Ноябрь 2011 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• A Russian Robot, a Martian Moon
• A wrong turn en route to the red planet: Mars probe gets stuck in orbit
• Chinese, Russian scientists compile first bird catalog for cross-border natural reserve
• German scientists ready for the hunt on dark energy
• MIT, Russian foundation to open tech research hub
• U.S. Materials Scientist, Russian Astrophysicist and Japanese Kabuki Actor Receive 27th Annual Kyoto Prizes from Japan's Inamori Foundation
• Séminaire sur la limitation des pertes d'énergie
• Virtual Mission to Mars Ends
• L'ADN de chevaux préhistoriques confirme le réalisme des représentations pariétales
• Russian spacecraft docks with ISS
• Found in space: Russia makes contact with lost probe... but now it speaks gibberish
• Russia May Join NASA-European Mars Mission After Probe Failure
• A Bicontinental Biologist's Project: How to Rejuvenate Russian Science
• Advancing cooperation of Russian and US scientific communities
• Semaine de la langue russe à Bruxelles

14 ноября Россия отправила трех космонавтов на Международную космическую станцию, 16-го корабль благополучно пристыковался. Это первый пилотируемый полет с тех пор, как НАСА вывело шаттлы из эксплуатации, и Россия осталась единственной страной, способной отправлять людей на МКС. Запуск был намечен на 22 сентября, но отложен из-за падения грузового корабля «Прогресс», доставленного в космос ракетой «Союз-У». Катастрофа «Прогресса» привела к временному прекращению полетов «Союзов» и пересмотру расписания экспедиций на МКС.

MOSCOW - A spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American astronaut docked Wednesday with the International Space Station in the first Russian manned mission for five months after a spate of technical failures.
The glitch-free docking of the Soyuz TMA-22 came after a textbook launch on Monday and was a huge boost to Russia which postponed the mission in the wake of the disastrous crash of an unmanned supply ship bound for the ISS in August. "The ship docked at 09:24 Moscow time (0524 GMT). Everything went ahead normally," a Russian space agency spokesman told AFP.
"The process of the approach and docking was carried out in an automatic regime under the supervision of mission control centre and the crew," Russia's mission control centre outside Moscow said in a statement on its website.
The capsule was carrying American Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who were to join the three crew currently on board the ISS.
The current ISS crew of American Mike Fossum, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov will return to Earth on November 22 and a new crew will head up from Baikonur on December 21.
The Russian space agency said in a statement that the seal between the capsule and the space station was being checked, and the transfer hatch was due to be opened between 11:55 and 12:25 Moscow time (07:55 and 08:25 GMT).
The crew blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday in Russia's first manned mission since June. The workhorse rockets had been grounded after the unmanned Progress supply ship crashed in August.
The Soyuz-U rocket that failed to take the Progress to orbit is closely related to the Soyuz-FG that is used for manned launches, prompting the temporary grounding of the entire arsenal of the Soyuz rockets.
The failed launch of the Progress cargo ship eroded faith in Russia's status as a space superpower just as it had become the only nation capable of taking humans to the ISS after the retirement of the US shuttle in July.
It also forced a complete rejig of staffing for the ISS. The latest mission had been due to go up in September.
The Progress mishap was just the worst in a string of embarrassing technical failures with the Russian space programme.
As well as the Progress and possibly the Phobos-Grunt Mars probe, Russia has lost three navigation satellites, an advanced military satellite and a telecommunications satellite due to faulty launches in the past 12 months.
Phobos-Grunt was launched on November 9 on a mission to take a soil sample from a Martian moon but has failed to head out of Earth's orbit on its course to the red planet.
The recent problems were a major disappointment for Russia in the year marking half a century since Yuri Gagarin made man's first voyage into space from the same historic cosmodrome.
The Soyuz rocket design first flew in the late 1960s and has a proud safety record, with Russia boasting that its simplicity has allowed it to outlive the shuttle.
Whereas NASA endured the fatal loss of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles in 1986 and 2003, Moscow has not suffered a fatality in space since the crew of Soyuz-11 died in 1971 in their capsule when returning to Earth.

Системы слежения получили несколько сигналов с российской межпланетной станции «Фобос-грунт», застрявшей после запуска на околоземной орбите. Шансов все-таки отправить аппарат по назначению - на Марс - практически нет, но, возможно, удастся безопасно спустить его с орбиты.

