Апрель 2006 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Leading Russian scientist receives British award
• Les premiers pas d'Edelweiss II pour détecter la matière noire
• For Russia's nuke town, it's comeback time
• Parkinson's disease may be treated by electric current
• Russian scientists to finish construction of observatory in Uzbekistan
• Compost made of oil
• Heat-loving bug find in Antarctic
• Un scientifique russe affirme le lien entre agent orange et santé des victimes vietnamiennes
• L'Académie des sciences et Chevron signent un accord de coopération scientifique et technique
• Arctic water flow speeding up
• River "50 times overpolluted"
• "Almost 70,000 Russian deaths" from Chernobyl disaster
• Migrant Birds Put The Clock Forward
• Russia covets China nuclear deals

Российский ученый, профессор Дмитрий Гаркунов получил золотую медаль Британского трибологического треста за выдающиеся заслуги в области трибологии (науке о трении и износе материалов).

MOSCOW, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - A prominent Russian scientist received a prestigious British award Friday for his achievements in a sphere that has made a significant contribution to seemingly diverse fields ranging from the aviation and chemical industries to agriculture.
British Ambassador Tony Brenton handed the Gold Tribology Trust Medal to Professor Dmitry Garkunov, who became the fifth Russian scientist to receive this most important award in the branch of engineering that focuses on the interaction of surfaces in relative motion, their design, friction, wear and lubrication.
Garkunov, who already has several Russian state prizes to his name, opened a new branch in tribology and made two important discoveries in the field of selective transfer and metal hydrogen wear. His inventions are widely used in engineering, as well as many other spheres.

Астрофизики уверены, что основную часть Вселенной заполняет пока еще неуловимая темная материя. В настоящее время наиболее вероятными "кандидатами" на эту роль считаются WIMPs - слабовзаимодействующие с обычным веществом массивные частицы ("вимпсы"). Они тяжелее протонов и нейтронов и способны взаимодействовать с ними только посредством гравитации. Для регистрации очень редких столкновений между WIMPs и нормальными частицами физики устанавливают детекторы глубоко под землей. В ходе международного эксперимента Edelweiss II (Франция, Германия, Россия), целью которого как раз является определение таких частиц, получены первые результаты. Эксперимент проходит в подземной лаборатории Модан в автомобильном туннеле Фрежюс (Франция - Италия).

