Январь 2007 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Oldest Nuclear Reactor In Europe To Celebrate Its Anniversary
• Science accolade for a reclusive genius
• Russia Won't Transfer Space Technology
• Russian Science Medal "Symbol of Science" Established
• Les scientifiques russes pronostiquent des séismes en Extrême-Orient en 2007
• Earliest Evidence Of Modern Humans In Europe Discovered By International Team
• New Technique For Extracting Cardiovascular Drug Ingredient From Plants
• Russian space legend would be 100 Friday
• India needs to focus on solar energy, says Russian scientist
• Russie-Inde : un centre d'échange de technologies pourrait être ouvert à Moscou

Старейшему в мире действующему ядерному реактору исполнилось 60 лет. Расположен он в Российском научном центре "Курчатовский институт" и был запущен 25 декабря 1946 года.

Today the oldest nuclear reactor of Eurasia, located at Russian science centre "Kurchatov Institute" celebrates its 60th anniversary.
The reactor was launched for the first time December 25 of 1946 in northern suburbs of the Russian capital, where Russian physicists have performed self-sustaining chain reaction of uranium fission on the first nuclear reactor F-1 on the European continent.
The rector required 500 tons of graphite and 50 tons of uranium for performing said reaction. The unit is a sphere with 7.5 m in diameter. The reactor's power excursion exceeded 1 thousand kVt, and uranium's temperature reached 60-70 degrees Centigrade. These power excursions were aimed at accumulating plutonium, for performing biological experiments and studies of changes in material properties under radiation impact.
This unique unit is still working nowadays and today celebrates its 60th anniversary.

Журнал Science в очередной раз опубликовал свой рейтинг десяти самых выдающихся научных достижений прошедшего 2006 года. На первом месте - доказательство гипотезы Пуанкаре, работа петербургского ученого Г. Перельмана.

The work of a reclusive Russian mathematician who solved a 100-year-old mystery has been voted Breakthrough of the Year by Science, one of the world's leading scientific journals.
Grigori Perelman published three articles on the internet more than three years ago claiming to have solved Poincaré's conjecture, a mathematical puzzle first identified in 1904 by the French mathematicican Henri Poincaré.
This year Dr Perelman won the ultimate accolade in mathematics - the Fields Medal - but refused to accept it, along with a separate prize of $1m (£530m) offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Massachussets, preferring to retreat to his mother's flat in St Petersburg.
His proposed solutions to the conjecture, published in 2002 and 2003, were validated by other mathematicians in the field of topology - the science of surfaces.
"While bringing new results to topology, Perelman's work brought new techniques to geometry," said Science. "It cemented the central role of geometric evolution equations, powerful machinery for transforming hard-to-work-with spaces into more-manageable ones."
Topology is sometimes known as "rubber-sheet geometry" because it deals with properties of surfaces that can undergo any amount of arbitary stretching or squeezing - but not tearing or, the opposite, sewing. Poincaré's conjecture has foxed the best mathematical minds for decades, and even a lay explanation is difficult to comprehend.
The simplest explanation involves imagining the surface of a football. Its surface remains essentially the same whether the ball is inflated or deflated - and in this respect the ball's surface is said to be two-dimensional.
A rubber band stretched over the ball can be squeezed into a single point anywhere on the surface without breaking or tearing the band, or the ball. This is not the case if the ball has a hole in it to make it into a torus, a doughnut-like shape.
This means that the football is the only two-dimensional shape with this property. Poincaré recognised there was a three-dimensional space for which it was also true and asked whether it was the only such three-dimensional space. Dr Perelman effectively demonstrated that this was indeed true.
Three separate teams of mathematicians took two years to work through Dr Perelman's proof and concluded he had solved the famous conjecture.
Dr Perelman has resigned from the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St Petersburg and still lives in his mother's flat.
Breakthroughs of 2006
Neanderthal DNA
Two teams of scientists announced in 2006 that they had decoded the sequence of long stretches of DNA extracted from the bone of Neanderthal man. This close cousin diverged from our ancestral line about 450,000 years ago.
Shrinking ice
The world's two biggest ice sheets, on Greenland and Antarctica, are melting at an accelerating pace according to pioneering studies involving airborne laser measurements and space radar mapping.
Four-legged fish
A fossil dating back 375 million years was described as a creature that was half-fish, half-amphibian. It appears to be a "missing link" in the water-to-land transition of the vertebrates. Tiktaalik's fin-like front limbs had a wrist and elbow.
Invisibility cloak
Physicists claimed to have invented a camouflage jacket that makes people disappear. It only works when viewed in microwaves, which veer round the jacket, producing a bizarre "see-through" effect.
Blindness treatment
A study published in October showed that a drug called ranibizumab improves the vision of about a third of patients with the more serious form of age-related macular degeneration and stabilises the condition of the rest. The drug received approval in the US this year.
New species
Charles Darwin puzzled over speciation - how two species evolve from one. Now scientists have shown just one genetic mutation can do this. Beach mice in Florida and the cactus finch are two species where small changes can result in big physical differences between two related species.
Cellular insights
Biologists gained insights into the internal workings of cells and proteins this year with microscopic techniques that side-stepped the limits of conventional optical instruments. The scientists overcame the barrier of the physical limit to light's wavelength.
Memory molecules
Several 2006 studies claim memories form by a process that strengths the connections between individual nerve cells. The process - long-term potentiation - is the basis of how we remember past events years later.
RNA interference
Research supports the idea that genes are controlled by small molecules of RNA - a close cousin of DNA. A new class of RNA molecules which can interfere with genes were found in the testes of mammals - probably to maintain sperm development.

