Декабрь 2021 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• 50 years ago: Mars 3 taught us to turn failure to success on Mars
• Novel source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide found in Siberian permafrost
• "Nervous" rats are more likely to have mental disorders due to stress
• Increased protection for rare bird species' habitats in Russia
• Scientists spot water ice under the "Grand Canyon" of Mars
• Snow is glowing in the Russian Arctic. The culprit? Tiny sea creatures
• New discovery can save children with anomalous brain development
• Russian Arctic researchers say: Norilsk fish safe to eat
• Russia’s Arctic coast loses 7,000 hectares annually due to climate changes

50 лет назад, 2 декабря 1971 г., состоялась первая в мире и единственная в истории советской космонавтики успешная мягкая посадка на Марс спускаемого аппарата с автоматической станцией «Марс-3». Способ посадки был невероятно инновационным для того времени: использовались сложная схема навигации, позволявшая войти в атмосферу под определенным углом, тепловой тормозной щит и сверхзвуковой парашют (спустя 26 лет такую же систему использовал американский Mars Pathfinder). После посадки аппарат начал работу, но трансляция продлилась менее 20 секунд. По одной из версий причиной стало короткое замыкание из-за мощной пылевой бури.

There’s really no dressing it up: 1971 was a crummy year for the Soviet Mars program. Of the four robotic spacecraft the USSR sent toward the Red Planet that year, one never made it out of Earth orbit, two were stymied by Martian dust storms, and another crashed into Mars like a speeding bullet.
But the Mars 3 lander had better luck. Somewhat.
Using a sophisticated landing system unmatched until later NASA missions like Pathfinder and Spirit, Mars 3 successfully landed on the Martian surface 50 years ago on December 2, 1971, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully complete a soft landing on another planet. It opened its flower-like shell, turned on its television cameras - and promptly died.
"It only worked, depending on which account you read, for 15 to 20 seconds," National Air and Space Museum Curator of Planetary Science and Exploration Mathew Shindell tells Inverse. "But the fact that it worked at all is pretty amazing, considering what we know about how difficult it is to land something on Mars."
Mars 3 was supposed to do more than that though. It had a complete science payload, including the PrOP-M rover, which would have been the first powered vehicle to traverse another planet’s surface by a number of decades. The NASA Sojourner Rover first made tracks on Martian regolith in 1997.
The Americans beat the Soviets in placing the first spacecraft in orbit around another planet with Mariner 9’s November 13 arrival at Mars, but the Soviets could still claim the first successful soft landing - even if the world would have to wait for the NASA’s Viking and later rover missions for the sorts of science Mars 3 would have conducted if it lived.
But it hardly deterred the Soviets, who continued to send spacecraft to both Mars and Venus. While the US and USSR were competitors, their respective planetary scientists all benefited from the science done by their counterparts on each side of the Iron Curtain. "They were as excited about Russian successes as they were about us successes and vice versa," Shindell says. "Because having two nations spend tons of money on exploring Mars meant you could get potentially twice the science."
Mars 3 was a pioneering mission, if incomplete, forever a red asterisk on NASA’s Viking missions. Mars 3 was first, but it would take Viking to fulfill the former’s scientific destiny.
A time for competition and cooperation
While Russian and American planetary scientists may have enjoyed the way their joint efforts were advancing their field, there was no doubt that their two countries were very much competitors in the early 1970s. The American Moon landings hadn’t knocked the Soviets out of the space race entirely, not when the space race was still as much about military prowess as it was scientific discovery.
Mars 3 was actually two spacecraft, an orbiter and a lander, both "some of the most robust spacecraft that the Soviet Union had sent out into the Solar System," Shindell says. Their hefty builds were made possible by the development of a new Proton rocket launch system, a four-stage rocket with the addition of the Blok D upper stage.
The Proton launch system was a product of the Cold War arms race between the US and USSR; Shindell says the Proton-K rocket was originally designed as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for launching heavy nuclear warheads. Blok D, meanwhile, was originally developed for the Soviet N1 moon rocket, which would never successfully fly.
Put together, the Proton-K and Blok D could lift nearly 50,000 pounds into orbit, allowing for more hefty planetary missions.
Planetary science missions were another way to demonstrate your ability to hit targets with your missile technologies, but without taking military action. You sub in other worlds for an opponent's cities, scientific payloads for warheads.
"It’s kind of like a gun show," Shindell says. "There’s definitely an aspect of displaying your military capabilities without, in fact, taking any military action."
In that sense, sending spacecraft to orbit and land on Mars was a far greater technical challenge than landing on the Moon, and the Soviets wanted to get there first. They knew of NASA’s plans to launch twin Mars orbiters, Mariner 8 and Mariner 9, and hoped to take advantage of the fact that Mariner 8 blew up at launch to beat the US to Mars orbit, according to Shindell.
On May 10, 1971, the Soviets launched M-71S, which was intended to be a Mars orbiter but "got stuck in orbit around Earth because of a programming error in the timing of the upper-stage rocket," Shindell says. The Soviets renamed the spacecraft Kosmos 419 and designated it as an Earth mission, "So that no one would know that they had failed with that first spacecraft."
Soviet space innovations
The Soviet hopes came down to Mars 2 and Mars 3, each launched days before Mariner 9 in May of 1971.
They were very different from the hexagonal design of NASA’s Mariner spacecraft, appearing bulbous or like spheres welded together, because that’s essentially what they were: The Soviet electronics required pressurized containers, Shindell says, so their spacecraft were just a series of those containers.