L'expérience Edelweiss II (1) enregistre, depuis janvier 2006, ses premières impulsions. Edelweiss est une expérience dont le but est la détection des Wimps, particules de matière noire, dans le laboratoire souterrain de Modane (LSM, CNRS/IN2P3 - CEA). Malgré d'excellentes performances, Edelweiss I avait une sensibilité limitée par le bruit de fond des neutrons ambiants. Avec Edelweiss II, il va être possible de gagner un facteur 100 sur la sensibilité à la découverte des Wimps et de tester une grande variété de modèles proposés dans le cadre des théories de supersymétrie. Edelweiss II sera inaugurée le 31 mars prochain à Modane.
La matière ordinaire, constituée d'atomes, qu'ils soient terrestres, stellaires ou galactiques, ne contribue que pour environ 4 % à la densité totale de l'Univers. Une partie des 96 % restants serait formée de matière cachée (25 %), dite aussi matière noire, le reste étant de "l'énergie noire". La matière noire tire son nom du fait qu'elle interagit faiblement avec la matière ordinaire et qu'elle est notamment insensible aux interactions électromagnétiques qui pourraient donner lieu à un rayonnement lumineux. Son éventuelle existence, prédite pour la première fois dans les années trente par l'astronome Fred Zwicky, est une des énigmes majeures de la physique léguées par le XXe siècle. Plusieurs théories de physique subatomique, en particulier les théories de supersymétrie, prédisent qu'elle pourrait être constituée d'un nouveau type de particules, les Wimps (acronyme anglo-saxon de particule massive interagissant très faiblement).
De nombreuses équipes dans le monde cherchent à observer les Wimps. Mais ces particules sont très difficiles à détecter compte tenu de leur très faible interaction avec la matière ordinaire (et donc avec un détecteur), d'où la nécessité de se protéger des parasites que constituent d'une part le rayonnement cosmique et la radioactivité qu'il induit, et d'autre part la radioactivité naturelle (corps humain, roches, matériaux). Pour cela, les physiciens travaillent dans des laboratoires souterrains avec des matériaux d'une pureté radioactive extrême et leurs détecteurs sont protégés par de multiples blindages. L'objectif est de détecter les infimes "chocs" entre des Wimps et les noyaux atomiques du germanium des détecteurs, notamment par la mesure de la très faible élévation de température qu'ils produisent (un millionième de degré environ).
Installés dans le hall du LSM au milieu du tunnel routier du Fréjus, les détecteurs ultra-sensibles d'Edelweiss sont protégés des rayons cosmiques par 1 700 m de roche.
Edelweiss I, qui rassemblait 3 détecteurs de 320 grammes de germanium pur, avait déjà tenté d'observer des Wimps sans y parvenir. Pourtant, elle avait en 2002 la meilleure sensibilité mondiale, par rapport à ses concurrents installés dans d'autres laboratoires souterrains en Italie, en Angleterre, aux États-Unis et au Japon. Cette sensibilité n'a été égalée et surpassée (par un facteur 4) que deux ans plus tard par une expérience similaire aux États-Unis appelée CDMS.
Pour augmenter la sensibilité de la recherche, il a donc été décidé de construire une nouvelle installation, Edelweiss II. Placée dans un nouvel environnement, elle comprendra dans un premier temps 28 détecteurs (soit une masse totale d'environ 9 kg) et devrait atteindre dans les années à venir environ 120 détecteurs (soit une masse totale d'environ 40 kg) abrités par un blindage de 100 tonnes de plomb et polyéthylène. Unique au monde par la taille de son cryostat, d'un volume de 100 litres, capable de refroidir la quarantaine de kilogrammes de détecteurs en germanium à une température proche du zéro absolu, Edelweiss II aura alors une sensibilité environ 100 fois plus grande que celle d'Edelweiss I. En leur permettant d'explorer de nouveaux modèles dans le cadre des théories de supersymétrie, elle constituera, pour les équipes françaises, allemandes et russes d'Edelweiss, un outil décisif dans la course à la recherche de ces particules évanescentes, les Wimps.
En janvier 2006, Edelweiss II a accompli avec succès la première mise à froid de son nouveau cryostat et a enregistré les premières impulsions des détecteurs. Ces impulsions, induites pour l'instant par la radioactivité ambiante, manifestent le bon fonctionnement des détecteurs dans le tout nouvel environnement. Elles seront éliminées après la phase de mise au point, par la mise en place des différents blindages de l'expérience qui ne laisseront alors passer que les Wimps.
(1) La collaboration Edelweiss est constituée de six laboratoires français [CEA/DSM (Dapnia, Drecam), CNRS/IN2P3 (Institut de physique nucléaire de Lyon, Centre de spectrométrie nucléaire et de spectrométrie de masse), CNRS/MIPPU (Centre de recherche sur les très basses températures), CNRS/INSU (Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, Institut d'astrophysique spatiale)], deux laboratoires allemands (FZ Karlsruhe, université de Karlsruhe) et un laboratoire russe (Dubna/DLNP).

Российское правительство недавно сделало Дубну одним из четырех финансируемых государством технопарков, создание которых должно завершиться к 2010 году. Этот шаг может либо возродить, либо окончательно уничтожить Дубну и тысячи ее ученых и исследователей.