Russia has made contact with its unmanned spacecraft that became stuck in Earth's orbit during a mission to Mars - but hasn't been able to decode its messages.
Yesterday's breakthrough comes a day after the European Space Agency said it had also received a signal from the stranded Mars probe Phobos-Grunt.
"A signal from the probe has been received and some telemetry data. At the moment our specialists are working on this information," the Interfax news agency quoted Russian space agency spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov as saying.
Reports suggest, however, that the message was garbled and incomplete, leaving experts unable to figure it out.
Interfax said the signal was received at a Russian station at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday afternoon.
The European Space Agency said its ground station in Perth, Australia made contact with the probe at 8.25pm on Tuesday, the first sign of life from Phobos-Grunt since it got stuck in Earth orbit after launch on November 9.
Russian officials had cautioned earlier this week that the chances were very small of saving the mission, which would require reprogramming the probe to send it off on its trajectory to Mars before the window for its journey closes.
The probe had the unprecedented mission to land on the Martian moon Phobos and bring a sample of its rock back to Earth, as well as launch a Chinese satellite into Martian orbit.
ESA said in a statement on its website that the Perth tracking station had also managed to receive a second signal from the probe.
"The signals received from Phobos-Grunt were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft's orbital position," said Wolfgang Hell, ESA's manager for Phobos-Grunt.
One of the main concerns after the failed launch is the risk of an uncontrolled descent back to Earth. Officials have said gravity will pull Phobos-Grunt down within months as its orbit slows and becomes lower.
The spokesman for Russia's military space forces, Alexei Zolotukhin, said yesterday that it was expected fragments of the probe would fall to Earth in January or February although the exact date would depend on external factors.
One expert said that its surprise show of life had generated hope that the probe could be brought down back to Earth safely, rather than any real prospect that it could be moved out of orbit towards Mars.
"If we are not only able to hear Phobos-Grunt but it is also able to hear us then there is a real chance of ensuring it can make a managed descent from orbit and its fragments plunged into the ocean," said Yury Karash of the Russian Academy of Comonautics.
He told Interfax a managed descent would minimise the risk of the probe hitting a populated area on land.
But he said there was hardly any chance that the probe could fulfil its original mission of going to Mars as its window was essentially closed and it did not have sufficient fuel left.

Россия ведет переговоры с НАСА и Европейским космическим агентством об участии в двух марсианских экспедициях, запланированных на 2016 и 2018 гг. Также Россия и Европа могут запустить непилотируемую экспедицию к Юпитеру к 2020 году, а с Китаем в ближайшие годы возможно сотрудничество в сфере пилотируемых космических полетов.

Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) - Russia may accept an invitation to join U.S.-European space missions to Mars after suffering the "heavy blow" of losing a $163 million space probe bound for the second-closest planet to Earth.
Russia is talking to NASA and the European Space Agency about participating in two Mars expeditions, in 2016 and 2018, according to Vladimir Popovkin, who heads Russia's space agency, Roscosmos. It may send exploration equipment along with the missions, or assist with the rocket that launches the ships into space, he said yesterday in an interview in Moscow.
"Missions to distant planets will become more and more international," Popovkin said. "We'll see what degree of participation we're offered. We prefer the first option."
Europe's debt crisis is weighing on global growth, cutting funding for space projects in the U.S. and giving Russia "a window of opportunity" to join international missions, according to Yuri Karash, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.
As well as this month's malfunction to the Mars-bound Phobos-Grunt probe, Russia lost its most powerful telecommunications satellite and a cargo-supply ship destined for the International Space Station in August.
Mars Mission
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the ESA are working on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission to be launched in 2016 for arrival at Mars nine months later. The mission aims to demonstrate entry, descent and landing technologies for future trips to the planet.
Russia and Europe may also launch an unmanned expedition to Jupiter by 2020, Popovkin said. Russia continued talks on cooperation with the ESA after the Phobos probe, built by Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin, got stuck in low-Earth orbit following its Nov. 9 launch, he added. Russia will welcome help from NASA and the ESA to bring Phobos into a higher orbit, Popovkin said, adding that a window of opportunity to send the craft to its destination ended Nov. 19 and will re-open in about two years.
Russia may also partner China on manned space exploration in five to seven years, Popovkin said. For now, it's working to create a craft for a crew of six people that will cost more than 10 billion rubles ($321 million) to develop and should be ready by 2020.
Investment Boost
The new vessel may benefit from increased investment in space exploration. Russia may spend 2 trillion rubles on its program between 2016 and 2025 as it eyes a manned mission to the moon, Popovkin said. Spending in 2012 should rise by 50 percent to 150 billion rubles an may double by 2015.
Unlike 50 years ago, when beating the U.S. into space marked a geopolitical victory in the Cold War, Russia is focusing on the commercial, technological and scientific aspects of space travel. President Dmitry Medvedev has named aerospace among five industries the government plans to nurture to help diversify the economy of the world's largest energy supplier away from resource extraction.
Over the next decade, Russia will focus on the moon, with a manned mission planned for 2020-2025, Popovkin said. A manned Mars expedition may be possible after 2030, he added.
"The only way for Russia to develop state-of-the-art space technologies and keep its competitiveness in space is to focus on deep-space exploration," said Karash, from the Academy of Cosmonautics.
Rocket Failure
The commercial space market was $267 billion in 2010, according to Popovkin, who said Russia may increase its share to as much as 20 percent by 2015 from 3 percent now.
"This will be telecommunications satellites, remote sensing, cartography and surveying services," he said.
Russia is seeking to diversify its commercial space activities, which mainly involve transporting satellites and equipment for others. It controls 40 percent of the market for space launches, Popovkin said. By year-end he estimates Glonass, a rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System, will be fully operational, with 24 satellites.
Popovkin was appointed this year by President Dmitry Medvedev, who fired his predecessor after a Proton-M rocket failed to deliver three navigation satellites into orbit for Glonass.