"It's really kind of an elegant design, the Mars 2 and 3 landers," he says. "The lander itself was kind of an egg-shaped spacecraft with these four petals that opened up after the soft landing was achieved."
The way the landers were to achieve that soft landing was incredibly innovative and sophisticated for the time, Shindell says.
• The orbiters would release the landers while still traveling toward Mars at full speed
• The landers would use their heat shields to aerobrake, using the friction of the thin Martian atmosphere to convert kinetic energy to heat, slowing the landers to mere supersonic speeds
• Then they would deploy the real innovation - the supersonic parachute
"It's not easy to design a parachute that can work in a very thin atmosphere and at supersonic speeds," Shindell says. "The Soviets certainly led the way in developing the first version of that."
Later NASA probes, such as Pathfinder in 1997, would also use aerobraking and supersonic parachutes to land on Mars. But Pathfinder used a giant airbag for its final landing, cushioning the lander until it bounced to a stop.
The Mars 2 and 3 Probes would try something in 1971 that took SpaceX multiple tries to accomplish in the 21st century - landing autonomously using retrorockets. Using the rockets at the end of their descent to accomplish their soft landing, both landers would open their petals and begin taking images.
That was the plan at least.
Compounding disasters
The failure of M-71S to get out of Earth orbit cost the Soviets more than a shot at achieving the first orbit of Mars. It had been meant to be in orbit prior to the arrival in order to provide the Mars 2 and 3 landers with telemetry data for their high-speed approach to Mars, Shindell says. The landers would have to use an autonomous optical sensor system to correct their course and hit the thin Martian atmosphere at just the right angle to burn off enough speed to safely land.
"Mars 2 over-corrected as it turns out, and put the spacecraft into too steep of an angle of descent into the atmosphere," Shindell says, and the lander crashed hard into Mars before it could even deploy its parachute. "When it hit the atmosphere, I think it was traveling something like six kilometers a second."
Mars 3, however, managed to do everything right. It entered the Martian atmosphere at 5.7 kilometers per second, Shindell says, but was able to aerobrake, deploy its parachute, and touch down gently on a cushion of retrorocket thrust. It opened its petals, turned on its cameras, and took a partial, fuzzy grey image before it died, most of the data it collected never making it to the Mars 3 orbiter for transmission to Earth.
Why did Mars 3 fail?
"We don't know exactly why it failed," Shindell says of the Mars 3 landers. "The best explanation seems to be that because of the planet-wide dust storm and the very thin atmosphere - what may have happened is a short circuit in the electronics."
The planet-wide dust storm would further frustrate the Soviets by ruining the Mars 2 and 3 orbiter missions. Loaded with film cameras and an unalterable survey program, the orbiters exhausted their film supply on the featureless dust clouds before the global storm abated.
NASA’s Mariner 9, meanwhile, could be remotely reprogrammed and wait out the dust. It would send home the first images of Mars’s most striking geological features including the largest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons.
A legacy of technical persistence
It’s hard not to speculate what the Mars 3 legacy might have been if the lander had survived intact. It carried mass spectrometers, X-ray spectrometers, and gamma-ray detectors. It carried the PrOP-M rover, which would have been the first powered vehicle to traverse the surface of another planet, even if its range would have been limited by a tether connecting it to the Mars 3 lander. The rover would have used innovative skids for locomotion and included a basic obstacle avoidance system.
"[Mars 3] was going to do quite a lot of science there on the surface," Shindell says, "As well as being the first to do almost everything in terms of planetary science exploration."
The Mars 3 legacy might best be characterized then as an object lesson in persistence, and a reminder that even within the secretive Soviet space program, there worked individuals of extraordinary intelligence and creativity.
"The Soviet space program was not short on innovation," Shindell says. "The engineering behind these spacecraft is really impressive."
The Soviets successfully landed probes on the surface of Venus, a hellish landscape of intense heat and pressure, where they lasted for longer than Mars 3 did on the cold surface of Mars.
Success with missions to the Red Planet remained dicey for the Soviets and the later Russian space program. Mars 4 in 1973 failed to enter Martian orbit. The Mars 7 lander in 1971 missed the planet entirely. The Phobos 1 and 2 probes failed in 1988, and the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission to the Martian moon Phobos failed to leave Earth orbit in 2011. And on October 16, 2016, the Schiaparelli Mars lander technology demonstrator Russia built with the European Space Agency crashed into the Red Planet rather than making the intended soft landing.
But the missions have never stopped. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has been working with the European Space Agency to develop a new Mars mission, the Rosalind Franklin rover, which is expected to launch in September 2022.
"Maybe that’s part of that [Mars 3] legacy that is very Russian," Shindell says. "Despite failure, that doesn’t mean you should stop trying."

Международная группа исследователей обнаружила в Восточной Сибири ранее неизвестный источник парниковых газов. Оказалось, что при таянии едомы (богатый органикой тип вечной мерзлоты) происходит выброс закиси азота, третьего по значимости парникового газа после диоксида углерода и метана.
Ученые из Финляндии, России (ИНГГ СО РАН, ЦСБС СО РАН, ТИГ ДВО РАН), Германии, США, Австрии и Канады измерили концентрацию газов на берегах рек Лены и Колымы и обнаружили, что выбросы закиси азота заметно увеличились меньше чем за десять лет и сейчас превышают стандартный уровень на один-два порядка.

