Ноябрь 2010 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Russia awards "megagrants"
• Curtain falls on collaborative work
• British firm provides vision for the future
• Saving the Black Sea
• Renforcement des relations scientifiques russo-suisses: voyage en Russie du secrétaire d'Etat à l'éducation et à la recherche Mauro Dell'Ambrogio
• La Station spatiale internationale a 10 ans
• RUSNANO to Invest in Development and Production of Fiber Lasers and Telecommunications Equipment in Russia
• Russia's Yaroslav Sergeyev wins Pythagoras Prize
• Colorado State University, Saratov State University in Russia Join Forces to Take Laboratory Innovation to the Marketplace
• First Russian-Chinese scientific expedition to be launched from Vladivostok
• En Russie, l'innovation reste une affaire d'état
• Abort, Retry, Ignore? The West's Hate/Hate Relationship with Skolkovo
• RUSNANO and Plastic Logic Announce Agreement to Establish New Plastic Electronics Production in Russia
• From Lomonosov to Nansen - and beyond
• Ancient DNA Reveals Origins Of First European Farmers
• How The USSR Tried To Melt The Arctic
• In Race for Private Space Stations, It's U.S. Versus Russia
• Feel the pulse of the universe at the Moscow Planetarium
• Russia hopes plan to save endangered tigers worth more than the sum of their parts
• Russian Science: Waking From Hibernation
• Renforcer les propriétés cicatrisantes du chitosan
• Siberian Methane: The Latest Eco-boogeyman
• As Siberia's thawing permafrost leaks methane, some see another emerging climate threat
• Supercalculateurs: la Russie va franchir son premier pétaflop avec T-Platforms

Российская корпорация нанотехнологий (Роснано) и ведущий британский производитель пластиковых чипов компания Plastic Logic подписали соглашение о намерениях по производству нового поколения электронных пластиковых дисплеев.

MOSCOW & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies and Plastic Logic Inc. today announced they have entered into an agreement to create Plastic Logic's second volume production facility for its next-generation plastic electronic displays and establish a plastic electronics industry in Russia. Under the terms of agreement RUSNANO intends to make a significant investment in the company, which is the global leader in the emerging field of plastic electronics, as part of a large-scale investment project.
Plastic Logic said it will continue to house its core R&D facility in Cambridge, England, as well as maintain its commercial factory in Dresden, Germany and corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Plastic Logic has developed broad and deep intellectual property in plastic electronics. Plastic electronics technology has many economic, manufacturing, form factor and environmental benefits, and will ultimately replace traditional silicon semiconductor glass-based display products in a variety of devices in the future. Plastic Logic's first application of the technology makes possible an amazingly thin, lightweight, robust and flexible active matrix display that is unmatched in the marketplace. The display is at the core of Plastic Logic's first commercial consumer electronics product, a next-generation electronic reader for business that is currently under development.
"The production facility for the next generation of plastic displays will become the first step to establish the new branch of a electronics industry in Russia. By the time of the launch, the Russian facility will be the world's most advanced fabrication plant in the plastic electronics industry," said RUSNANO Managing Director Georgy Kolpachev.
Founded in 2000 by researchers from the Cambridge University Cavendish Laboratory in the UK, Plastic Logic opened its first high-volume, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Dresden, Germany in 2008, where it will continue with production of the company's first commercial product.
"RUSNANO's investment will enable us to dramatically expand operations in support of volume production of our next-generation products, and to continue to advance our technology platform to deliver on our broader long-term vision," said Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta.
"As a global company, we evaluated multiple countries for our expansion efforts and ultimately Russia offered the best strategic partnership opportunity," added Plastic Logic's CFO Rik Thorbecke. "Russia provides access to an enormous talent pool of scientists and engineers, and proximity to our European centers in Cambridge and Dresden. We have been very impressed with the caliber of the RUSNANO organization and, most importantly, its commitment to undertake the significant investment required to build a world-class volume production center capable of producing hundreds of thousands of units a month."
About Plastic Logic
Plastic Logic's mission is to lead a revolution in the way people acquire, organize and consume information. We are using our proprietary technology leadership in plastic electronics to create a range of innovative products. Founded in 2000 by researchers out of the Cambridge University Cavendish Laboratory, Plastic Logic has research and development in Cambridge, England; high-volume, state-of-the-art manufacturing in Dresden, Germany; and executive management, product engineering, sales and marketing headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information about Plastic Logic, please go to PlasticLogic.com.
About Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO)
RUSNANO was established in 2007 with the major strategic goal of fostering the development of innovative processes in the field of nanotechnologies by supporting their commercialization. RUSNANO aims to encourage the growth of Russian nanotech industry to the level of annual sales of 900 bln rubles by 2015. The sales of nano-enabled products by companies invested by RUSNANO are aimed at 300 bln rubles.
The corporation strives to do this by co-investing in nanotechnology projects likely to make a significant economic or social contribution. Creating the innovative environment, RUSNANO helps to develop nanotech infrastructure and supports education for industry professionals. To assist the Russian nanotech industry to strengthen its international links and advance to the global market, RUSNANO develops partnerships with the world's leading nanotechnology centers.
The management bodies of RUSNANO are the Supervisory Council, the Executive Board, and the Chief Executive Officer. In September 2008 Anatoly Chubais was appointed CEO of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies. To learn more about RUSNANO and/or to submit your project for investment consideration please visit our website www.rusnano.com.

23-28 января 2011 г. в норвежском городе Тромсё пройдет Пятая конференция "Арктические рубежи", посвященная устойчивому развитию Арктики. Конференция также станет основной площадкой для празднования памятных дат в истории мировой науки. В 2011 году в России будут отмечать 300-летие со дня рождения Михаила Ломоносова, в Норвегии - 150-летие со дня рождения Фритьофа Нансена и 100-летие первой антарктической экспедиции на Южный полюс во главе с Руалем Амундсеном. Россия и Норвегия планируют совместные выставки и семинары по вопросам международного научного сотрудничества под названием "От Ломоносова до Нансена - и далее".

