Апрель 2022 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Siberian Federal University: Krasnoyarsk scientists improve the model for predicting outbreaks of the European spruce bark beetle
• The countries maintaining research ties with Russia despite Ukraine
• Researchers have developed a Russian-language method for the preoperative mapping of language areas
• Nanoparticles as sterilizing agents to replace antibiotics in phytoproduction
• Americans don't like talking about it, but the Soviet Union produced a golden age of science
• Study of data from NASA, ESA and Russian space agency explores effects of extended spaceflight on brain
• Russian scientists roll out coniferous feed additives
• Simulating supernova remnants, star formation in earthbound lab
• Russia seeks scientific collaboration with India after Chinese pause
• Study predicts thawing of gas-saturated permafrost around oil and gas wells of Russian Arctic
• Russian Arctic science ship to sail with very low sulphur fuel oils
• A new soil amoeba species discovered in the 'Siberian jungle'
• Nathusius’ ppistrelle bat sets a new bat migration record with a 2,400 km flight
• Rock lizards help transfer mite‐transmitted infections
• Chemists invent an efficient thermal camera to reduce costs of chemical research
• Nornickel backs efforts to revive Russian permafrost studies
• Controlling mirror images

Красноярские ученые в составе чешско-российско-словацкой исследовательской группы усовершенствовали модель, определяющую динамику ущерба, наносимого большим еловым короедом (Ips typographus L.) хвойным лесам Европы. Модель, основанная всего на двух переменных, позволила описать вспышки вредителя в национальных парках Чехии и Словакии с точностью до 90%.

Scientists of Siberian Federal University, as part of an international research team, have taken part in the development of a model of the dynamics of damage to mountain forests in the Tatra National Park (Slovakia) and Šumava National Park (Czech Republic) by a dangerous spruce pest - the European spruce bark beetle Ips typographus L. The model based on the use of only two variables helped describe the processes in different outbreak foci of the pest on the territory of the Tatras with an accuracy of up to 90%. This model also allows assessing the risk of damage caused by the bark beetle to European spruce plantations.
The study was conducted by a Czech-Russian-Slovak research team. A trigger for the work was a speech at an international conference by Czech entomologist Roman Modlinger who told about his model of damage to the mountain forests of the Tatras by this bark beetle. The model turned out to be very confusing, required knowledge of a large number of characteristics of the forest and insect populations, and at the same time was not very accurate and poorly described the observed processes.
"The Krasnoyarsk scientists, in particular, Doctor of Biological Sciences Vladislav Sukhovolsky and Candidate of Engineering Anton Kovalyov, who are researchers at the V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest (SB RAS), and I, as a researcher at Siberian Federal University, proposed a way to simplify the model and at the same time increase the accuracy of calculations. A joint work was done on modeling the dynamics of forest damage by pests based on data on damage in the Tatras. By the way, we published a basic monograph on modeling the dynamics of the number of forest insects in Wiley and Suns, a very prestigious New York publishing house," said Olga Tarasova, co-author of the study, professor of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Management at SibFU.
The European spruce bark beetle is one of the serious pests of spruce. Outbreaks of xylophagous insects cause enormous economic damage to the forests of Scandinavia, natural and artificial plantings in the European part of Russia and mountain forests of Central Europe. During outbreaks of mass reproduction of these insects, many trees die, which affects the functioning of the forest ecosystem. The explosive growth in the number of bark beetles is often associated with various forest disturbances - fires, windstorms, periods of drought, etc.
The Krasnoyarsk scientists noted that the population of the European spruce bark beetles can be observed in two phases - the phase of normal existence and the phase of outbreak. At the first stage, the number of insects is extremely low, they infect a small number of suitable trees (for example, fir trees in the case of Ips typographus L.). An outbreak occurs when the mass of insects exceeds a certain critical threshold and insects destroy all forage resources available in a given area. At the same time, no work has previously proposed methods for theoretical calculations of the critical density of the insect population.
"We used the annual mortality of trees (the volume of damaged wood) as an indirect indicator to calculate the population size of spruce bark beetle. The developed model was applied in practice, studying outbreaks of this species in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition, we hope to use this model to describe outbreaks of mass reproduction of xylophagous insects in the forests of Russia," stressed the authors.
According to experts, the proposed models have previously been used to simulate the dynamics of the number and outbreaks of mass reproduction of needle-gnawing insects. For models of this type, various authors used such factors as the number of bark beetles and predators dangerous to them as variables. Another classical system, in addition to the described predator - prey, is the resource - consumer model, where the beetle population is considered a consumer, and spruce is a resource. However, the model proposed by the Krasnoyarsk researchers employed other key factors - the volume of damaged wood and the weather in spring, since these indicators, unlike the density of the population of bark beetles, are quite easy to measure.
"Calculations performed within the framework of the proposed model have shown that the use of a fairly small amount of data on forest damage in past seasons and meteorological parameters allows us to predict the current damage to spruce plantations caused by an outbreak of spruce bark beetle reproduction. In our opinion, with the help of the proposed model, it is possible to improve the forecasting system of the destructive activity of forest insects. After all, as we know, it is better to prevent an environmental problem than to deal with its consequences," concluded Olga Tarasova.