A previously unknown source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide has been found in East Siberian Yedoma permafrost. Published in Nature Communications today, the observation was made by an international group of researchers, with the lead of researchers from the University of Eastern Finland.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third-most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane, and per unit mass an almost 300 times stronger warming agent than carbon dioxide. It is produced in soils as a result of microbial activity. The discovery of nitrous oxide release from the late-Pleistocene-aged Yedoma permafrost is important due to the large area of the Yedoma region, and its large carbon and nitrogen stocks and high ice content, which makes it vulnerable for abrupt thaw. The nitrous oxide emissions from thawing permafrost represent a poorly known, but potentially globally significant positive feedback to climate change. Overall, the consequences of nitrogen release from permafrost for Arctic ecosystems have been insufficiently studied and remain poorly understood.
In the study published today, the researchers measured nitrous oxide emissions from the riverbanks of the East Siberian rivers Lena and Kolyma, where rapid permafrost thaw exposes Yedoma permafrost to the surface, releasing large amounts of carbon and nitrogen for microbial activity. The researchers found that nitrous oxide emissions from recently thawed Yedoma were initially very low but increased within less than a decade to high rates, exceeding typical emissions from permafrost-affected soils by one to two orders of magnitude (10-100 times). The increase in nitrous oxide emissions was related to drying and stabilisation of the Yedoma sediments after thaw, and to associated changes in the microbial community participating in soil nitrogen cycle: the relative proportion of microbes producing nitrous oxide precursors (nitrate, nitric oxide) increased and the relative proportion of microbes consuming nitrous oxide decreased.
Usually, high nitrous oxide emissions occur from agricultural soils, where the availability of mineral nitrogen is high because of nitrogen fertilisation and other management practices. Since the nitrogen cycling in cold Arctic soils is slow, they have previously been regarded as unimportant nitrous oxide sources. Based on accumulating evidence during the past years, however, this is not always true: nitrous oxide release has been found to be a common phenomenon in permafrost-affected soils, and the emissions increase with warming, disturbed vegetation cover and permafrost thaw.
"The nitrogen release from thawing permafrost can substantially improve the availability of nitrogen in Arctic ecosystems, which, in addition to the direct climatic feedback in the form of nitrous oxide, may have important consequences on carbon fixation by plants and eutrophication of water systems," says Postdoctoral Researcher Maija Marushchak from the University of Eastern Finland, the lead author of the study.

Ученые из Балтийского федерального университета им. И.Канта совместно с коллегами из Института физиологии им. И.П.Павлова РАН доказали, что у сильновозбудимых крыс больше шансов получить психические проблемы из-за стресса, чем у менее «нервных» экземпляров. В первом случае стресс сильнее влияет на иммунную систему, что приводит к воспалительной реакции в мозге, которая, в свою очередь, способна запустить патологический сценарий, заложенный в генах. Механизмы стресса у грызунов и людей схожи, что позволяет делать предположения, которые можно проверить в будущем.

Together with colleagues from the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientists of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University proved that "nervous" rats are more likely than more stable species to develop mental problems due to stress. Stress factors have a more significant impact on their immune system, which leads to an inadequate inflammatory reaction in the brain. This reaction can enable a pathological scenario embedded in genes. This conclusion was reached by the authors after a long-term study of the behavior of two strains of rats that differ in their peripheral and central nervous system excitation. The results were published in the Plos One journal.
Long-term stress is a risk factor for various psychopathologies such as anxiety, depression, bipolar, and other disorders. The exact mechanism is not yet well studied, but there is a theory about the processes which are involved. Stress-induced hormones can adversely affect the immune system. As a result, inflammatory reactions occur. Moreover, the signs of inflammation occur not only in the blood but also in the brain. Disorders of the hypothalamus structures and pituitary glands, changes in gene activity lead to dysfunction of neurons and glia (auxiliary cells of the nervous tissue). It is possible that if there is a genetic predisposition to mental illness, stress will lead to it. Together with colleagues from the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientists of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University decided to test this theory on two strains of rats characterized by different nervous system excitation.
"Scientists investigate the rats' mechanisms of stress to use the information for treating humans' severe psycho-emotional disorders. Rats are mammals, they're evolutionarily distant from us, but they have quite complex nervous systems, complex behavior, and in many ways, the mechanisms of stress are conservative. Therefore they are similar for rodents and humans. We need to understand that if we discovered the effect of the nervous system excitation on the severity of poststressor inflammation in the rats' brain, it doesn't mean that it's going to be the same with humans. But these conclusions allow us to make assumptions, which can already be tested in the future", - says Irina Shalaginova, the head of this research, the scientist from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.
At the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Science, rats have been studied for several decades. They were selected by the level of excitability of the nervous system Thus, unique animal strains were created - highly excitable ones and low excitable ones. This experiment involved 206 animals from both of these strains. To simulate stress, each day for 15 consecutive days, the subjects were exposed to six unsupported and six current-reinforced light signals. According to the special scheme, combinations of conditional (current) and unconditional (light) irritants were not repeated, but alternating, which did not allow animals to develop a conditional reflex. To avoid the effects of anesthesia on experimental results, scientists had to use the instant decapitation of animals with a guillotine. This manipulation was carried out by an experienced lab technician.
The behavior of rats with a low excitability threshold (high-excitability strain) showed a significant change, in a complex way. One day after the stress, their research behavior declined, which can be interpreted as an increase in anxiety. For example, they were much less likely to enter the center of the labyrinth during tests and spent less time caring for their fur. A week after the experiment began, the symptoms of anxiety disappeared, and 24 days later they reappeared again. Probably it happened due to some compensatory mechanisms, which, alas, are not sufficient under conditions of prolonged stress. Also, the number of microglial cells performing an immune defense function in the brain by initiating an inflammatory reaction in all studied areas of the hippocampus increased a week after exposure to stress. The scientists suggest that their influence may have caused changes in the behavior of rats.
"Stress can cause very serious disorders and we know that some people are more vulnerable than others. It is necessary to find out which individual (including genetically conditioned) characteristics affect this vulnerability. It is also not clear how stress affects the brain, what exactly happens in the nervous system, which changes the behavior and the psycho-emotional state of a person. These are the questions we are trying to answer. Knowing all this, it will be possible to develop effective methods of treatment and prevention of post-stress pathologies", - comments Irina Shalaginova.