Профессор Константин Северинов, заведующий лабораториями Института биологии гена РАН, Института молекулярной генетики РАН и Университета Ратгерса, считает, что для выхода из кризиса российской науке хорошего финансирования недостаточно - необходима серьезная реформа системы организации науки и высшего образования.

Perhaps no one better represents the hope of rebuilding Russia's scientific prowess than Konstantin V. Severinov. Six years ago, the 43-year-old professor of molecular biology and biochemistry decided to split his time between his homeland and the United States to help revitalize the Russian Academy of Science and improve working conditions for young researchers in Russia, hoping they would continue to work there.
But Mr. Severinov's dedication is often tested. His academic work is consumed by an almost daily struggle to cut through red tape, deal with corruption, and properly equip his laboratories. During visits to the United States, where he has a position at Rutgers University, he often buys the chemicals and spare parts needed to run his experiments, stuffing the materials into his suitcase and pockets for his flight home to Russia.
Such frustrations have led him to an important conclusion - one that he has become very vocal about: While the Kremlin has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to strengthen research capabilities and bring back expatriates, the money means little without a broader change in Russian science and higher education.
"There is no future for science unless we run a major reform," Mr. Severinov says.
Tens of thousands of scientists have left Russia since the early 1990s. President Dmitri A. Medvedev has made it a high priority to luring them back, offering financial incentives and funneling public funds into big projects, like an effort to transform farmland outside the capital into a research hub on par with Silicon Valley. Despite such moves, only a few Russian researchers have returned from abroad.
Mr. Severinov runs labs at the academy's Institutes of Molecular Genetics and of Gene Biology. The facilities were "two dead laboratories" when he took them over, he says. While he hoped to improve their scientific output, he found at first that he needed to focus on matters like replacing broken windows, repainting peeling walls, and finding the funds needed to pay Ph.D. students a decent wage.
Using American Connections
Such problems have persisted, making every week unpredictable. On a recent day, Mr. Severinov's most pressing concern is that the nuclear reactor that supplies isotopes for his laboratories has broken down. "Only that one accident froze two of our current projects in molecular biology until December," he says, shaking his head in frustration.
Mr. Severinov's assistants, too, complain about technical and bureaucratic problems. Svetlana Dubiley, a molecular biologist and biochemist, says there are a lot of hurdles when she needs to purchase equipment for the gene institute. "To buy one pen or even a piece of paper for our laboratory, the law obliges us to list the item we need on a special Web site, a virtual auction for purchasing goods," she says.
"Months pass by before you receive the state permit for obtaining the equipment. Then you realize you cannot find it in Russia."
The institute cannot afford such simple items as air conditioners for the lab, she says. During many summer days, all the fruit flies needed for experiments die from the heat.
As part of his work, Mr. Severinov uses his ties to American higher education to help support his labs and research. He helped develop a deal between a Russian foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a graduate-research university outside Moscow.