DUBNA, Russia - The buildings along Joliot-Curie Street, the main thoroughfare in this science-mad town, are a symbol of a once-elite institution trying to reinvent itself.
For celebrations marking the anniversary of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, founded 50 years ago this month as the communist world's axis of nuclear know-how, facades are freshly painted.
But step around the corner, and the sides of the once-proud buildings are a faded web of cracking paint and stucco.
Inside the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, there are other signs of the struggle between a glorious past and an uncertain future. Dimly lit hallways, made perilous by dangling cables and ceiling tiles, give way to small labs filled with scientists working on brand-new Hewlett Packard and Dell computers - Dubna's tenuous, albeit high-speed, connection to the rest of the world.
Surviving the Soviet collapse
Nearly 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the star of Dubna, as the institute is commonly known, has faded. Budgets have been slashed, research curtailed. The buildings that once housed the brightest minds of science behind the Iron Curtain need more than a fresh coat of paint. For Dubna's member states - former Soviet republics and satellite countries such as Poland and Bulgaria once in the Kremlin's orbit - nuclear research is no longer a pressing national concern.
"During the last 15 years, we had problems connected with economic difficulties in our countries," said Dubna's director, Alexei Sissakian. Dubna's budget for 2006 is $37.5 million, which is stretched to provide everything from research projects to housing and subsidies for more than 5,000 staff. Sixty percent of the budget comes from Russia, with other member states contributing according to a scale determined by size and wealth.
"For this kind of institute, it's not much," Sissakian admitted, noting that the budget of CERN, Dubna's European counterpart, is roughly 20 times higher. "Nevertheless, we have survived," Sissakian said.
Storied history
With dozens of important discoveries to its name, including the theory of super fluidity and super conductivity, Dubna still carries many echoes of its past. Black-and-white photos of seminal institute events line corridors, and a newly renovated canteen is called Cafe 105, after Dubna's most famous addition to the Periodic Table of Elements (christened "Dubnium"). But there is a new catch phrase in the institute's darkened corridors: special economic zone. The Russian government recently decreed Dubna as one of four state-funded technoparks to be completed by 2010 - a move could make or break Dubna and the thousands of scientists and researchers it employs.
Although Russian authorities have a checkered track record in providing economic incentives to the technology sector, scientists hope this time the government gets it right by providing tax breaks and investment opportunities.
The country has the educational underpinnings to make it work. Russia graduates some 200,000 science and technology specialists every year - a number equal to India, which has five times the population, and where President Putin visited a month before he announced Russia's technopark scheme. "It's a new birth," said Mikhail Itkis, director of the Flerov Laboratory.
"Innovation belt"
Dubna has about 50 current projects with applications to everyday life, including nuclear filters that can be used to maintain the sterility of rooms in hospitals. Scientists say the fields of radiation monitoring, nanotechnology, IT and telecommunications could attract both outside investment and bright young minds to replenish Dubna's ranks.
"We hope this law will support us to develop an innovation belt around our laboratories," Sissakian said. Until then, Dubna will have to rely on government subsidies to stay afloat, not an easy task when many member states are facing economic hard times. Last year, for instance, North Korea failed to pay in full a $150,000 bill for a small group of students studying what Sissakian called "fundamental" physics in Dubna. "They have financial problems," Sissakian said understatedly.

Сотрудники Института мозга человека РАН разработали метод, облегчающий лечение болезни Паркинсона. При методе транскраниальной электрополяризации слабый электрический ток воздействует на мозг через электроды на коже. При этом снижается повышенный мышечный тонус и частично восстанавливаются движения пациента, а также уменьшаются побочные эффекты от применения лекарственных средств.

A simple and efficient method that facilitates Parkinson's disease treatment has been developed by researchers of the Institute of Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences. Influence of feeble electric current on the brain via electrodes laid on the head skin - the so-called transcranial electric polarization (TCEP) - reduces muscle tone and partially restores patients' movements. In combination with antiparkinsonian drug intake, TCEP reduces their side effect.
Parkinson's disease is a chronic progressive degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Its main symptoms are - voluntary movements disorder, increased muscle tone (rigidity) and trembling (tremor). The disease was for the first time described by an English physician James Parkinson in 1817 in his "Essay on Shaking Palsy". The origin of the disease has not been fully investigated yet.
Today, Parkinson's disease is no longer the destiny of elderly people, young people become increasingly its victims. This was declared by Igor Zavolokov, head of neurology department, clinics of the Institute of Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences. According to him, such conclusion was made by the St. Petersburg neurologists based on their experience of patient management. "Parkinson's disease is rather widespread, said the physician, about 1 percent of people older than 60 and about 5 percent of people older than 80 suffer from it, however, recently the disease is more and more often registered with the 30-year old patients. Not long ago, a 19-year old girl was diagnosed with this disease." According to the researchers' opinion, this situation is due to increasing negative impact of the environment and genetic anomalies accumulation.
The drugs that parkinsonism patients have to take lifelong often have strong side effects and therefore do not relieve the patient's state too much. Besides, the drugs lose their effectiveness with time. That is why researchers and physicians are in constant search for new remedies. Transcranial electric polarization may become one of such remedies, according to the opinion of researchers from the Institute of Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. The experimental group involved 110 patients with stages of Parkinson's disease from 1 to 4, 80 patients were included in the main group where TCEP was applied, and the remaining 30 made the reference group and received only drugs. The patients from the main group did not give up the drugs either but in addition they received three to four sessions of electric therapy every other day. Continuous current of 2 milliampere acted for 15 minutes via cathode and anode on the head skin. The patients' state was assessed judging by intensity of main symptoms - movement rate, muscle tone and tremor - prior to the sessions and after them.
According to physicians' observations, TCEP application resulted in reduction of reduntant muscle tone, increase in movement rate and also decrease of drug's side effects. The only thing TCEP had no influence on was tremor. Nevertheless, these are considerable results. Effectiveness of procedure influence on movements and muscle tone varied from 100 to 63.3 percent depending on the stage of disease. The TCEP session effect remained for half a year to a year.