Российское представительство Всемирного фонда дикой природы (WWF) выпустило общедоступную интерактивную карту мест обитаний редких видов птиц и животных России с указанием границ лесхозов и арендованных участков лесозаготовительных предприятий. Это позволит определить, обитают ли редкие виды на планируемых участках вырубки и, соответственно, сохранить их.

WWF-Russia today released a publicly accessible, easy-to-use interactive map that shows habitats of animals listed in the Red Data Books of Russia's endangered species. The map covers the full territory of the Russian Federation, including the boundaries of forestry units and leased areas of logging companies. It will serve as an important tool to identify and determine whether habitats of rare bird species are to be found in planned logging areas. Most of the information covers habitats of rare bird species, although data on some other animal species is also available.
"All previously existing databases and maps of habitats of rare species in Russia, even those with a cartographic interface, did not display any boundaries of forest areas nor forest compartments where logging operations were taking place. For forest companies that are obliged to protect rare species' habitats, having to rely on those services was very inconvenient and inefficient. The new interactive map that we have created facilitates access to important data and helps responsible businesses protect these habitats. It is a tool for authorities that demonstrates how such information should be collected and provided," says Konstantin Kobyakov, WWF-Russia's Forest Programme expert on High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF).
Timber companies whose leased forest plots contain habitats of rare animal species are obliged to conserve them during logging activities in compliance with Russian legislation, as well as the criteria set by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for companies seeking certification. The new map is incorporated into WWF-Russia's key resource on HCVs and website hcvf.ru, which is already actively used by most FSC-certified companies in Russia, as well as environmentalists and civil society organizations.
The data on the habitats are uploaded onto the new map via the Web GIS system "Faunistics," developed and supported by the Russian Network for the Study and Protection of Predator Birds: "Predator Birds of the World," "Artificial Nesting Sites," "Birds of Northern Eurasia," "Wild Cats of Eurasia," "Aquatic Mammals of Eurasia" and "Red Data Books of Russia." The data is collected both by participants of the programs of the Russian Network for the Study and Protection of Predators and the Russian Bird Conservation Union, as well as by some independent researchers and nature lovers. In the latter case, all observations are moderated and checked by the specialists before their publication.
Why a new map?
Until today, Russia did not have a centralized system for collecting, storing, and providing information to assess the impact of planned logging on habitats of rare species. Often, such data was available only in scientific publications and reports, but was not sufficiently linked to work on the ground in a way that information could be taken into account when planning logging activities or creating forest infrastructure.
Moreover, the data on the habitats of rare species was not included in forest development plans nor any other forest planning documents, even if it was available to the authority responsible for environmental protection. It was often not submitted to the regional departments responsible for forestry in the first place. Often, there was zero exchange of information between various institutions and departments within the same structure.
Forests are crucial habitats for rare bird species' survival
The life of many animals, including predator birds, is closely connected with the forest. For example, the white-tailed eagle, which is found throughout Eurasia, chooses nesting in areas of intact forests remote from civilization and near fish-abundant water sources. The house and shelter of the eagle, whose wingspan reaches 2.5 meters, are tall old trees. Privacy is very important for this predator: when disturbed by people, eagles abandon their clutches. Logging in intact forests displaces eagles from their native nesting sites; and the pollution of the water sources and a decrease in fish leads to the death of clutches and chicks.
Another predator, the osprey, chooses tall trees near clean and fish-rich ponds with shallow waters. Large mushroom-like nests, of up to one and a half meters in diameter, are made only on the very top of the tree and are used by the birds for many consecutive years, if they are not driven from their place by people. The osprey loves wild, secluded areas of the forest, and if people appear near the nest, the chicks hide, and the adult predators silently fly away and often do not return. The active industrial development of forests in neighboring areas threatens the reproduction of the predators. When logging, it is extremely important to preserve osprey nests and leave tall trees suitable for nesting.
Another rare predator, the Blakiston's fish owl, nests in the intact forest thicket. According to scientists, no more than 700 pairs of these birds are left in the world, but because of the large-scale development of the taiga, there are fewer of them every year. The fish owl lives only in the Far East: 80% of its population is in Russia, and 20% in Japan. This largest and rarest owl in the world, along with the Amur tiger, can be called a symbol of the Ussuri taiga. The fish owls live in hard-to-reach places: in the valleys of mountain rivers and springs in the middle of intact taiga, and lead a very secretive life.