"I become MIT's helper with organizing the concept for their work in Russia," he says. "Imagine coming to set up a project in Uganda - Russia's complicated reality sounded just as new to MIT."
He also teaches and conducts research at Rutgers's Waksman Institute of Microbiology, in Piscataway, N.J. and brings Russian assistants to his lab there.
The experience, however, often sharpens the contrast between the two countries. Russian students who have worked in the Rutgers laboratory say experiments that could take one day there take weeks in Russia.
Such complaints are a concern for Mr. Severinov, who wants to keep students from emigrating. Building a pipeline of young talent is key to reviving Russian higher education - and would be more fruitful than spending money to entice expatriate academics to return, he says.
He has been able to raise his students' state salaries to $600 a month from $50. But increased pay is only part of the solution. Reflecting on his own experience, he says students in Russia need more hands-on research opportunities and engaged instructors to help them.
"The U.S.A. has thousands of biological labs, and in Russia there are only about 50 world-class laboratories like we have," Mr. Severinov says. "The reason is that Russia's biological higher education lacks practicing scientists."
In the past four years, 13 students have completed their microbiological research and defended their dissertations under his supervision.
"If not for Dr. Severinov, I would have been stuck in one of the dusty and boring scientific institutes without money, without any hope for future career perspectives," says Anna Lopatina, one of those Ph.D. students. In 2008, Mr. Severinov assigned her to a three-month expedition in Antarctica, where she studied the microbes that accumulate on the snow.
"Wrong Choice"
Despite his best efforts though, some of his students remain pessimistic about the future.
"I made a wrong choice when I stayed to study in Russia," says Ksenia Pugach, a Moscow State University graduate student who has worked with Mr. Severinov. "One-third of my university mates are working in European laboratories, making 2,000 euros [about $2,740] a month, while I live on $500 with cockroaches in my dorm room."
She does not have hopes that Russia's higher education and research capacity will ever catch up with Western universities - "not in my life time, anyway," she says.
Mr. Severinov has taken his reform agenda beyond the classroom. He works with Russia's ministry of education to revise its grant-making and is a member of the board of Rusnano, a government-owned company that spurs the commercialization of nanotechnology. He also has been a public critic of the problems that plague the country's science, talking to the news media and making speeches about them.
His outspokenness has not always won him friends. Mr. Severinov and colleagues describe how some Russian professors are jealous of the attention he receives and of his ability to attract top students. Such animosity among administrators and professors at Moscow State University, his alma mater, led him to stop teaching at the university several years ago, he says.
Other scholars applaud his efforts, calling him a rare commodity in Russia. "There are so few independent people in Russian science able to tell a boss that he is an idiot, and Severinov says the truth at all levels," says Mikhail S. Gelfand, vice director for science at the Russian Academy's Institute for Information Transmission Problems. "On one hand he is built into the system. On the other, he remains independent."

В 2009 г. был подписан Меморандум между Министерствами здравоохранения и социального развития США и России. В этом году в Москве прошел первый Российско-Американский форум по биомедицинским исследованиям, а в дальнейшем планируется создание совместных исследовательских центров.