The annual high-profile science and society conference Arctic Frontiers will next year address the concept of tipping points as it applies to social, economic and ecological systems.
The conference takes place he week 23-28 January in Norway's Arctic capital Tromsø.
Arctic Frontiers celebrates its 5th anniversary in 2011 and marks the occasion by addressing the role of research for sustainable development of the Arctic.
Over the last five years Arctic Frontiers has developed to become a highly significant arena for discussions of Arctic issues
True to its mandate and name, Arctic Frontiers endeavours to facilitate dialogue and partnerships across sectors, generations and ethnic groups, the organizers write in a press-release.
Selected speakers from the Arctic and non Arctic countries are invited to present their perspectives on the future of the High North, followed by discussions on how upcoming challenges in the Arctic may be addressed to ensure sustainable development.
The conference theme of 2011 is Arctic Tipping Points, and will address the concept of tipping points as it applies to social, economic and ecological systems. Additional focus will be on how research can promote sustainable development and resource management in the High North. 
The opening speech of the 2011 conference will be given by Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Stшre. "Arctic Frontiers is an important international event aimed at fostering open and independent dialogue on sustainable development in the Arctic", Gahr Stшre states in a commentary on the Arctic Frontiers webpage published today.
From Lomonosov to Nansen - and beyond
Arctic Frontiers 2011 is acting as organizer and main venue when Russia and Norway join forces and to celebrate the international dimension of science. In 2011 Russia is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the multitalented Russian scientist and writer, Michail Lomonosov, "the father of Russian science".
In Norway 2011 will be celebrated as the Nansen - Amundsen Year, marking the 150th anniversary of the Norwegian scientist, diplomat and Nobel laureate, Fridtjof Nansen, and the 100th anniversary of the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole, lead by the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen. On this occasion Russia and Norway join forces to promote and celebrate the international dimension of science, arranging a joint exhibition and seminar on international research cooperation titled "From Lomonosov to Nansen - and beyond".
Opening of both events will take place in Tromsø, on the opening night of Arctic Frontiers, Sunday 23 January 2011.
The conference program of 2011 was launched on the Arctic Frontiers webpage this week. At the launch, conference manger Reinhold Fieler said: "Arctic Frontiers is an international meeting place. The program addresses both state of the art science and policy issues concerning the High North.  We are very excited about the fifth Arctic Frontiers conference, and look forward to welcoming former and new participants to Tromsø and Arctic dialogue".

Группа международных исследователей (Австралия, Россия, Германия) при помощи анализа ДНК проследили происхождение людей, которые около 8000 лет назад принесли в Европу сельское хозяйство. 

A team of international researchers led by ancient DNA experts from the University of Adelaide has helped resolve the longstanding issue of the origins of the people who introduced farming to Europe some 8000 years ago. A detailed genetic study of one of the first farming communities in Europe, from central Germany, reveals marked similarities with populations living in the Ancient Near East (modern-day Turkey, Iraq and other countries) rather than those from Europe. The results of the study will today in the online peer-reviewed science journal PLoS Biology.
Lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak, of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, says "We have shown that the first farmers in Europe had a much greater genetic input from the Near East and Anatolia, than from populations of Stone Age hunter-gatherers who already existed in the area."
Project leader Professor Alan Cooper, Director of ACAD, says "This helps to overturn current thinking, which accepts that the first European farming populations were constructed largely from existing populations of hunter-gatherers, who had either rapidly learned to farm or interbred with the invaders."
The ancient DNA used in this study comes from a complete graveyard of Early Neolithic farmers unearthed at the town of Derenburg in Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany. Dr. Haak and colleagues used genetic signatures to identify a potential route from the Near East and Anatolia, where farming evolved around 11,000 years ago, via south-eastern Europe and the Carpathian Basin (today's Hungary) into Central Europe. Using these new, high-precision ancient DNA methods to create a detailed genetic picture of this ancient farming population reveals that it was different to the hunter-gatherer populations already present in Europe.
The project involved researchers from the University of Mainz and State Heritage Museum in Halle, Germany, the Russian Academy of Sciences and members of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project, of which Professor Cooper is a Principal Investigator and Dr Haak is a Senior Research Associate.
"This work was only possible due to the close collaboration of archaeologists excavating the skeletons, to ensure that no modern human DNA contaminated the remains, and nicely illustrates the potential when archaeology and genetics are combined," says Professor Kurt Werner Alt from the collaborating Institute for Anthropology in Mainz, Germany.
Funding: This research was supported by the German Research Foundation, the Geocycles Research Centre at the University of Mainz, and The Genographic Project. The Genographic Project is supported by funding from the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Family Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests statement: The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Haak W, Balanovsky O, Sanchez JJ, Koshel S, Zaporozhchenko V, et al. (2010) Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities. PLoS Biol 8(11): e1000536.

Отрывок из книги Джеймса Роджера Флеминга "Управление небом: история попыток изменить климат" (Fixing the Sky: the Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control), вышедшей в издательстве Columbia University Press.
Идея сделать климат Арктики более мягким путем повышения объема теплых вод, поступающих в Арктический бассейн, появилась еще в конце XIX века. В 1950-х гг. советский ученый П.М.Борисов предложил проект преобразования климата с помощью теплого течения Гольфстрим. Предполагалось построить в Беринговом проливе огромную плотину. Расположенные в ней насосы будут перекачивать воду из Чукотского моря в Тихий океан, а компенсировать понижение уровня воды будет приток теплых вод Атлантики. Гольфстрим постепенно переместится на северо-восток и будет "обогревать" Арктику.

