стороны уделили вопросам взаимодействия в области высшего образования, в частности, проекту "Трансграничный университет", в котором принимают участие четыре российских и пять финских университетов. В рамках этого проекта ведётся согласование требований, которые будут предъявляться к совместным российско-финским степеням.

Five universities in Finland and four in Russia are planning to establish cooperation which would allow students to complete common degrees.
The Cross Border University project began this year, and its results are to be assessed in late 2007, when the possibility of common doctorate programmes is to be considered.
Minister of Education Antti Kalliomäki (SDP) met with Russia's Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko in Moscow on Tuesday.
Finland and Russia are trying to establish equivalent academic degrees that follow the principles of the Bologna Declaration, which urges the establishment of common degrees between different countries.
Russia joined the process of establishing a European region for higher education in 2003.
The schools involved in the joint project with Russia are the universities of Helsinki, Tampere, Kuopio, and Joensuu, as well as the Technical University of Lappeenranta. The project is being coordinated by the University of Joensuu.
Russian participants include St. Petersburg State University, the St. Petersburg Technical State University, the European University of St. Petersburg, and the University of Petrozavodsk.
English-language masters' programmes are planned for international politics, information technology, commercial science, public health, history, as well as forestry and bioenergy technology.
Nuclear physics, cryogenics, nanotechnology, space research, and information technology are seen as promising areas in scientific and technological cooperation.
The two ministers feel that more cooperation is needed in the commercial applications of research and technology.

Группа российских ученых исследуют молекулярно-генетические механизмы долгожительства. Условно гены могут быть разделены на "гены долгожительства", "гены недолговечности" и "нейтральные гены". Среди долгожителей должно быть много людей с первым типом генов, к тому же их генотип должен подразумевать повышенную сопротивляемость болезням, сокращающим продолжительность жизни.

Specialists of the State Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector", Research Institute of Therapeutics (Siberian Branch of Russian Medical Academy of Sciences) and State Medical Academies of Novosibirsk and Tumen are investigating molecular-genetic mechanisms of longevity. They have managed to discover several gene combinations, which contribute to longevity of the Siberian population.
Life interval of a person is in complicated dependence on his/her individual genetic peculiarities and on conditions where they become apparent. According to their influence on the life interval, genes can be conditionally divided into "genes of durability", "genes of caducity" and neutral ones. Apparently, among long-livers there should be a lot of people with durability gene variants. Specifically, their genotype should allow for resistance to diseases that shorten the life. The durability genes include the p53 gene, the key regulator of cellular cycle and apoptosis, genes of the chemokyne receptor CCR5 and alpha tumor necrosis factor (TNFα). The Siberian researchers compared distribution of these genes' variants among long-livers of the Novosibirsk and Tumen Regions varying from 84 to 104 years of age and among the Novosibirsk teen-agers. Gene variants the most frequent with old people are combinations of durability. Genotypes typical for teenagers do not promise long life because they are rarely found among old people.
Each of investigated genes may exist in several variants. A certain modification of the p53 gene is associated with the development of some malignant growths and glaucoma. The CCR5 gene mutation gives a person resistance to such serious diseases as plague, tuberculosis, smallpox, AIDS and to age pathologies: pancreatic diabetes, myocardial ischemia, rheumatoid arthritis. One of the TNFα gene variants reinforces antimicrobial and antineoplastic immunity, but the same variant increases probability of fatal outcome in case of some diseases of declining years: Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's sclerosis, pancreatic type II diabetes and osteoporosis.
Comparison of the DNAs educed from the blood of experiment participants has proved that variants of each gene are found with equal frequency both among old people and among teenagers. The life span is impacted not so much by variants of individual genes as by their combinations, the same gene variant may act both as a risk factor and a defense factor depending on what genes it interacts with. Thus, the TNFα variant in combination with less active p53 modification ensures a more reliable apoptosis and defense from pathologies. This "durable" combination is particularly often found among long-livers.
On the other hand, "caducity" is reinforced (and infectious diseases spread is promoted) by the combination of the same TNFα variant, typical of the carriers of less active immunity, in combination with the active CCR5 gene, which ensures cells infection with influenza viruses, herpes simplex, Epstein-Barr and papillomaviruses. Many other diseases, including tumors and cardiovascular system pathologies, are connected with infections, infections take the leading position among diseases that reduce the life span of Siberian population, and the active CCR5 variant could have become extreme rarity if it had not played an important role in apoptosis in combination with the p53.
The long-livers' gene pool is enriched by "durability" combinations that allowed their owners to stand up against deleterious impact of life. As living conditions are different everywhere, that is why "durability" combinations differ in various groups of long-livers. The Siberian researchers discovered distinctions even between old people of the Novosibirsk and the Tumen Regions. The long-livers' gene pool analysis allows to obtain valuable scientific information about genes' interaction with each other and interaction of genotype with various environment factors. Researchers appeal to urgently form data banks for long-livers of different race and ethnic and climato-geographic belonging. This should be done quickly until the population migration reaches the level when it is impossible to take into account the local factors' action.