The Russian Academy of Sciences is hosting the first Conference on Biomedical and Behavioral Research, one of the events on the agenda of one of the 20-plus working groups within the bilateral Russia-U.S. presidential commission established during the 2009 visit to this country of U.S. President Barack Obama
Last year the U.S. National Institute of Health and the leading U.S. pharmaceuticals company Eli Lilly established the bilateral forum for the development of medicine and research. The forum aims at improving control of the dissemination, treatment and prophylaxis of different diseases, interaction in the area of clinical and applied research, manufacture of pharmaceuticals as well as development of innovation technologies in the area of public health
This joint project was launched last year during the visit to the United States of deputy Minister of Health and Social Development Veronika Skvortsova, who opened the three-day forum. She assessed its launch as a good start. The forum that is devised for 5 years will run an annual symposium aiming at working out strategies of joint research, strengthening inter-disciplinary interaction, bridging the gap between science and application of its achievements, she said.
Speaking to journalists Roger I. Glass, Director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institute of Health said he was delighted to have environment to promote exchange and to extend collaboration with people with good ideas, Russian creative scientists, building interaction in solving common problems with the support of the two governments. "We are excited to develop a joint research agenda based on common interests that will stimulate US-Russian scientific collaborations and generate discoveries to improve the health of people everywhere," said Dr. Roger I. Glass, Director of Fogarty International Center at NIH. "By encouraging the free flow of information we hope to share best practices in biomedical research and speed the progress of discovery
Professor Anatoly Grigoriev, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences said the academy was actively involved in the forum both as one of the organizers and as its creative segment. Simultaneously with the sessions on the forum's second day, there will be sessions held in Washington, dedicated to the research of the human cardiovascular system and the neuroscience. The main task of this forum is to run joint projects. "We are looking forward to start new cooperation with NIH. Together with our American partners we initiated six general directions, that is, brain research, cardiovascular diseases, oncology, child care, infectious diseases and translational research," said Professor Grigoriev. "These areas embrace the key problems of human health worldwide; however, the Forum is open for a variety of ideas.
Science and business people should combine their efforts. Our endeavor will be appreciated in our two countries and by the international community as well. We anticipate that the Forum will emerge as a medium that links together the best intellectual powers strongly committed to make life better."The reports on the agenda of the forum, professor Grigoriev went on to say, demonstrate quite good results of the activities of both American and Russian researchers, experts on medical infrastructure, transfer of nano- and other technologies, protection of intellectual property, pharmaceuticals and innovations."We also hope that exchange of experiences and opportunities to upgrade qualification of the younger generation of the medical profession with the support of both our governments to enable them to develop the medical science, said professor Grigoriev.
Improvement of medical services is one of Russia's most important aspects this country's development. "The Russian Academy of Sciences and organizations, institutes and all those involved in working for this goal fully realize its importance for making the life of both our countries better," vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly Grigoriev added.

21-25 ноября в Брюсселе прошла Неделя русского языка, российского образования и российской культуры. Мероприятие организовано Центром международного образования МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова совместно с представительством Россотрудничества в Бельгии и Нидерландах.

Du 21 au 25 novembre, le Centre russe pour la science et la culture de Bruxelles ainsi que plusieurs universités belges accueilleront la Semaine de la langue russe, de l'enseignement et de la culture russe. L'événement est organisé dans le cadre du Programme fédéral « Langue russe » par le Centre d'enseignement international de l'Université de Moscou Lomonossov, en collaboration avec la représentation de l'Agence fédérale pour la coopération internationale (Rossotrudnichestvo) en Belgique et aux Pays-Bas.
Au programme de la semaine figurent des conférences et des ateliers, des tables rondes sur l'enseignement du russe aux étudiants, aux personnes fréquentant les cours du soir ainsi qu'aux enfants étudiant dans les écoles destinées aux Russes de l'étranger. Conjointement avec l'Association belge des professeurs de langue et littérature russes, sera organisée une conférence scientifique et pratique sur le thème : l'enseignement du russe langue étrangère aux différents groupes d'étudiants.
Côté belge, participeront au projet des enseignants et des étudiants de l'Université catholique de Louvain, de l'Université de Mons, de l'Université Libre de Bruxelles, de l'Université de Gand, de l'Institut libre Marie Haps, de l'Institut supérieur des traducteurs de Bruxelles, d'autres universités enseignant les langues et la littérature russes, ainsi que l'Association belge des écoles russes.
La délégation russe comprend le docteur ès sciences philologiques, professeur émérite de l'Université de Moscou et auteur de plus de 200 articles scientifiques, Igor Miloslavski ; le docteur ès sciences philologiques, chercheur en chef du laboratoire linguistique et chargée de cours à la faculté de philologie de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou, Elena Razlogova ; le rédacteur en chef du magazine Littérature de la Maison d'édition 1er Septembre, enseignant de langue et littérature russe à l'école N°57 de Moscou, membre de la Chambre civile de Russie, Sergueï Volkov ; le candidat ès sciences philologiques, associé de recherche au laboratoire Russe étranger de la Faculté de philologie de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou, Viktoria Moïsseïeva ; la candidate ès sciences philologiques, chargée de cours du Centre d'enseignement international (CEI) de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou, directrice du département humanitaire du CEI, Marina Koulgavtchouk ; la candidate ès sciences philologiques, chargée de cours du CEI de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou Anna Petanova ; la rédactrice de la publication du Journal du CEI de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou Elena Koliovska, le docteur ès sciences pédagogiques Olga Sergueïeva et la directrice du département des stages du CEI de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou, Irina Maloglazova.

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