Ученые из Института космических исследований РАН и Европейского космического агентства опубликовали результаты исследования данных, полученных орбитальным аппаратом Trace Gas Orbiter миссии ExoMars, одна из задач которого - поиск воды на Марсе. Аппарат обнаружил область с необычно большим количеством водорода в системе каньонов Долины Маринер (Valles Marineris). Если предположить, что весь водород связан с молекулами воды, то до 40% приповерхностного материала в этой области может составлять водяной лед.

Water ice may be lurking just a few feet below the Martian surface at one of the Red Planet's most dramatic sites.
That's according to new research based on data gathered by the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), part of the ExoMars mission operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos. ExoMars includes both TGO, which launched in 2016, and the Rosalind Franklin rover due to launch to Mars next year. Among the instruments aboard TGO is one called the Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND), which can detect hydrogen, one of the two elements that make up water. New analyses of FREND's data show high levels of hydrogen at a site called Candor Chaos, located near the heart of the massive canyon system dubbed Valles Marineris.
"We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water - far more water than we expected," Alexey Malakhov, a senior scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a co-author of the new paper, said in an ESA statement. "This is very much like Earth's permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures."
Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the solar system - 10 times longer and five times deeper than the Grand Canyon here on Earth - and one of the most striking features of the Red Planet, running alongside much of the Martian equator. When scientists have looked for Mars water ice in the equatorial region before, they have only been able to study the surface dust, and they have found only small amounts of water.
The new research expands the depth that scientists can study, giving them a look at the upper subsurface as well as the immediate surface.
"With TGO we can look down to one meter [3 feet] below this dusty layer and see what's really going on below Mars' surface - and, crucially, locate water-rich 'oases' that couldn't be detected with previous instruments," Igor Mitrofanov, another scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, lead author of the new study and principal investigator of the FREND instrument, said in the statement.
The researchers said that if all of the hydrogen they detected is present in the form of water ice, the precious compound could make up as much as 40% of near-surface material in the area. However, FREND could also be detecting water built into local minerals, although the scientists believe that is less likely than ice.
"This finding is an amazing first step, but we need more observations to know for sure what form of water we're dealing with," Håkan Svedhem, the former ESA project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and a co-author on the new study, said in the statement. "Regardless of the outcome, the finding demonstrates the unrivalled abilities of TGO's instruments in enabling us to 'see' below Mars' surface - and reveals a large, not-too-deep, easily exploitable reservoir of water in this region of Mars."
The new research is based on data that FREND gathered between May 2018 and February 2021, according to the ESA statement.
"Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars' once-abundant water and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars' earliest days," Colin Wilson, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist, said in the statement.
A paper describing the research is being published in the March 2022 issue of the journal Icarus and was published online on Nov. 19.

На побережье Белого моря впервые были замечены биолюминесцентные веслоногие рачки-копеподы (Metridia longa). Внимание ученых, работающих на российской исследовательской станции, привлекло голубоватое свечение снега. Копеподы живут в океане на глубине до 100 метров и, вероятно, их вынесло на берег сильным приливом.