Власти Хабаровского края объявили в четверг вечером о введении режима чрезвычайной ситуации в связи с продвижением по реке Суньхуа (русское название - Сунгари) пятна бензола - исключительно вредного для здоровья вещества. Бензол попал в воду после взрывов на предприятии Цзилиньской нефтехимической компании (Китай), произошедших еще 13 ноября. Сунгари впадает в Амур, который, в свою очередь, течет по всему Хабаровскому краю. Протяженность отравленного пятна составляет около 80 км, уровень загрязнения в 29 раз превышает предельно допустимую концентрацию. Уже 1-3 декабря это пятно должно достичь российской границы.

Une immense pollution au benzène de la rivière Songhua prive la métropole du nord-est (4 millions d'habitants) d'eau potable. Une autre explosion dans une usine chimique menace des villes du sud-ouest du pays.
La ville de Harbin, capitale de la province du Heilongjiang, au nord-est de la Chine fait face à un désastre écologique dû à la pollution au benzène de la rivière Songhua qui la traverse. Le 13 novembre, l'explosion dans une usine pétrochimique de la China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) située dans la province de Jilin à quelque 300 km au sud-est de Harbin, faisant cinq morts, et entraînant l'évacuation de 10 000 personnes, a provoqué la fuite de quantités importantes de benzène dans les eaux du Songhua. Mais ce n'est qu'une dizaine de jours plus tard, le 23 novembre, que les conséquences de la catastrophe ont été rendues publiques déclenchant la polémique sur la gestion de la situation. La nappe de produits toxiques d'une longueur de 80 km a dérivé et est entrée jeudi dans Harbin. Selon les experts, elle devrait mettre une quarantaine d'heures à traverser la ville. Harbin est donc confrontée à une pollution de son eau potable depuis une dizaine de jours. Mardi, les autorités locales avaient décidé de couper l'eau, ce qui a poussé les habitants à augmenter leurs provisions d'eau minérale. Ces derniers jours, ils ont également quitté la ville en masse. Pour ceux qui sont restés, le gouvernement promet un retour à la normale dès le week-end prochain, une fois que le fleuve aura entraîné la nappe polluée au-delà de la ville. La nappe a déjà parcouru quatre cents kilomètres vers le nord. Les fabricants de bière de Harbin ont été mis à contribution pour fournir de l'eau saine aux habitants par le biais de leurs propres forages d'eau. Ces puits ne sont pas connectés avec le fleuve Songhua qui fournit la ville en eau.
Le Fonds mondial pour la nature (WWF) a exprimé, dans un communiqué, sa "grande inquiétude quant aux effets négatifs du produit toxique [pour] la population et l'environnement de la région". L'explosion a libéré une grande quantité de benzène. Il s'agit d'un produit chimique liquide, sans couleur, et très inflammable à l'origine de leucémies, pour des personnes exposées trop longtemps à cette substance et qui la respirent. Les spécialistes parlent également de danger pour les organismes aquatiques. Pour se débarrasser de cette pollution, il faut éviter de la faire transiter dans des tuyaux de distribution d'eau. La solution, difficile à mettre rapidement en œuvre à l'échelle de Harbin et de plusieurs fleuves, serait de filtrer l'eau avec du charbon actif qui retient les polluants. La nappe chimique se déplace maintenant en direction du fleuve Amour, frontière entre la Chine et la Russie. L'agence russe de protection de l'environnement a indiqué que les polluants chimiques venant de Chine allaient certainement, dès ce week-end, affecter l'alimentation en eau potable de Khabarovsk, la grande ville de l'Extrême-Orient russe, située à la frontière de la Chine. La cité a été mise en état d'urgence. Mais, outre les risques qui pèsent sur la région russe voisine, la discrétion est de mise sur les autres cités et bourgs chinois que traverse la Songhua. Comme Songyuan (3 millions d'habitants) et Zhaoyuan (450 000). Avec Harbin qui compte une population de 4 millions de personnes, ce sont plus de 9 millions de Chinois qui seraient touchées par la catastrophe. Un responsable de l'administration de l'environnement, cité par Chine nouvelle, a cependant minimisé les effets de ces produits chimiques dans l'eau, en expliquant que les affluents du Songhua allaient absorber une partie de la pollution chimique. Quand les eaux polluées du Songhua arriveront dans le fleuve Amour, la pollution aura été diluée dans une plus grande quantité d'eau. Ce que contestent des scientifiques affirmant que les toxiques ne se dissolvent pas dans les eaux gelées.
Fait inhabituel en Chine, le vice-gouverneur de la province du Jilin, Jiao Zhengzhong, et Zeng Yukang, directeur général adjoint de la China National Petroleum Corp., ont présenté leurs excuses aux habitants de Harbin. Mais l'origine de l'explosion n'est toujours pas connue, de même que la localisation précise de l'usine en cause et les autorités n'ont pas encore décidé de l'ouverture d'une éventuelle procédure judiciaire à l'encontre de la compagnie.
L'inquiétude était d'autant plus forte en Chine que l'agence Chine nouvelle annonçait hier matin une nouvelle explosion dans une usine chimique dans le sud-ouest de la Chine, qui pourrait aussi être à l'origine d'une autre pollution au benzène. L'explosion s'est produite jeudi dans une usine de la Yingte Chemical Company, dans le comté de Dianjiang, dans la région de Chongging, selon Chine nouvelle. Un excès de peroxyde d'hydrogène pourrait avoir causé la déflagration. Les écoles voisines ont été fermées et environ 6 000 personnes ont été évacuées, a rapporté le quotidien Beijing Daily Messenger. Les autorités ont conseillé aux populations locales de ne pas boire ni d'utiliser l'eau d'un fleuve voisin.