В Узбекистане начался второй этап строительства Международной радиоастрономической обсерватории на высокогорном плато Суффа в Джизакской области Узбекистана. Строительство было начато еще в середине восьмидесятых годов, приостановлено в 1990 и вновь возобновлено в 1995 году после подписания российско-узбекского межправительственного соглашения. Обсерватория расположена на высоте 2300 метров и оснащена крупнейшим в мире зеркальным радиотелескопом диаметром 70 метров. Помимо этого "Суффа" будет включать в себя станцию спутниковой связи, компьютерную систему сбора и обработки научной информации, высокоточную координатную систему и службу точного времени. Сдача объекта запланирована на середину 2009 года. Между Россией и Узбекистаном заключено соглашение по совместному использованию МРАО "Суффа" на 99 лет с правом дальнейшего продления.

Last year the scientists of the Science Academies of Russia and Uzbekistan successfully completed the preparatory stage of the project on implementation of the intergovernmental agreement on establishment of the International Radio-Astronomical Observatory (IRAO) on the Uzbek plateau of Suffa. The agreement on foundation of Suffa IRAO was signed in July 1995 in Tashkent. Under the document, the Russian party was to subsidize the construction and launching of the observatory. It provided the design and estimates documentation, radio-technical systems and special equipment as the initial contribution to the project.
For maintenance purposes, the Finance Ministry of Uzbekistan will provide purposeful funding starting 2006. The project was also included in the investment programme of the country for 2006-2007.
Along with the radio telescope RT-70, Suffa IRAO will have a station of satellite communication, a computer-based system for collection and processing of scientific information, and a residential village for the service personnel. Moreover, the observatory will be equipped with a high-precision coordinate system and the exact time service.
In order to complete the construction, the project will require the minimum of US#30 million. The object is due mid 2009. The agreement on the shared use of the Suffa IRAO by Russia and Uzbekistan has been signed for 99 years with the possibility of prolongation.
Meanwhile, the second stage of construction of the international radio-astronomical observatory on the high-level plateau of Suffa has already been started, Uzbek State Agency for Cosmic Research UzbekCosmos reported. Russian and Uzbek specialists have checked the condition of the construction sight, completed the project-research works and developed the projection and estimate design documentation. The intergovernmental examination gave a positive consolidated conclusion on the technical-economical basis of the project.
The Uzbek party has allotted land area for construction, checked the stock and estimated the property value. Construction of the observatory on the plateau Suffa in Jizzakh region of Uzbekistan was commenced in the mid 1980s. The observatory, located 2,300 m above the sea level, was equipped with the largest in the world reflecting radio telescope RT-70, with the diameter of 70 metres. In 1990, as the Soviet Union was on the verge of breaking up, the construction was seized. On beginning the project, Uzbek scientists estimated the volume of unfinished work at around 60%.