Руководитель российского Федерального космического агентства Анатолий Перминов заявил, что Россия будет сотрудничать с Китаем при осуществлении космических проектов, но строго в рамках соглашения, не подразумевающего передачу технологий двойного назначения.

MOSCOW Dec 26, 2006 (AP) - Russia will cooperate with China on space projects, but will not transfer sensitive technologies that could enable Beijing to become a rival in a future space race, the head of Russia's space agency said Tuesday.
Anatoly Perminov, chief of Russia's Federal Space Agency, said Moscow and Beijing would cooperate in robotic missions to the moon. He added, however, that Russia would maintain restrictions on sharing technology.
Russia sold China the technology that formed the basis of its manned space program, which launched its first astronaut in 2003 and two others in 2005. The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft closely resembles the Russian Soyuz.
"The Chinese are still some 30 years behind us, but their space program has been developing very fast," Perminov said at a news conference. "They are quickly catching up with us."
The next Chinese manned space flight is due next year. China also wants to send up a space station and land a robot probe on the moon by 2010.
Perminov said that Russia would cooperate with China in space exploration strictly within the framework of a bilateral agreement that doesn't envisage exporting Russian space technologies.
"We aren't transferring any technologies to China now," Perminov said. "This issue has been under special control of the government."
He said some Russian scientists who violated the ban have been punished an apparent reference to Valentin Danilov, a physicist who was convicted of spying for China in 2004. Danilov pleaded innocent in the case, saying the information on satellites he provided was not classified and that he had published some of it in scientific magazines.
"For China, whose economy has seen an immense growth, its space program has been one of the top national priorities," he said. "They are spending much more on space compared to Russia … and their space industries employ many times more the number of scientists and workers than Russia's."
After decades of rivalry, Moscow and Beijing have developed what they call a strategic partnership since the 1991 Soviet collapse, pledging their adherence to a "multipolar world," a term that refers to their opposition to the perceived U.S. domination. China also has become a top customer for Russia's weapons industries, purchasing billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles, submarines and destroyers.
But despite the burgeoning bilateral ties, some Russian politicians and political experts have voiced concern that China's growing could eventually threaten Russia and pointed at a growing flow of Chinese migrants to Russia's sparsely-populated Far East.
Perminov said Russia led the world in the number of space launches this year, accounting for about 24 of the world's total of 65 space launches so far about 40 percent and ahead of the United States, which he said had a 28 percent share.

Некоммерческое Партнерство популяризации достижений науки и техники "Мир Науки" учредило научную медаль "Символ Науки". Медаль будет присуждаться отдельным гражданам и коллективам Российской Федерации и других стран за "гармоничное сочетание в научной деятельности, либо в деятельности по популяризации науки, рационального, эстетического и этического начал, создание и воплощение идеальных образов ученых, идеальных образов науки".

Nonprofit partnership "Mir Nauki" (World of Science) has recently announced about establishing new Russian science award - "Symbol of Science" medal.
This annual award will go to citizens of Russia and other countries, as well as Russian and international think-tanks for harmonious combination of rational, esthetic and ethic basis and creation and realization of ideal images of scientists and science either in scientific activities or popularizing science.
"Symbol of Science" medals will be awarded in several nominations. Six medals go for "Scientist" category (among representatives of natural sciences, social sciences, research-on-research, semiotic studies, philosophy and application development), as well as one medal goes for each of following categories: "Man of art", "Mass-media person", "Statesman", "Businessman" and "Public man".
Medals will be awarded according to the Steering Committee decision based upon preferential voting of Expert Council, which consists of leading experts in various fields - scientists, journalists and public figures.
First award ceremony is scheduled for the Day of Russian Science usually celebrated on February 8 every year.

Ученые Дальневосточного отделения РАН прогнозируют землетрясения и цунами в районе Курил, Камчатки и на Сахалине в 2007 году.

La Section Extrême-Orient de l'Académie des sciences de Russie prédit tremblements de terre et tsunamis en 2007 dans la région des Kouriles, du Kamtchatka et à Sakhaline, a annoncé mardi lors d'une conférence de presse Viktor Kapkanchtchikov, directeur du centre régional du ministère des Situations d'urgence.
"Les chercheurs n'écartent pas la possibilité de tremblements de terre dans le détroit de Tatarie. Des éruptions de volcans, notamment Cheveloutch, Karymski, Bezymianny et Klioutchevskoi, au Kamtchatka, sont également probables", a-t-il ajouté.
Trois volcans se sont déjà mis en éruption. Ils ne présentent pas de menace pour la population mais certains itinéraires aériens ont dû être modifiés, selon le représentant du ministère des Situations d'urgence.
Selon les prévisions, l'année prochaine les incendies de forêts en Extrême-Orient commenceront plus tôt et seront plus importants que d'habitude, si l'été est aride.
"Dans la seconde moitié de l'année, les typhons seront plus fréquents au Primorié. Mais les crues des rivières régionales ne provoqueront pas de situations d'urgence. Des inondations en Yakoutie, au Primorié et dans la région de l'Amour seront possibles après la débâcle et pendant les cyclones", a expliqué Viktor Kapkanchtchikov.
Des catastrophes d'origine technologique analogues à la pollution du Soungari et de l'Amour en 2005 sont très peu probables, à la différence des pollutions pétrolières, a fait remarquer le représentant du centre régional.
En 2007, les accidents sur les navires en mer et les infractions aux règles de navigation peuvent se multiplier à cause des conditions météorologiques. Des accidents sont également possibles dans les usines électriques, selon la même source.
D'autre part, le ministère des Situations d'urgence pronostique une augmentation en 2007 du nombre des incendies et des accidents de la route.

Продолжение дайджеста за ЯНВАРЬ 2007 года (часть 2)

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