Испытания новых спутниковых аппаратов "Глонасс-М" будут завершены в 2006 году. Этими аппаратами комплектуется спутниковая группировка отечественной навигационной системы ГЛОНАСС, которая, в свою очередь, является частью "Глобальной навигационной системы", федеральной программы, рассчитанной на 2002-2011 годы.

(BBC Monitoring International Reports via NewsEdge) Flight trials of modernized Glonass-M satellites for the Russian satellite navigation system will be completed in 2006, Albert Kozlov, the general director and general designer of the Reshetnev applied mechanical engineering science and production association in Zheleznogorsk, told Interfax - Military News Agency.
"Flight and design trials are being completed with two Glonass-M satellites. Another two Glonass-M's are scheduled for launch at the end of the year. These will be for testing purposes, which in 2006 will enable us to complete flight trials of the upgraded Glonass system using the Glonass-M satellite," Kozlov said.
The upgraded Glonass system is part of the "Global Navigation System" federal program for 2002-2011, he pointed out. The plan is to modernize the system in two phases.
Phase one is to develop the Glonass-M satellite, to serve as the backbone of an 18-strong orbiting group serving the Ministry of Defence and civilian agencies. The second is to create the Glonass-K, a lighter and scaled-down satellite with an upgraded specification, and to use it as the basis for a 24-satellite Glonass constellation.
The schedule was to complete flight trials of the Glonass-M in 2004 and the Glonass-K by 2007. But "significant cutbacks in funding for space programs meant that we lost contacts we had established, specialists left the industry, corporations fell apart and equipment became obsolete", Kozlov said. "Funding for the federal program has resumed so we can embark on design and development work on upgrading the Glonass system, but the timescales for the first phase of the program have slipped by two years."
The lack of proper full financing is affecting timescales across the federal program, Kozlov said. In particular, the deployment of the minimum required 18 satellites in 2007 "could fall through" because of the failure to buy space equipment in time. "The expected delay is eighteen months to two years," Kozlov said.