Твердые отходы нефтехимического производства (нефтешлам) относятся к наиболее устойчивым загрязнителям окружающей среды. Специалисты Казанского государственного университета и ОАО "Нижнекамскнефть" предлагают перерабатывать нефтяные отходы в компост. Ученые нашли способ эффективно нейтрализовать нефтешлам и одновременно утилизовать еще два нефтехимических отхода - отработанный наполнитель биофильтров и отходы производства лапрола. Исследователи предполагают усовершенствовать процесс и добиться более глубокой очистки нефтехимических отходов за счет взаимодействия микроорганизмов и растений. Тогда технологию компостирования можно будет использовать для восстановления нарушенных земель, рекультивации свалок и разведения леса на истощенных почвах.

Solid oil waste should be processed into compost. Specialists of Kazan State University and the Open Joint-Stock Company "Nizhnekamskneft" stick to this opinion. The obtained compost is practically nontoxic, and bio-utilization of waste may be an excellent alternative to harmful waste storage and combustion.
Solid waste of petrochemical production (oil-slimes) belongs to the most persistent environment pollutants. Oil-slimes consist of oil carbohydrates and products of their processing, including asphaltic-resinous substances, as well as phenols, xylols, styrene and multiple other toxic and carcinogenic substances. Of course, oil-refining plants possess slime storage and waste disposal plants, but they do not solve the problem. Therefore, biotechnological methods of oil-slime disposal, including composting, increasingly attract specialists.
As foreign experience shows, the soil containing 3.5 percent of oil carbohydrates, can be purified via composting within 4 to 5 months, while by itself it would be purified within three years. Russian scientists have undertaken their own research.
The proving ground for them was slime accumulators of the "Nizhnekamskneftekhim" plant that had been duly operating for more than 40 years. For field trials, the researchers used the upper layer of oil-slime, which had been dried for a year prior to that at a special site. In May, the experimentalists formed compost beds: first, they laid a 30-centimeter layer of wood chips (wood chips representing exhaust biofilter filler material), they put oil-slime on top, then – another layer of aerating agent and a layer of oil-slime. The bed was 140 centimeters high. The site with compost beds had a small slope for redundant liquid drainage.
The slimes of the "Nizhnekamskneftekhim" enterprise are populated with their own microflora that aggressively destroys waste. Appropriate conditions were created for microbes: good airing of compost beds was ensured and nutrients – laprol production wastage– were poured on the beds. In response to the care, microorganisms destroyed major contamination within four months. 14 more months were taken up by degradation of residual, mainly hard-to-reach slime components. In a year and a half after composting had begun, oil carbohydrates concentration in the bed equaled about 12 g/kg, the initial level of contamination making more than 56 g/kg, that is, the decrease was by 85 percent. Content of stable fraction of multiring aromatic hydrocarbons reduced by 90 percent. During the year and a half, the compost toxicity sometimes reduced or sometimes slightly increased, but the final variant turned out to be quite harmless, even red radish grows upon the compost.
This is how the researchers found the way to efficiently neutralize petrochemical slime and to simultaneously utilize two more petrochemical wastes - exhaust biofilter filler material and laprol production wastage. The researchers assume that the process will be improved and they will achieve finer cleaning of petrochemical waste due to interaction of microorganisms and plants. Them the composting technology may be used for recovery of disrupted lands, scrap-heaps reclamation and forest growing on exhausted soils.

Во время бурения льда над озером Восток российские и французские исследователи обнаружили следы термофильных бактерий, которые обычно существуют при температуре +50-60° по Цельсию. Сейчас такие бактерии остались в 5-6 местах на Земле, в горячих источниках.