The story of one intrepid Soviet scientist, his quest to dam the Bering Strait, melt the Arctic and bring prosperity to the Frozen North. Aside from the massive, man-made global warming, what could possibly go wrong?
The idea of melting the Arctic ice cap dates at least to the 1870s, when Harvard geologist Nathaniel Shaler suggested channelling more of the warm Kuroshio Current through the Bering Strait:
"Whenever the Alaskan gates to the pole are unbarred, the whole of the ice-cap of the circumpolar regions must at once melt away; all the plants of the northern continents, now kept in narrow bounds by the arctic cold, would begin their march towards the pole…It is not too much to say that the life-sustaining power of the lands north of forty degrees of latitude would be doubled by the breaking down of the barrier which cuts off the Japanese current from the pole."
In 1912 Carroll Livingston Riker, an engineer, inventor, and industrialist, proposed a scheme to change the climate of polar regions by tinkering with the ocean currents of the Atlantic. This was to be accomplished by preventing the cold Labrador Current from colliding with the Gulf Stream. To do this, he proposed building a 200-mile causeway extending east from Cape Race off the coast of Newfoundland. The theory was that the causeway could be built by suspending a long rope cable, or "obstructor," in the ocean that would act to slow the southward flow of the Labrador Current, causing it to deposit its sediment load. Potential benefits of diverting the Gulf Stream farther east (shades of Thomas Jefferson) included fewer fogs and a general warming of northern climates. Riker's proposal was inspired by recently completed mega-projects such as Henry Flagler's railroad bridge from Key West, Florida, to the mainland and the ongoing excavation of the Panama Canal. The tragic sinking of the Titanic also lent urgency to his proposal, since his causeway might help remove icebergs from shipping lanes. Riker was supported in Congress by Representative William Musgrave Calder (R-New York), who proposed the creation of a Commission on the Labrador Current and Gulf Stream. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels was not at all convinced by the proposal, but thought that a general survey of the currents of the Grand Banks would be useful.
An ice-free Arctic Ocean was one of the largest-scale and most widely discussed climate-engineering projects of the time. Jules Verne's story The Purchase of the North Pole (1889) may have been inspired by such ideas. Ironically, an ice-free Arctic ocean is something we may actually see sooner or later through a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences. In 1957 Soviet academician Borisov, alluding to the centuries-old quest of the Russian people to overcome the Northland cold, proposed building a dam across the Bering Strait to melt the Arctic sea ice. In numerous articles and then again in his book Can Man Change the Climate? (1973), Borisov detailed his vision of a dam 50 miles long and almost 200 feet high with shipping locks and pumping stations. He proposed that the dam be built in 820-foot sections made of prefabricated freeze-resistance ferroconcrete that could be floated to the construction site and anchored to the sea bottom with pilings. He further suggested that the top of the dam be shaped so that ice floes would ride up over the dam and break off on the southern side. An alternative design included an intercontinental highway and railroad. According to Borisov, "What mankind needs is war against cold, rather than a "cold war."
To liquidate Arctic sea ice, Borisov wanted to pump cold seawater out of the Arctic Ocean, across the dam, and into the Bering Sea and the North Pacific. This displacement would allow the inflow of warmer water from the North Atlantic, eliminate fresh water in the surface layer in several years, and thus prevent the formation of ice in the Arctic Basin, creating warmer climate conditions: "In this day and age, with mankind's expanding powers of transforming the natural environment, the project we are advancing does not present any technical difficulties. The pumping of the warm Atlantic water across into the Pacific ocean will take the Arctic ocean out of its present state of a dead-end basin for the Atlantic water [and] drive the Arctic surface water out into the Pacific ocean through the Bering Strait."
His goal was to remove a 61m layer of cold surface water, which would be replaced by warmer, saltier water that would not freeze. Inspired by Markin's popular book Soviet Electric Power, Borisov also assumed that huge amounts of electricity would soon be available to run the pumps, perhaps from hydroelectric generators or nuclear reactors.
The dam was, of course, never built, but if it had been attempted, would the nations of the world have confronted the Russians? The net climatic effect of the project, if it had been carried out, is still highly uncertain. A good argument can be made that the effect would be less than that of naturally occurring variations in the Atlantic influx, but none of the computer models at the time were sophisticated enough to show any robust results. Other ocean-engineering schemes included installing giant turbines in the Strait of Florida to generate electricity and adding a thin film of alcohol to the northern branch of the Gulf Stream to decrease surface water evaporation and warm the water by several degrees, although the cod might become rather tipsy.
In Japan, engineers imagined that the icy Sea of Okhotsk could be tamed by deflecting the warm Kuroshio Current with a dam or one-way water valve built at the Tatarsk Strait. And in a 1970 geo-engineering experiment thought suitable only for testing on a computer model (aren't they all?), the Japanese geo-scientific speculator Keiji Higuichi wondered what would happen to the global atmospheric and oceanic circulation and thus the world's climate if the Drake Passage, between the tip of South America and Antarctica, was blocked by an ice dam. One possibility was the onset of a new ice age.
Russian scientists warned of possible climate disruption from such mega-projects. Borisov admitted that the large-scale climatic and ecological effects of his Bering Strait dam could not be fully predicted, nor could they be confined within the borders of any one national state; rather, they would directly involve the national interests of the Soviet Union, Canada, Denmark, and the United States and indirectly affect many countries in other areas that might experience climate change caused by the project. With such a dam in place, the middle-latitude winters would be milder due to the warming of Arctic and polar air masses. He thought areas such as the Sahara would be much better watered and would perhaps turn into steppe land or savannah. Direct benefits of an ice-free Arctic ocean would include new, more-direct shipping routes between East Asia and Europe, while, by his overly optimistic calculations, sea-level rise would be modest, even with the melting of the Greenland ice cap. Yet such climatic changes elsewhere were of little concern to the Soviets. Larisa R. Rakipova noted that a substantial Arctic warming could cool the winters in Africa by 50C, "leading to a complete disruption of the living conditions for people, animals, and plants," and Oleg A. Drozdov warned that the warming of the Arctic would lead to a total breakdown of moisture exchange between the oceans and continents with excess rain in the Far East and great aridity in Europe. The resulting drastic changes in the soils, vegetation, water regime, and other natural conditions would have widespread negative ecological, economic, and social consequences. As in the fictional case described earlier in The Evacuation of England, Rusin and Flit also wondered what might happen if the Americans implemented one of their projects and turned the Gulf Stream toward the shores of America: "In Europe the temperature would drop sharply and glaciers would begin to advance rapidly". In his book The Gulf Stream (1973), T. F. Gaskell pointed out, "This is why such natural phenomena as the Gulf Stream have political implications." 37 Geoengineers should realise that the same is true of a wide range of natural phenomena.
In addition to sea ice, the Soviets were also battling the "curse of the Siberians" - permafrost as thick as 488m in places. One suggestion to remove it involved applying soot to the snowfields to absorb more sunlight; or perhaps cheaper materials such as ash or peat could do the job. Reminding their readers that "everyone knows what permafrost is," Rusin and Flit recounted its horrors: "A newly constructed house unexpectedly begins to shift, a Russian stove suddenly begins to sink into the ground, deeply driven piles spring from the ground," and when it melts and refreezes, the trees of the mysterious "drunken forests" lean akilter, like a Siberian full of vodka. In the 21st century, permafrost has reemerged not as a local curse but as something to be saved, in part to preserve the migration patterns of the reindeer and caribou, and as a global environmental issue because of its high methane gas content. In 1962 Rusin and Flit opined, "Much has been learned, but it has been impossible to completely eliminate permafrost."
James Rodger Fleming is a historian of science and technology and professor of science, technology and society at Colby College. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He recently held the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution.