High in the Russian Arctic, at a remote field station on the shores of the White Sea, biologist Vera Emelianenko set out for a walk on a frigid December night. With her were Mikhail Neretin, the son of the station’s molecular biologist, and a couple dogs: a giant schnauzer and soft-coated Wheaten terrier.
Trudging along the icy embankments of the tidal zone in fierce Arctic winds, Neretin spotted a blue illumination in a snowbank. Had Emelianenko dropped her phone?
As they walked over to investigate, their footsteps created streaks of ethereal blue. "They were like blue Christmas lights in the snow," Emelianenko says.
She bent down to scoop up a handful. With a gentle squeeze, the snowball glowed brighter. The dogs left a glowing trail as they raced ahead, as though the Northern Lights had seeped from sky to snow.
After a flurry of phone calls and texted photographs, the station’s biologists and a group of marine scientists across Russia were buzzing over the find. Emelianenko and Neretin took the station photographer, Alexander Semenov, out to document the lights. "We stomped the ground all together for maybe two hours" to get the spots to shine, Semenov says.
The next day, Emelianenko slipped a glowing snowball under a stereo microscope to try to identify the bioluminescent culprit. As she waited for the ice to melt away, she prodded miniscule detritus with a needle to no avail. But then Emelianenko spotted some copepods, tiny aquatic crustaceans, in the slushy petri dish. When she poked them, they shone a faint blue.
This may be the first documented explanation for glowing snow in the Arctic, which has been observed occasionally by researchers over the years but not been rigorously tested.
Copepod life history
Copepods are miniscule crustaceans just a few millimeters long, about the size of several grains of sand in a row. "They’re the bugs of the sea," explains Steven Haddock, a marine biologist studying deep-sea zooplankton at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. "They’re small and numerous, they’re eaten by a lot of things."
While they don’t exactly get a lot of press or cultural representation (with the notable exception of Plankton, a copepod in SpongeBob SquarePants), copepods make up the plurality of biomass in the ocean, according to some estimates. They’re passive swimmers, meaning they can’t resist the currents. This particular species of copepod - Metridia longa - is tossed around the oceans from Canada’s Hudson Strait to the waters of Maine and all across the Arctic.
Even so, Metridia have no business on the shores of the White Sea, says Ksenia Kosobokova, an expert on Arctic marine zooplankton at Russia’s Academy of Science in Moscow. They’re usually found farther out in the ocean, migrating to depths of 80 to 300 feet during the day and ascending to a few feet from the surface during the darkness of night (which, in the winter, is most of the time), Kosobokova explains.
What must have occurred, Kosobokova says, is that the copepods were caught in a powerful current. Twice a day when the White Sea’s rising tide sweeps ashore, the frigid water and everything in it is sluiced through cracks in the ice and snow. For weak swimmers like copepods, there’s no escape.
It could be that tides were particularly strong on the day of the first sighting, December 1 - the moon was almost new and three days away from 2021’s closest perigee, the time when the moon is nearest to the earth. Both conditions make for stronger tides. But a second round of sightings on December 16 suggest that it may not take a once-in-a-year lunar cycle to create conditions for the glowing snow.
How the copepod got its glow
Most bioluminescence is produced when a small energy-storing molecule called luciferin is oxidized. On its own, luciferin produces a very faint, steady glow. But combined with the enzyme luciferase, the reaction is sped up, and that glow becomes a dramatic burst.
"So we have these two molecules inside of them, a light emitter and an accelerator," Haddock explains. For some copepods, the luciferin and luciferase react internally, but Metridia longa has glands on its head and body to secrete its incandescence into the world. "They’ll shoot out those two molecules at the same time and form a little puff of light in the water."
Scientists believe Metridia and other copepods use bioluminescence as a defense. "One idea is that the light could startle predators and cause them to spit out the copepod" or distract them long enough for the copepod to escape, says Todd Oakley, a professor of evolutionary ecology and marine biology at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Ghostly lights
Kosobokova figures the copepods nestled in the snow were fading but alive - after all, Arctic plankton are no strangers to freezing temperatures. But bioluminescence experts say they may well have been dead - making their blue glow somewhat ghostly.
As many ham-handed children are sad to learn, fireflies still glow if you accidentally squish them.
"It happens for us with our scientific specimens," Haddock adds. "You collect an organism and you put it in the freezer for later study. And then when you pull it out, it will slowly start to glow - the chemicals that are inside of their bodies are still perfectly capable of reacting."
Emily Lau, a graduate student at UCSB, studies the biochemistry of bioluminescence in fishes and the copepod’s crustacean cousin the ostracod. They look like sesame seeds with eyeballs. "People can dry them, and then you can still crush them in the water after they’re dead and they will produce bioluminescence," she explains.
"As long as that small molecule luciferin is present, then the bioluminescence is going to occur," Lau says.
Jørgen Berge, a professor at the Arctic University of Norway who studies polar night and arctic marine ecosystems, says it may be too early to give copepods credit for the light show. Berge has observed similar deposits in the snow on the shores of the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard, which he believes are better explained by clumps of dinoflagellates, single-celled algae that also bioluminesce (although he hasn’t tested the spots to identify their composition.)
Dinoflagellates are behind many spectacular marine displays of bioluminescence - like the "phosphorescent bays" of Puerto Rico, where bathers can splash each other with light, or the dolphins that leave ethereal glowing trails off the coast of California.
"It’s very easy to direct your attention to the larger organisms [in a sample]," Berge explains. But identifying a creature capable of bioluminescence in the sample doesn’t mean another, less obvious creature isn’t responsible. However, Berge agrees that the lights are particularly bright, even for dinoflagellates.
Perhaps what’s most surprising is that glowing snow had not been seen before at a biological station that’s been active for over 80 years - only to be spotted by Emelianenko, 24, and Neretin, 18. That could be because most folks don’t go for leisurely December strolls in the Arctic night, Kosobokova says. It’s not very hospitable. "We also get bears and wolves up here," Semenov adds.
But the young biologists’ keen eyes and tolerance for cold was rewarded. "There’s so many mysteries out there if you’re willing to have a childlike curiosity," Haddock says.
Semenov agrees. "You never expect that there will be beauty right under your nose that you haven’t realized can exist."

Нейробиологи Томского государственного университета и Международного томографического центра СО РАН занимаются изучением врожденных аномалий головного мозга человека в пре- и постнатальном периодах. При исследовании такой патологии, как полное или частичное отсутствие мозолистого тела, соединяющего оба полушария, было установлено, что его функции могут брать на себя другие структуры мозга, благодаря чему когнитивные способности сохраняются.