Researchers have found traces of a heat-loving bacterium that may live beneath a frozen lake in Antarctica.
Lake Vostok is covered by more than 3km of ice and must have been isolated from our planet's atmosphere for millions of years. The bacteria appeared in sediment mixed with a core of ice drilled by Russian and French researchers. The heat-loving, or thermophilic, bacterium may suggest that hydrothermal vents exist on the lake floor. Meanwhile, a new ice core drilled this season may reveal whether there is also life in the lake itself.
Hundreds of lakes exist beneath the thick Antarctic ice sheet, but with an area of 14,000 sq km Vostok is by far the largest. It has never been penetrated, but scientists know it is there through radar measurements taken from above.
Lost world
Because Vostok sees no sunlight and has not been in contact with the atmosphere since it was covered with ice around 15 million years ago, scientists hope it might reveal the kind of life that could exist on other planets, or on Europa, the ice-covered moon of Jupiter.
All information about the contents of Lake Vostok comes from an ice core drilled by Russian and French scientists. The core was originally intended to study past climate, but although drilling stopped more than 100m above the lake's surface, the bottom parts of the core turned out to be frozen chunks of the lake water itself.
Now a team of Russian and French scientists have used this core to investigate what the lake is truly like. So far they have found no definitive traces of life within Lake Vostok. But the ice also contained streaks of dark sediment that they believe was thrust up from the lake floor by a small earthquake. In the sediment, the team found genetic traces of a bacterium that usually lives in temperatures of 50-60C.
"We expected to find life adapted to a cold environment but instead we found exactly the opposite," said Jean-Robert Petit of the Laboratory of Glaciology and Geophysics of the Environment in Grenoble, France.
Rare bug
To be sure the bacteria really exist below Lake Vostok, the researchers had to be very careful not to contaminate their sample. They compiled a list of microbes that could be found in their laboratory, and eliminated every one from their results. But the heat-loving bacterium appeared only in the ice core. In fact it is quite unusual, making the researchers even more confident that this one must have come from below the lake.
"We were happy because this bacterium has only been found until now in five or six places on Earth," said Sergey Bulat of the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute. They now believe that Lake Vostok may have some kind of hydrothermal heating system at its base, making it more active than anyone had realised.
Concentrated bleach
Meanwhile they are still searching for other evidence of life in the lake water itself. Recently American researchers announced they had found microbes that must have come from Vostok lake water, but the results were controversial with others saying they were simply contamination. The Russian and French team have even suggested that the lake water itself may be sterile. They say that oxygen has been pumped into the lake from the ice above for millions of years. This would have turned the water into a concentrated solution of bleach. However if this is true it would be the first truly lifeless body of water ever found on Earth.
New drilling from the Russians may help to resolve this controversy. This season they returned to drill again at Vostok for the first time in eight years. By extending the Vostok drill hole to a depth of 3650m, a new world record, they managed to obtain an extra 27m of ice core. Since this ice comes from even closer to the water surface, it should reveal much more about the contents of this mysterious lake.

Владимир Румак, генеральный директор Российско-вьетнамского тропического Центра, в течение 18 лет изучающего последствия применения США химического оружия во Вьетнаме, считает неопровержимой связь между "оранжевым агентом" (один из пяти типов использованных химических веществ) и массовыми заболеваниями местных жителей.

Hanoi, 28 mars (AVI) - Un scientifique russe, Vladimir S. Roumak, a affirmé que les résultats de ses travaux et de ses collègues ont témoigné la relation entre l'agent orange versé par les forces armées américaines pendant la guerre au Vietnam et la détérioration de la santé des victimes vietnamiennes.
Lors d'un entretien avec l'Agence vietnamienne d'information (AVI), en marge du colloque international des victimes de l'agent orange tenu les 28 et 29 à Hanoi, M. Vladimir S. Roumak, directeur général du Centre tropical vietnamo-russe, a précisé que durant 18 ans de recherches et par des études sur des dizaines de milliers de personnes, outre des centaines de tests différents dans plusieurs localités du Vietnam, son groupe de recherche est arrivé à une ultime conclusion sur les liens entre les agents défoliants versés par les Américains pendant la guerre au Vietnam et la santé des victimes vietnamiennes.
Ce lien a également été reconnu lors de nombreuses conférences internationales, a ajouté le professeur et le docteur ès chimie russe. Il existe actuellement des preuves légales précises pour démontrer les rapports entre cet agent et la santé des victimes vietnamiennes, a fait savoir V. S. Roumak, affirmant que sa tâche est de fournir, de façon objective, des preuves recevables pour soutenir le travail des avocats.
Les ouvrages d'études de ce professeur russe ont fourni aussi des renseignements concrets afin de prévoir une éventuelle contamination par l'agent orange et de rétablir la santé des personnes affectées de ce produit. Ses recherches ont jeté un fondement scientifique pour dédommager les victimes de l'agent orange et restaurer l'environnement atteint.

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