Россия и США вступили в новую космическую гонку, на этот раз - по строительству частных космических станций. Один из проектов компании Bigelow Aerospace предполагает создание обитаемых отсеков на орбите. Проект российской компании "Орбитальные технологии" по созданию жилища-лаборатории пользуется поддержкой государственной космической программы и называется "Коммерческая космическая станция" (ККС). Такие станции рассчитаны на более широкую клиентуру - ученых, производителей космических материалов, туристов.

A new space race is beginning, but this time between private companies, not nations. Businesses in the United States and Russia are vying to be the first to launch a private space station.
One project, an inflatable space habitat, already has six clients waiting for it, according to the company, Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas. "We're just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg with commercial opportunities and pent-up demand," Mike Gold, Bigelow Aerospace's director of Washington, D.C. operations and business growth, told SPACE.com.
The other venture, led by two companies in Russia, is called the Commercial Space Station and aims to be a combination laboratory and hotel. Both the CSS and the Bigelow station are looking to launch in the next five years or so.
The Russian project has received support from the official Russian space program.
"We consider the Commercial Space Station a very interesting project, encouraging private participation," said Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Russia's Federal Space Agency. "It will attract private investment for the Russian space industry."
To date, space stations have been a national or international affair. Russia achieved early success with its Salyut and Mir stations, and NASA brought the United States into the game first with Skylab in 1973. The U.S. and Russia have since teamed up with 13 other countries to build the $100 billion International Space Station, which celebrated a decade of continuous manned operations this month.
But private space stations like those promised by Bigelow Aerospace and the Moscow-based Orbital Technologies, which is backing the Commercial Space Station, hold the promise of catering to a wider clientele - a customer base  that includes scientists and governments, as well as materials manufactures and thrill-seeking space tourists.
An expandable station
The inflatable design developed by Bigelow Aerospace is based on discontinued research by NASA under the Transhab project on modules made with Kevlar-like composites that expand in space. These offer far more room than comparable modules on the International Space Station, while providing as much or more protection against radiation and impacts from debris, Bigelow officials said.
"When traditional metallic structures in space are struck by solar flares, they get a secondary radiation effect called scattering that can be deadly," Gold explained. "Our structures are nonmetallic, substantially reducing that problem and offering enhanced protection against radiation."
When it comes to impacts from micrometeoroids and the like, the Bigelow modules' skins can not only absorb and disperse the energy from strikes, but can retain their shape as well. "Expandable structures hold their integrity longer than physical structures, which can collapse," Gold said. "The additional volume our structures have buys additional time to fix them as well."
The first Bigelow station will consist of four components in low-Earth orbit. First is the Sundancer module, which has 6,356 cubic feet (180 cubic meters) of usable space and can support a crew of three. Next is a node-bus combination that adds docking capability, and then a second Sundancer. Last comes a BA330 module, which provides 11,653 cubic feet (330 cubic meters) of space and can hold up to six crewmembers.
"That's a crew capacity of 12, double that of the International Space Station," Gold said.
The BA330 boasts four large windows coated with a film that protects against ultraviolet rays, and contains an environment control and life-support system, including lavatory and hygiene facilities. The station will be powered by solar arrays and batteries, similar to the International Space Station.
The Bigelow station will be geared toward astronautics and commercial and scientific microgravity research, Gold said, not tourism. "First and foremost, we are not a space hotel," he stressed in an interview.
Bigelow Aerospace already has six customers lined up, in the form of memoranda of understanding with space agencies and government departments in Australia, the Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The cost for customers to use the station remains uncertain, "as that's largely driven by the issue of transportation there and back," Gold said. "Once we know what transportation vehicle we'll use and where we'll launch from, we'll have a better idea on costs."
Their station could launch by 2015 or so, Gold said, using United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket or SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. They are partnered with Boeing to produce a crew capsule as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative.
"Customers and companies that have access to space will be the economic giants of the future. We hope it happens here, and hope that all of humanity can enjoy its benefits," Gold said.
Russian competition
Two Russian companies have also recently announced their intentions to build, launch and operate a private space habitat named the Commercial Space Station, or CSS.
"The most exciting possibilities include flights from the station to the moon or Mars," Sergey Kostenko, chief executive officer of Moscow-based Orbital Technologies, told SPACE.com.
Orbital Technologies said the station will have a crew of up to seven and will be serviced by Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and potentially other commercially available vehicles. The station would consist of one module about 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter powered by solar arrays, with a usable volume of about 700 cubic feet (20 cubic meters), Kostenko said. The plan is to launch it in 2015 or 2016.
The company added that it already had several customers under contract from the commercial space industry and the scientific community interested in areas such as medical research, protein crystallization, and materials processing, as well as from the geographic imaging and remote-sensing industry. Media projects have also been proposed.
"The biggest goal may be tourism," Kostenko said.
The Commercial Space Station could also serve as an emergency refuge for the International Space Station's crew.
"If a required maintenance procedure or a real emergency were to occur, without the return of the ISS crew to Earth, habitants could use the CSS as a safe haven," said Alexey Krasnov, head of manned spaceflight at Russia's Federal Space Agency. Orbital Technologies is collaborating with Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (RSC Energia) to develop the station.
"We are pleased to be the general contractor of this ambitious project," said RSC Energia's president Vitaly Alexandrovich Lopota. "For over a decade, RSC Energia's engineers have outlined and planned for the production of the CSS. Having 40 years of experience in building orbiting space platforms, RSC Energia has the technical resources and expertise; and is poised to build the CSS in a short period of time."

Московский планетарий не успеют открыть к декабрю, как планировалось (и как указано в статье). Он начнет работу 12 апреля 2011, в День космонавтики. Планетарий закрыли еще в 1994 г., ремонтировать начали только восемь лет спустя. В новом планетарии обещают открыть аттракционы, астрономическую площадку на крыше и самые большие в Европе солнечные часы.