TSU neurobiologists are studying congenital brain anomalies in the human prenatal and postnatal periods. While studying agenesis of the corpus callosum (complete or partial absence of the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain), the scientists discovered that its functions can be compensated for by other brain structures. The child’s cognitive abilities remain intact. This new data can drastically change clinical practice and reduce the number of pregnancy terminations. The project is supported by the Russian Science Foundation.
The scientists used myelin mapping technology, a unique non-invasive technology created by neurobiologists at TSU. Myelin is a substance that surrounds nerve cell axons, and the amount of it is an important criterion in assessing the child’s or fetus’s brain development. TSU scientists and specialists from the International Tomography Center, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences (ITC SB RAS, Novosibirsk) are studying the earliest stages of myelin formation during the prenatal development.
"We chose corpus callosum for this study because anomalies in its development are frequent," explains Aleksandra Korostyshevskaya, senior researcher, chief of the Medical Diagnostics Department of ITC SB RAS, Doctor of Medical Science. "Anomalies of midline brain structures make up 47% of all brain development pathologies, and of all of them 40% are connected with underdevelopment (agenesis) of the corpus callosum. It is hard to say what life has in store for these children. Doctors and parents face a difficult choice: to risk giving birth to an intellectually disabled child or to terminate pregnancy."
It is not always possible to detect the anomaly’s details through prenatal ultrasounding. In almost half of the cases, an MRI of the fetus is needed to determine the agenesis of the corpus callosum. However, this is complicated because the fetus constantly moves in amniotic fluid. Specialists at the ITC SB RAS were some of the first to introduce this method of diagnosis, in 2008, and have been perfecting it for more than 13 years.
In collaboration with TSU, the ITB SB RAS scientists developed a new step in global practice – a method of quantitative myelin mapping in a fetus’s brain.
"We gathered a representative sample of fetuses with agenesis of the corpus callosum," explains Vasily Yarnykh, research adviser of the Research Institute of Biology and Biophysics, TSU, and a professor at TSU and University of Washington. "We compared them to a sample without anomalies and discovered that myelin in central brain structures forms faster in children without the corpus callosum. That means that absence or partial absence of one brain structure is compensated by others, and they connect two hemispheres instead of the corpus callosum."
This evidence of human brain neuroplasticity explains why people with agenesis of corpus callosum can function well in the absence of other anomalies. During examinations, clinicians encounter patients 50-70 years old without corpus callosum. They live a normal life and are well-integrated into society. At the time of their birth, MRI and ultrasounding were unavailable, and parents did not know of their children’s anomaly. The brain of these people compensated for the absence of corpus callosum by "turning on" other parts. To understand the mechanism of neuroplasticity, scientists need to figure out what structures can perform other parts’ functions.
"We study fetuses on that stage of development when myelin only starts forming," says Vasily Yarnykh. "On myelin maps, we can see that with agenesis of the corpus callosum, myelin forms faster in the medulla and spreads to the cerebellum. It is likely that hindbrain structures connect hemispheres in the absence of corpus callosum. Previously it was considered that in that case the functions of the corpus callosum are performed by other zones which form myelin after the child is already born. Our fundamental discovery changes our understanding of brain structures’ interactions."
New quantitative evidence from TSU and ITC SB RAS can alter existing clinical practice and give a chance at life to children who previously were promised intellectual limitations and social inadaptability.
"The agenesis of the corpus callosum was previously considered a fatal flaw, and if it was discovered before the 21st-23rd week, the pregnancy could be terminated," says Aleksandra Korostyshevskaya. "It is evident now that if corpus callosum is absent, we should check the accompanying diseases: central neural system pathologies and genetic syndromes. If everything is in order, the fetus has a chance to develop normally. Naturally, we need more large-scale studies, but even the data we have now drastically changed the approach to agenesis of corpus callosum."
At the beginning of 2022, the scientists will give an oral presentation on the results of their studies at the International Pediatric Radiology Congress of the American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology.

На форуме «Арктика: настоящее и будущее», прошедшем в Санкт-Петербурге 2-4 декабря, российские ученые представили предварительные результаты изучения ихтиофауны в районе Норильска, пострадавшей от разлива дизельного топлива в мае 2020 г. Согласно выводам, никаких патологических изменений в жизни рыб не наблюдается, в частности, они вполне годятся в пищу.