Планы по строительству нефтепровода Восточная Сибирь - Тихий океан угрожают уже не только существованию последней популяции дальневосточного леопарда, но и озеру Байкал, которое входит в Список всемирного наследия ЮНЕСКО. По последнему проекту нефтепровод пройдет по трассе БАМа, менее чем в километре от северной оконечности озера. В случае аварии на трубе до четырех тысяч тонн нефти окажутся в Байкале за 20 минут.

The plans for construction of the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil-pipe line not only threaten the existence of the last population of the Far Eastern leopard but also Lake Baikal. According to the latest project, the oil-pipe line will go along the route of the Baikal-Amur trank line, less than a kilometer from the northern extremity of the Lake -the town of Severobaikalsk.
"According to the designers' estimates, in case of an emergency in the pipe line, up to four thousand tons of oil will get into Baikal within 20 minutes!" comments Mikhail Kreidlin, Greenpeace expert. Lake Baikal is registered in the List of UNESCO World Heritage, which Russia has always been proud of. That is why now, if the plans of Transneft do not change, the UNESCO experts who have visited the locations of prospective construction will recommend including Baikal in the "List of the World Heritage in Danger". And in the future, if the Russian authorities do not undertake specific steps to preserve the lake, Baikal may even be excluded from the List! That will be national disgrace for Russia, as there have never been such precedents in the world.
"This variant of the project is even worse than the previous one, under which the route used to be placed closer to the north - in the territory of Yakutia, - says Mikhail Kreidlin. Besides its vicinity to Baikal, according to the current version the route will run for 70 kilometers along the intense seismic load zone, more than 9 to 10 on Richter scale." On top of that, the oil-pipe line will go directly through the "Barsovy (Ounce)" game reserve.
This is what deals with the route of the prospective oil-pipe line. However, the major disagreement is caused by the location assigned for the oil-loading terminal construction - Pervoznaya Bay in the Amur Gulf. From the point of view of environmental safety and from the economic and social viewpoint, this option is the worst of all possible ones as it is stated in the report produced by the WWF Russia, Greenpeace and the International Foundation for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Strong winds and fogs are typical of the Amur Gulf, this is a large, open and rather shallow gulf with multiple sandbanks and islands that would impede the tankers travel. Pervoznaya Bay - is a clean virgin seacoast with sand beaches that are popular as a resting place for natives and tourists. In immediate proximity to the prospective terminal is the "Kedrovaya Pad' (Cedar Fold)" biosphere reserve, the reserve being under the UNESCO protection, and the only in Russia marine reserve is located near Pervoznaya Bay. The town of Vladivostok is opposite it.
Along with that, there exist seven other variants - other bays for terminal placement in addition to Pervoznaya Bay. And most importantly, there exists the town of Nakhodka - the major seaport where oil terminals and finished infrastructure are already available and can be used for construction of one more terminal.
"The south of the Far East - is one of the three major locations in terms of bio-diversity resources in the entire non-tropical Eurasia, - says Evgeny Shvartz, Director of Conservation Policy, WWF Russia. It is the only place inhabited by the Far-Eastern leopard - the most rare cat in the world, it population including only about 30 remaining individuals. The leopard - is a banner, as this predator is on top of the pyramid of numbers, and if we preserve leopards that means that we preserve the entire valid Far-Eastern ecosystem where the leopard is able to exist. This is really a unique ecosystem, where species from the tropics and from Northern Yakut taiga are neighbors."
Environmental public organizations' viewpoint is shared by scientists including Academician Yu. S. Osipov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The same standpoint is also upheld by Academician P.Ya. Baklanov, Director of the Pacific Institute of Geography, and Academician Yu. N. Zhuravlev, Director of the Institute of Biology and Soil, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, and it was defended by Corresponding Member V.L. Kasianov, Director of the Institute of Marine Biology (Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences) recently deceased under mysterious circumstances. But nobody considers the opinion of the scholars of authority.
Transneft - is a public company, but nevertheless the Russian legislation is violated, as inviolability of protected natural territories of federal importance can be infringed in no circumstances. "It is odd how the company is going to get foreign credits with such attitude towards environmental responsibility," says Evgeny Shvartz. For a public company, the state interests should be foremost in any case.

Точные и надежные датчики для определения концентрации сероводорода в воздухе разработали химики из Воронежской государственной технологической академии. В основе прибора - пьезоэлектрические резонаторы.