The Moscow Planetarium is set to reopen in December after a facelift that lasted 16 years and cost 3 billion rubles ($100 million). The new planetarium will have a museum with large collections of meteorites and astronomy tools, conference halls, gift shops, space attractions for children, and a restaurant. The reconstruction efforts have expanded the surface area of the building five-fold - from 30,000 square feet to 150,000 - while preserving the building's historic façade. A more advanced projection system will be installed in the main room to show in the dome how stars fall, meteorites fly and planets rotate.
The planetarium, located in central Moscow just outside the Garden Ring, has a long and dramatic history. For many years, it was one of the main curiosities of the Russian capital. During the Soviet era, the planetarium was the center of attention for those who wanted to learn about astronomy - from cosmonauts and scientists to tourists and students.
When the Moscow Planetarium opened on Nov. 5, 1929, it was considered once of the best and biggest in the world. Architects Mikhail Barshch and Mikhail Sinyavsky designed the building, which featured a dome 27 meters in diameter and a projection system for showing the movement of 5,400 stars and planets.
Many well-known Soviet scientists began their careers under the dome of the Moscow Planetarium. During World War II, special courses on "Astronomy for Explorers" were taught, aimed at teaching young military explorers how to orient themselves in unknown territory using the stars as a guide. Such knowledge saved many lives during the war. In the 1960s, the first Soviet cosmonauts also took astronomy courses at the planetarium. In the 1980s the "Fantastic Theater" started there, with different shows based on books from well-known science fiction writers. In the 1990s, however, the planetarium found itself the center of lawsuits and economic disputes.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many state institutions became private property. The Moscow Planetarium was acquired by Russian entrepreneur Igor Mikitasov, who planned to use the building as the foundation for a big entertainment center, and closed it for reconstruction in 1994. However, Mikitasov was unable to find enough money to carry out his ambitious project, and by the end of the 1990s, the majority stake in the building passed to the Moscow city government.
Reconstruction began in 2002, but the work was interrupted several times due to lack of financing along with disputes between the city government and private shareholders, who still owned 39 percent of the planetarium. In 2008, Moscow authorities interrupted the reconstruction, disclosing that the planetarium was 9 million rubles in debt ($300,000) to the contractor performing the work. The organization then went into bankruptcy and Mikitasov was fired as the planetarium's director.
Last year, 100 percent of the Moscow Planetarium shares were transferred to city authorities. Shortly thereafter, then-Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov promised to reopen the complex by the end of 2010. The Moscow authorities earmarked $15 million from the city budget to buy new equipment for the planetarium. Finally, the long series of lawsuits, scandals and disputes involving the institution came to an end.
It's hard to predict if the restored Moscow Planetarium will be able to re-establish the prestige and popularity it had in the Soviet era. But given the rapid development of space technology and the growing interest in astronomy around the world, it is possible that the legendary complex will regain its place as one of Moscow's main attractions as well as one of the most important centers of astronomy in Russia. Regardless, reopening the planetarium will once again give thousands of people the unique opportunity to feel the pulse of the universe and observe the mysteries of life in space.

21 ноября в Санкт-Петербурге начал работу первый "Тигриный саммит", собравший представителей 12 стран Азии.
За 100 лет количество тигров в Азии сократилось в 30 раз, из девяти подвидов полностью вымерло три. Сейчас предпринимаются попытки объединить страны обитания тигров и около тридцати пяти организаций по охране природы и защите окружающей среды.
Целью саммита должна стать разработка плана действий, направленных на удвоение численности тигров к 2022 году. В рамках первого пятилетнего плана предлагается выделить 350 миллионов долларов на борьбу с уничтожением леса, браконьерством и торговлей частями тела тигров.