Russian scientists have presented preliminary results of the ichthyofauna study in the vicinity of the Russian Arctic city of Norilsk, an area affected by the diesel fuel spill that happened in May last year. The findings are conclusive: the fish are safe to eat.
In St. Petersburg, the scientists presented the preliminary results of two research expeditions undertaken this year on Taimyr - the Arctic peninsula, home to one the world's northernmost cities Norilsk. Their story was told at a forum called "Arctic: Today and the Future".
Norilsk is set 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, just 2,400 km from of the North Pole. It is one of the five most northern cities in the world, with a population of around 200,000 people. The top five most northern cities also include Russia's Murmansk, Norway's Hammerferst, Alaska's Anchorage, and Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland.
The Taimyr Peninsula is the northernmost inland part of the Eurasian continent and the largest Russian peninsula. It has an area of almost 400 thousand square km. By comparison, the area of Germany is about 360 thousand square km. Taimyr is covered with a dense water network and is dubbed the land of a thousand lakes.
All Taimyr lakes are crystal clear cold-water lakes and are rich in valuable commercial fish. They are home to salmonids: whitefish, nelma, muksun, vendace, whitefish, omul and char. Among other local fish species are burbot, grayling, pelad, smelt.
All of the northern fish are highly prized for their excellent taste. Fish and fish dishes often feature at the annual gastronomic festival in Norilsk called "The North". Local chefs cook many fish dishes using fish, one of the best treats the extreme Russia's north has to offer. Char, a salmon relative, is probably the most valuable fish here. It contains polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. This fish inhabits the lakes of the Khatanga river basin and those of the Norilo-Pyasinskaya system. It could be the world's healthiest fish to eat.
Earlier this year researchers travelled to Norilsk to check in on the Taimyr fish as some had feared the fuel spill 18 months ago in Norilsk could have its toll on the Arctic lake dwellers. With a sigh of relief neither the Artur Chilingarov Polar Exploration Foundation, nor the Great Norilsk Expedition were able to find any pathological changes in the fish life of Lake Pyasino and the upper reaches of the Pyasina River.
Starting in 2020 with the Great Norilsk Expedition, this campaign saw 14 research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch (RAS SB) participating in the first stage of the fieldwork, and the second stage featuring 11 research institutes having taken place this year. Then an alternative expedition descended on Taimyr the Chilingarov Polar Expedition.
According to Head of the Polar Expedition Fyodor Romanenko (PhD Geography), the goal of the study was to obtain current, full and reliable information based on comprehensive expedition research. The scientists conducted a detailed and dedicated study of the current state of both the ecosystem as a whole and its components to make an unbiased assessment of the accident's repercussions (including those longterm) for the Norilo-Pyasinskaya water system biogeocenosis.
The study included both water and fish samples in the affected area. In particular, 306 samples were taken to assess the health of the fish. Other tests included water contamination and chemical and toxicological analysis, as well as sanitary, hygienic and microbiological lab surveys of the NID fishery. Fyodor Romanenko says that 108 ichthyofauna samples have been tested so far, and the results are all below the maximum permissible levels for toxic elements, salmonella, opisthorchis, and anisakis. In fact, the scientists safely subsisted on local fish during the fieldwork.
The Polar Expedition findings align with those of the Great Norilsk Expedition (its second stage of summer-autumn 2021). Nikolay Yurkevich, Director at the RAS SB Ecology Research Centre and Head of the expedition's field stage, presented his conclusions at the same working session titled "Polar Foundation's study on the NID ecosystem: unique experience and preliminary results" and held as part of the International Arctic forum.
The work scale was comparable to last year's: the fieldwork included three stages, with ichthyologists joining during the third one. The biological analysis was carried out during the fish capturing stage and included 62 samples from Lake Pyasino, 6 samples from the Ambarnaya River, and 18 samples from Lake Melkoye. (Note: the latter had not been affected by the spill; measurements needed to be taken to assess the general state of the ecosystem)
"Upon visually inspecting the scales, gills and innards (liver, kidneys, GI tract, gonads), we found no pathology - the fish are physiologically fine," said Nikolay Yurkevich. He added that by now the environmental impact of the diesel fuel spill has abated due to the ecosystem's self-regeneration properties.
That said, research by both groups of scientists is still in progress. Nonetheless, the analysis of water resources in the affected areas will continue. "Regular observations are one of the tools to address the legacy of the past and find a way to move forward," said Fyodor Romanenko.
For its part, Nornickel emphasises that it is ready to provide overarching support and funding for further studies. According to Andrey Grachev, Nornickel's Vice President for Federal and Regional Programmes, the scientific approach will underpin Nornickel's successful operations.
"We clearly understand the need to carry on with the research, not so much for our own sake, but for the sake of Russia's Arctic Zone. While science helps Nornickel gain knowledge on how to properly manage large companies and private businesses in the Arctic, our experience can be leveraged by all Russian companies operating in this fragile and unique macro region," said Grachev.

Результаты исследования, проведенного учеными Московского государственного университета показали, что в результате таяния вечной мерзлоты российская Арктика каждый год теряет около 7000 гектаров побережья.

The Russian State Commission for the Development of the Arctic has pointed to a new study which estimates that approximately 7,000 hectares of land are washed out to the sea annually, as the ice melt or are washed out into the sea.
The study was conducted by a group of scientists specializing in climatic changes at the Moscow State University and was first reported by the analytic news site Akcent.
The head of the Laboratory of Geoecology of the North at the university, Stanislav Ogorodov, commented on the concerning trend caused by climate change.
Ogorodov, who specializes in the field of marine geomorphology and polar geoecology, points to the fact that the amount of arctic coastline that is estimated to be lost on a yearly basis consists of about 70 sq. kilometers, which is comparable to the area of the Central District of Moscow. The once-frozen cliffsides to the Arctic Ocean in the Russian Arctic are quickly diminishing, leaving behind bare shallows and narrow beaches.
Less sea-ice for longer parts of the year causes more and bigger waves, bringing a double negative erosion effect to the coastlines with thawing permafrost.
An increase in greenhouse gas emissions has raised temperatures across the globe, however, the poles are the most susceptible regions to the rapid temperature increase.
Currently, the Arctic is warming three as fast as any other area on Earth, as recently pointed out in the Arctic Report Card 2021.
The increase in global temperatures causes glaciers and sea ice to break off and melt, thereby causing sea levels to rise. A perpetual cycle of continuous melting in the Arctic is then set in motion: the higher (and warmer) sea levels further warm up the Arctic’s icy shores and cause even more polar ice to melt and permafrost to thaw.
The Arctic shore thawing is no new revelation: Soviet scientists have been aware of this terrifying trend since the 1960s. However, what adds to the crisis is that the rate at which the Arctic melts has increased substantially in recent years. For example, the coast of the island Kolguyev, located in the south-eastern Barents Sea, is receding at a rate of 2 meters per year. This rate seems immense, however is derisory in comparison to the 15-20 meters lost annually of the glacial coast in certain areas in Eastern Siberia.
The 7,000 hectares of coastal land annually are causing severe negative effects on infrastructure. As previously reported by the Barents Observer, construction of Indiga seaport in Nenets Autonomous Okrug was earlier this year postponed due to changing conditions caused by permafrost thaw, ice melts and generally more difficult weather conditions. Thawing permafrost changes the depth of the port and requires new construction methods.
Melting glaciers and rising sea levels increase storm surges as warmer ocean and air temperatures often create more intense and frequent coastal storms. The frequency of natural disasters, not only in the Arctic, but across the globe is bound to increase as more and more of the Arctic melts.

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