Sensitive and durable sensors for determination of hydrogen sulfide concentration in the air were developed by chemists of the Voronezh State Technological Academy in collaboration with their colleagues from the Smolensk production association "Analitpribor". Based on commercially available piesoelectric resonators, these sensors will reliably protect workers' health by letting know that the poison concentration in the air has approached a dangerous boundary.
At first sight it seems that nature has provided for protection from the harmful gas. A human nose is able to catche hydrogen sulphide (according to the manual's definition, the substance that strongly reeks) in absolutely tiny quantities when the gas concentration in the air is expressed in the thousandths of milligram per cubic meter. But the paradox is that this particular sensitivity of the nose can let us down: when the hydrogen sulphide concentration is approaching the maximum allowable value impending chronic desease of respiratory tract, blood, eyes, skin and digestive apparatus, the smell seems weaker to us. This is a kind of olfactory illusion.
The device developed by the Voronezh chemists will help to fight this illusion. It should be noted that researchers from the group under the guidance of Professor Yakov Kornman have learned to produce quite a variety of sensors based on microweighing of the air mixture analyte. They are based on the so-called piesoelectric resonators. These are devices the main component of which is a quartz plate covered by a special layer, vibrating at a strictly determined frequency under the influence of imressed voltage.
If we manage to find such a materiel for this covering that could efficiently and, most importantly, selectively sorb (extract and retain) molecules of a certain substance from the air, then a peculiar scales is obtained. The covering grows heavier due to analyte molecules "caught" from the air and begins to vibrate at a new frequency, the value of which depends on the quantity of analyzable compound accumulated in the coating material.
The task has to be solved anew for each new substance - the material should be found to selectively and efficiently extract a certain substance from the mixed gas. Every time the problem is successfully solved by the group under the guidance of Ya. I. Korenman and his colleague, Doctor of Science (Chemistry) Tatiana Kuchmenko. The problem was solved for hydrogen sulphide by development of an appropriate sensitive and selective sensor.
It is interesting to note that as a receptor covering - the layer on the surface of the quartz plate - the authors used various materials, including beeswax, which showed pretty good results. One of the best modifiers turned out to be the so-called apiezon wax - something like dense lubricant or resin. To make it adhere well to the quartz surface, the researchers suggest that it should be preliminarily processed by the polystyrene or starch solution.
Produced in strict compliance with such method, the sensors will be able to determine the hydrogen sulphide content in the air for 80 thousand times. Then the sensors can be replaced, and the old ones can be simply thrown away - this is an expandable and relatively low-cost material. The concept, its scientific and practical development is expensive. All that has been already done by the chemists. Now the production is pending - and them automatic devices will be constantly supervising the hydrogen sulphide concentration in workrooms, thus protecting the health of workers for whom, as Ford rightly remarked, no spare parts were provided for by nature.

Министр образования и науки РФ Андрей Фурсенко объявил о разработке проекта закона, согласно которому предприятия, использующие в своей деятельности инновационные разработки российских ученых, получат налоговые льготы.

Le ministre russe de l'Enseignement et de la Recherche, Andreï Foursenko, a annoncé mercredi l'élaboration d'un projet de loi instaurant des avantages fiscaux pour les entreprises titulaires de droits de propriété intellectuelle, rapporte l'agence Ria Novosti.
Le ministre qui intervenait devant le Conseil de la Fédération russe (chambre haute) a indiqué que ces amendements au Code fiscal doivent stimuler le développement des technologies d'innovation en Russie.
M. Foursenko a promis de quadrupler le nombre d'entreprises d'innovation sur le marché de la propriété intellectuelle, selon l'agence. Concernant la protection des intérêts des chercheurs russes, le ministre a souligné qu'en Russie, la situation n'est pas idéale non plus sur le plan de la protection de la propriété intellectuelle.
Nous avons une législation tout à fait compétitive sur ce point, mais c'est l'application de la loi qui dérape, notamment en matière de lutte contre la contrefaçon. Nous ne sommes pas en mesure de défendre nos concepteurs dans le domaine civil aussi bien que dans le domaine militaire, a fait remarquer M. Foursenko.
Hélas, le piratage demeure très répandu, mais il perd tout de même du terrain, a-t-il noté avant d'ajouter que la protection des droits de propriété pour les marques soviétiques demeure également un problème aigu.

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