On Sunday, under the glittering chandeliers of St. Petersburg's Konstantin Palace, Russian President Vladimir Putin will welcome emissaries of 12 Asian nations to the first-ever international summit on tiger conservation.
In a world grown properly weary of summiteers and their sonorous rhetoric, this one might actually matter. The future of the planet's most iconic animal, venerated by virtually every culture, is at stake.
A century ago, 100,000 tigers proudly stalked the jungles of Asia. Today, a ragged remnant of 3,200 survives, including about 1,000 breeding females - besieged at every turn by predatory poachers, shrinking habitats, rising sea levels, and the undiminished appetite for their skins, bones, eyes, ears, paws and penises. In the last decade alone, poachers have picked off more than 1,000, the body parts recycled into a thriving black market in talismans, aphrodisiacs, elixirs, wine, hearth rugs - even soup.
Of the nine tiger subspecies, three - the Javan, Caspian and Bali - are already extinct. Another, the South China, only survives in captivity, and even there in minuscule numbers. If one needed a definition for the term tipping point, the pathetic state of the world's tigers would suffice. Now, the Global Tiger Initiative, catalyzed by World Bank president Robert Zoellick, is attempting to rally so-called tiger range nations, some 35 conservationist and wildlife groups and the pocketbooks of other countries.
"We're at the low point," concedes Michael Baltzer, Kuala Lampur-based leader of the World Wildlife Fund's Tigers Alive initiative. "We've done as much as we can, but what's been missing is the high-level engagement. Hopefully, the summit will get more heads [of state] to buy into the process."
So far, only one head of state, Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, has backed out of attending, to deal with a constitutional debate at home; his Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti will appear in his stead.
If everything goes as planned, the four-day palaver on the banks of the Gulf of Finland will endorse measures aimed at doubling the imperiled tiger population by 2022 - the next Year of the Tiger. With any luck, it may also include agreement on how to fund this ambitious target. The first five-year plan calls for $350-million (U.S.) to combat deforestation, poaching and the market for tiger parts.
If the assembly of presidents and prime ministers cannot reach consensus, or later fails to deliver on commitments, experts say the noble tiger will be extinct in less than two decades, yet another victim of human greed and recklessness.
Nor is it simply Panthera tigris that's at stake. If the world cannot marshal the will to save the tiger, the precincts they inhabit and the rich biodiversity they contain are in jeopardy. The Sumatran tiger roams Indonesia's 18-million-acre peat forests, which hold 36 per cent of the Earth's tropical carbon stores. Curbing deforestation, therefore, saves not only the tiger, but the carbon storage the forests provide.
And if the beloved tiger is doomed, what animal would be safe?
Summits don't happen by happenstance. The St. Petersburg conclave - being held, not accidentally, in the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity - is the culmination of two years work, moving the issue up the ladder from field agents to technical experts to civil servants and elected officials.
Last year, WWF Russia CEO Igor Chestin wrote to Mr. Putin suggesting that he host the summit. It was a shrewd move. The President's interest in the tiger is well known. In 2008, he accompanied wildlife researchers to Russia's Ussuri Nature Reserve. At one point, a tigress slipped its harness and started toward a stunned television crew. Wearing camouflage and armed with a tranquilizer gun, Mr. Putin fired, immediately sedating the animal - although some observers later suggested the event had been staged to showcase the Russian leader's prowess. A satellite tracking device was placed around the animal's neck and, in the months afterward, visitors to Mr. Putin's website were able to monitor its progress through the Far East.
According to Barney Long, the WWF's tiger program manager, Mr. Putin "really is the champion of all this. He'd been a huge leader in this process."
There are thought to be about 400 Siberian tigers still roaming the forests of Russia, but like their cousins elsewhere on the continent, they are threatened by forest destruction and poachers. Siberian tigers are said to need a minimum roaming territory of 125 square miles.
To meet the goal of doubling tiger populations in the next decade, member nations would need to conserve 1.2 million square kilometres of forest habitat and 115 inviolable breeding areas, covering about 135,000 square kilometres.
But there's an implicit dilemma posed by these goals: The larger the habitat, the more difficult to deter poaching - the single greatest threat to the species.
With that in mind, the 115-year-old, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society thinks the summit's goals are too broad. Rather than aiming to save tigers everywhere, and addressing an entire spectrum of threats, domestic and trans-boundary, the WCS says a better strategy would be to focus on maintaining 42 principal sites harbouring 70 per cent of tigers still left in the wild. It calls this "the 6 per cent solution," since it would effectively ignore 94 per cent of the territory that small numbers of other tigers currently inhabit.
That formula may ensure preservation of tigers, concede World Wildlife Fund officials. But it won't lead to population recovery in significant numbers unless roaming corridors are also expanded. But both sides agree that the sessions in St. Petersburg constitute, in Mr. Baltzer's words, "a watershed moment. If we can't lift the intensity and action with this summit, we never will."
What's a tiger worth?
On Asia's thriving black market, a whole tiger is estimated to be worth about $50,000 (U.S.) - a staggering sum in poverty-gripped regions. With every kill, demand and value rise. Although the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species formally bans commerce in parts and skins, illicit trade continues. Crushed tiger bones, steeped in vats of 38-per-cent-proof rice wine, are used in traditional Chinese medicines, allegedly curing arthritis, rheumatism and conferring sexual potency. In fact, although the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies has discouraged the practice, virtually every part of the tiger continues to be used and openly sold.

Журнал Science опубликовал статью о программе мегагрантов и о ситуации в российской науке вообще. В статью включены также интервью с министром образования и науки Андреем Фурсенко и комментарии представителей российской науки.
Полный текст доступен по подписке.

Late last month, Russia's Ministry of Education and Science announced the first results of a novel attempt to revitalize science in the country's universities. It had offered "megagrants" of up to $5 million to attract top researchers from around the world to set up new labs at Russian universities. How much the megagrant winners can boost Russian science remains an open question, however. Foreign winners are only required to spend one-third of each year in Russia, and the program notably failed to lure two big fish: this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. The discoverers of graphene were both born and educated in Russia but are now working at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Indeed, the Nobel Prize announcement last month generated much debate in Russia about why many of the country's best and brightest scientists - tens of thousands of whom fled abroad during the economic crises of the 1990s - are still now gracing foreign universities and their work benefiting other economies.

Группа российских и канадских ученых выяснила, что ранозаживляющие свойства хитозана можно значительно повысить в определенных условиях - путем ввода в его молекулу N-сульфосукциноил-группы, стимулирующей деление фибробластов (основных клеток соединительной ткани). Результаты исследований опубликованы в журнале "Известия РАН. Серия биологическая".

Des chercheurs russes ont découvert, avec des collègues canadiens, que les propriétés cicatrisantes du chitosan pouvaient être améliorées dans certaines conditions, rapporte le site nauka.izvestia.ru.
Des chercheurs russes étudient les propriétés cicatrisantes des dérivés du chitosan (ou chitosane). Une équipe de l'Institut des problèmes énergétiques de la physique chimique de l'Académie des sciences de Russie (ASR) a établi, avec le concours de spécialistes de l'Université russe de l'Amitié des peuples, du centre Bioingénierie de l'ASR et de la société canadienne Familiprix Lasalle, que les propriétés cicatrisantes du chitosan pouvaient être considérablement renforcées par l'introduction en son sein de la molécule du groupe N-sulfosuccinoyl. Les résultats de ces travaux ont été publiés dans la revue Nouvelles de l'ASR. Série biologique.
Le chitosan est un polymère naturel, que l'on obtient à partir des carapaces solides de chitine de crustacés et d'insectes. Ce polymère et ses dérivés stimulent le système immunitaire, favorisent la cicatrisation des plaies, tout en possédant d'autres propriétés utiles. Le chitosan se soumettant facilement à des transformations chimiques, les chercheurs le modifient volontiers et étudient les propriétés des combinaisons obtenues. Le chercheurs russes se sont intéressés, en l'occurrence, au chitosan de faible molécularité et à ses dérivés - les N-sulfosuccinylchitosans avec une teneur en soufre de 7% et 2%.
Les chercheurs ont synthétisé des dérivés du chitosan et étudié leurs propriétés sur des souris. Sous anesthésie, un petit morceau de peau du dos leur a été retiré. La plaie a ensuite été traitée par un gel avec différents dérivés du chitosan. Les souris appartenant au groupe contrôle ont reçu la même quantité de gel à base de méthylcellulose, mais sans chitosan. Les chercheurs ont mesuré quotidiennement la superficie des plaies et calculé les périodes de semi-cicatrisation. Il s'est avéré que les propriétés curatives des gels dépendent de la structure chimique du chitosan ou de son dérivé.
Tant dans le groupe de contrôle que dans les groupes testés, les plaies étaient totalement résorbées au bout de 12 à 14 jours. Toutefois, sous l'action du chitosan de bas poids moléculaire, concentré à 0,05%, la période de semi-cicatrisation a été réduite de 50% par rapport au groupe de contrôle, et les dérivés du chitosan à 7% de soufre l'ont réduite de 2 à 3 fois. Les chercheurs pensent donc que l'introduction dans la molécule de chitosan des groupes N-sulfosuccinoyl renforce ses propriétés cicatrisantes, car ces groupes stimulent la division des fibroplastes, lesquels constituent les principales cellules du tissu conjonctif.

В Сибири в результате таяния вечной мерзлоты в атмосферу выделяется метан. По мнению одних исследователей, это грозит если не глобальной катастрофой, то серьезными экологическими проблемами. По мнению других, это просто очередная экологическая страшилка.

For those who have tracked the development of the theory of manmade climate change in recent years, it seems as if its adherents thrive on a succession of purported crises. It is as if every study which is debunked, every scandal which discredits the prophets of doom, and every economic failure associated with the climate change theory has sparked two more crises to take their place.
Now, climate hypochondriacs have found something new to worry about: methane frozen in the Siberian permafrost. An Associated Press article ("Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue") announced the doom which awaits us all:
"Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - at a perilous rate.
Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere."
Presumably readers are not to take notice of the fact that these 1.5 trillion tons of carbon were drawn out of the atmosphere in the first place, most likely during a pesky ice age which has still not freed Siberia from its chilly grasp. Even if the gas reserves are as large as purported, their release would simply be part of a natural cycle.
But the "news" about Siberian methane is not really all that new to the scientific community. Nature published an abstract ("Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming") in July 2006 which noted:
"Large uncertainties in the budget of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas, limit the accuracy of climate change projections. Thaw lakes in North Siberia are known to emit methane, but the magnitude of these emissions remains uncertain because most methane is released through ebullition (bubbling), which is spatially and temporally variable."
If the issue of Siberian methane has been known to the climate science community for years, why the sudden media interest? In the words of the AP article:
"Climate change moves back to center-stage on Nov. 29 when governments meet in Cancun, Mexico, to try again to thrash out a course of counteractions. But U.N. officials hold out no hope the two weeks of talks will lead to a legally binding accord governing carbon emissions, seen as the key to averting what is feared might be a dramatic change in climate this century.
Most climate scientists, with a few dissenters, say human activities - the stuff of daily life like driving cars, producing electricity or raising cattle - is overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that trap heat, causing a warming effect."
It is quite telling that the "demons" enumerated by the environmentalist fringe now include the most basic elements of the agricultural - let alone the industrial - age: Not only "driving cars" but also "producing electricity" and "raising cattle" are threatening the planet? Are we actually to believe that "saving the Earth" implies a return to a hunter-gatherer society?
Apparently so, for we are also told by the AP:
"Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.
"In my view, methane is a serious sleeper out there that can pull us over the hump," said Robert Corell, an eminent U.S. climate change researcher and Arctic specialist."
Independent reviewers have used words other than "seminal" to describe the IPCC's 2007 report, and when grading that report, they awarded it an "F" for its stunning lack of peer-reviewed studies to back up its claims. However, given the precipitous decline in the credibility of the entire field of anthropogenic climate change since the Climategate revelations, let alone the credibility problems which have confronted the IPCC in particular in the past year, the notion that the 2007 report is now to be seen as "too conservative" strains credulity.
After the debacle of last year's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, conference organizers are, no doubt, facing a tremendous credibility deficit as they prepare for next week's conference in Cancun, Mexico. At the very least, delegates should find it somewhat easier to push their agenda in this year's comparatively balmy surroundings than they did during the cold and snow they confronted last year. Given the fact that the UN's agenda concentrates more on economic redistribution than the environment, means that climate change theorists have not yet begun to restore their credibility.

Российский ученый Сергей Зимов пытается воссоздать в районах вечной мерзлоты экосистему, которая исчезла 10 тысяч лет назад с окончанием ледникового периода. Он возвращает таких животных, как дикие лошади, овцебыки, лоси, олени в места, где они когда-то обитали. Цель - выяснить, сможет ли крупное поголовье травоядных восстановить давно исчезнувшие луга и пастбища. Если затея удастся, это позволит замедлить и даже остановить таяние вечное мерзлоты, которое постоянно ускоряется.

CHERSKY, Russia (AP) - The Russian scientist shuffles across the frozen lake, scuffing aside ankle-deep snow until he finds a cluster of bubbles trapped under the ice. With a cigarette lighter in one hand and a knife in the other, he lances the ice like a blister. Methane whooshes out and bursts into a thin blue flame.
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - at a perilous rate.
Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.
"Here, total carbon storage is like all the rain forests of our planet put together," says the scientist, Sergey Zimov - "here" being the endless sweep of snow and ice stretching toward Siberia's gray horizon, as seen from Zimov's research facility nearly 350 kilometers (220 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
Climate change moves back to center-stage on Nov. 29 when governments meet in Cancun, Mexico, to try again to thrash out a course of counteractions. But U.N. officials hold out no hope the two weeks of talks will lead to a legally binding accord governing carbon emissions, seen is the key to averting what is feared might be a dramatic change in climate this century.
Most climate scientists, with a few dissenters, say human activities - the stuff of daily life like driving cars, producing electricity or raising cattle - is overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that trap heat, causing a warming effect.
But global warming is amplified in the polar regions. What feels like a modest temperature rise is enough to induce Greenland glaciers to retreat, Arctic sea ice to thin and contract in summer, and permafrost to thaw faster, both on land and under the seabed.
Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.
"In my view, methane is a serious sleeper out there that can pull us over the hump," said Robert Corell, an eminent U.S. climate change researcher and Arctic specialist. Corell, speaking by telephone from a conference in Miami, said he and other U.S. scientists are pushing Washington to deploy satellites to gather more information on methane leaks.
The lack of data over a long period of time casts uncertainty over the extent of the threat. An article last August in the journal Science quoted several experts as saying it's too early to predict whether Arctic methane will be the tipping point.
"Arctic Armageddon Needs More Science, Less Hype," was its headline.
Studies indicate that cold-country dynamics on climate change are complex. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, a scientific body set up by the eight Arctic rim countries, says overall the Arctic is absorbing more carbon dioxide than it releases.
"Methane is a different story," said its 2009 report. The Arctic is responsible for up to 9 percent of global methane emissions. Other methane sources include landfills, livestock and fossil fuel production.
Katey Walter Anthony, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has been measuring methane seeps in Arctic lakes in Alaska, Canada and Russia, starting here around Chersky 10 years ago.
She was stunned to see how much methane was leaking from holes in the sediment at the bottom of one of the first lakes she visited.
"On some days it looked like the lake was boiling," she said. Returning each year, she noticed this and other lakes doubling in size as warm water ate into the frozen banks.
"The edges of the lake look like someone eating a cookie. The permafrost gets digested in the guts of the lake and burps out as methane," she said in an interview in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, en route to a field trip in Greenland and Scandinavia.
More than 50 billion tons could be unleashed from Siberian lakes alone, more than 10 times the amount now in the atmosphere, she said.
But the rate of defrosting is hard to assess with the data at hand.
"If permafrost were to thaw suddenly, in a flash, it would put a tremendous amount of carbon in the atmosphere. We would feel temperatures warming across the globe. And that would be a big deal," she said. But it may not happen so quickly. "Depending on how slow permafrost thaws, its effect on temperature across the globe will be different," she said.
Permafrost is defined as ground that has stayed below freezing for more than two consecutive summers. In fact, most of Siberia and the rest of the Arctic, covering one-fifth of the Earth's land surface, have been frozen for millennia.
During the summer, the ground can defrost to a depth of several feet, turning to sludge and sometimes blossoming into vast fields of grass and wildflowers. Below that thin layer, however, the ground remains frozen, sometimes encased in ice dozens or even hundreds of meters (yards) thick.
As the Earth warms, the summer thaw bites a bit deeper, awakening ice-age microbes that attack organic matter - vegetation and animal remains - buried where oxygen cannot reach, producing methane that gurgles to the surface and into the air.
The newly released methane adds to the greenhouse effect, trapping yet more heat which deepens the next thaw, in a spiraling cycle of increasing warmth.
Curbing man-made methane emissions could slow this process, said Walter Anthony.
"We have an incentive to reduce our fossil fuel emissions. By doing so, we can reduce the warming that's occurring in the Arctic and potentially put some brakes on permafrost thaw," she said.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its 2010 Arctic Report Card issued last month, said the average temperature of the permafrost has been rising for decades, but noted "a significant acceleration" in the last five years at many spots on the Arctic coast.
One of those spots would be Chersky, an isolated town on the bank of the Kolyma River at the mouth of the East Siberia Sea.
The ground in this remote corner of the world, 6,600 kilometers (4,000 miles) east of Moscow, has warmed about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) in the last five years, to about -5 C (23 F) today, says Zimov, director of the internationally funded Northeast Science Station, which is about three kilometers (2 miles) from town.
The warming is causing the landscape to buckle under his feet.
"I live here more than 30 years. ... There are many (dirt) roads in our region which I used or built myself, but now I can't use anymore. Now they look like canyons," he says.
Buildings, too, collapse. The school in Chersky, a Soviet-era structure with a tall bronze statue of Karl Marx on its doorstep, was abandoned several years ago when the walls began to crack as the foundations gave way.
The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers (700,000 sq. miles) and is particularly unstable. Below the surface are vertical wedges of ice, as if 15-story-high icicles had been hammered into the soft ground, rich in decaying vegetation, over thousands of years.
As the air warms, the tops of the wedges melt and create depressions in the land. Water either forms a lake or runs off to lower ground, creating a series of steep hillocks and gullies. During summer, lakeside soil may erode and tumble into the water, settling on the bottom where bacteria eat it and cough up yet more methane.
The process takes a long time, but Zimov has done a simulation by bulldozing trees and scraping off moss and surface soil from 1 hectare (2.5 acres) of former larch forest, rendering it as if it had been leveled by fire.
Seven years later the previously flat terrain is carved up with crevices 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) deep, creating a snowy badlands.
Gazing across a white river to the apartment blocks on a distant hill, Zimov said, "In another 30 years all of Chersky will look like this."

Суперкомпьютерный холдинг "Т-Платформы" построит первый российский суперкомпьютер производительностью свыше 1 петафлопс.
Холдинг выиграл открытый конкурс на поставку и наладку оборудования для второй очереди расширения суперкомпьютера "Ломоносов" в МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова. Суммарная производительность суперкомпьютера будет увеличена до 1,3 петафлопс.

Ancienne grande puissance mondiale, la Russie a bien du mal à suivre le rythme imposé par les autres pays industrialisés en matière de calculs hautes performances (HPC). En ne disposant pas de supercalculateurs performants, le pays se met actuellement en mauvaise posture dans le secteur de la recherche scientifique.
Au top500 des clusters les plus rapides de la planète, la Russie n'aligne aucune machine dans les dix premières places, ce privilège revenant aux États-Unis, à la Chine, au Japon, à la France et à l'Allemagne. Le premier supercalculateur russe, le Lomonosov (du nom de l'université au sein de laquelle il est installé) ne décroche ainsi que le dix-septième rang, avec une puissance de 350 téraflops. Un affront que le pays se devait de laver. Voilà qui sera bientôt chose faite, par le biais d'une extension de la puissance du Lomonosov, une tâche assurée par T-Platforms. Cet acteur moscovite est bien implanté dans la région et avait assuré la mise au point initiale de cette machine.
L'extension sera réalisée en deux étapes. D'ici la fin de l'année, la première tranche sera achevée. Elle portera la puissance du Lomonosov à 510 téraflops. La compagnie s'appuiera sur des serveurs pourvus de processeurs Intel Xeon (mais aussi de puces PowerXCell 8i). La seconde phase consistera à ajouter 800 téraflops de puissance à cet ensemble, sous la forme de serveurs hybrides TB2-TL, comprenant des processeurs Intel Xeon et des modules NVIDIA Tesla X2070. Les deux parties de ce supercalculateur seront reliées afin de fournir une puissance totale de 1,3 pétaflops, le tout devant être mis en route à la fin de premier semestre 2011.

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