О научном сотрудничестве стран БРИКС, куда входит и Россия, на фоне последних событий.

Is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine redrawing the map of international scientific cooperation? Whereas Europe and the United States are swiftly moving to cut long-standing ties, the governments of China, India, South Africa are maintaining links.
They are members of the BRICS, a group of five countries - including Brazil and Russia - that work together to promote trade and economic development, and have an active programme of scientific cooperation. Last year, researchers from the 5 nations organized some 100 meetings under the BRICS umbrella in a spectrum of fields including astronomy, climate and energy, health and medicine.
Vaccines are an important focus. India and South Africa are leading a campaign for intellectual-property relief on COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Last month, all five governments announced a new partnership on vaccines research and development at a launch event on 22 March attended by science and health ministers. In a statement, Russia’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, said the initiative would build on the first COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed and tested in BRICS countries. Russia approved its first coronavirus vaccine in August 2020.
And on 26-27 April, the five countries’ national science academies will host a meeting aimed at sharing data on biodiversity, climate and food security as a means to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Brazil’s research leaders have openly said they are against the invasion. They have also set up a fund for scientists fleeing Ukraine, Russia and other conflict zones to come to Brazil. There is also opposition from researchers in South Africa, but it’s harder to determine what scientists in China and India think. Of those approached, none agreed to comment for this article. Some researchers in India and South Africa have published open letters condemning the invasion. South Africa’s government is advising research institutions - although not scientists - not to speak on what it calls the "political aspects".
China, India and South Africa are not alone in keeping ties to Russia. Comstech, an Islamabad-based organization representing science ministers from countries that are part of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is discussing a long-term science-cooperation agreement with Russia, which is an observer state to the OIC.
China’s East-West balancing act
The Chinese government says it maintains a "neutral stance" on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Universities, research organizations and funding agencies are not making public statements, but there are no signs that collaborations will be affected.
The past decade has seen a steady increase in research publications with authors from the two countries (see ‘Trend in Russia’s science collaborations’), although this is in line with China’s research growth with many more countries. Physical sciences stand out as popular fields for researchers from China and Russia - especially physics and astronomy, as well as materials science and engineering.
China and Russia designated 2020-21 a year of scientific and technological innovation, with plans for collaborations in nuclear energy, COVID-19 studies and mathematics, among other areas. Alexander Sergeev, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, is also one of the vice-presidents of the Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO), a 67-member network of research organizations around the world established by China in 2018.
"Economic sanctions on Russia will have little or no impact on ANSO’s activities," predicts Qasim Jan, a geologist at Peshawar University in Pakistan and a former ANSO vice-president. That’s because, he says, "China provides most of ANSO’s funding". Five institutions are involved in an ANSO project to study green economic opportunities involving China, Mongolia and Russia.
Space policy could be ripe for more cooperation, researchers are predicting, if Russia splits permanently from US- and European-led international space collaborations. In 2021, Russia and China’s space agencies agreed to work together to build a base on the Moon. This could now be "accelerated and potentially expanded", says Malcolm Davis, who studies space policy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
And because selected Russian banks are now barred from the international financial-transactions platform SWIFT, payments between Russia and China are likely to use the countries’ respective currencies. Murad Ali, head of political science at the University of Malakand in Chakdara, Pakistan, who studies China’s international finance, says more than 20 countries have similar currency-swap arrangements with China.
In 2015, China also launched an alternative to SWIFT called the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Before the invasion of Ukraine, the system was used for around US$49 billion in daily transactions, says Łukasz Kobierski, who studies international relations at the Institute of New Europe, a think tank in Warsaw. This compares with $5 trillion that goes through SWIFT daily, according to the US treasury. However, ongoing sanctions on Russia could see CIPS usage increase.
Some China-Russia science ties date from at least the 1950s, explains Isak Froumin, a higher-education researcher at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, currently on sabbatical in Boston, Massachusetts. This is when newly communist China adopted the Soviet Union’s model of concentrating research in state-funded and state-directed academies of sciences. Relations between the two have been through turbulent times and China began to look west for scientific cooperation after the fall of the Soviet Union, Froumin adds.
Some observers are cautioning that China will not want to jeopardize its many existing scientific partnerships with Europe and the United States. China’s scientific community does not want to be isolated from the West, says Futao Huang, a higher-education researcher at Hiroshima University in Japan.
Modi-Putin science plan
Over the past few decades, India has had less scientific cooperation with Russia than with Europe and the United States. But in December 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to strengthen scientific links between the two countries.
The leaders agreed on a lengthy list of topics on which they want to see more cooperation. These include: agriculture and food science and technology, the ocean economy, climate, data science, energy, health and medicine, polar research, quantum technologies and water.
This would be in addition to existing ties in nuclear energy and space. Russia has supplied India with nuclear reactors and fuel, and the countries’ space cooperation dates from the 1970s. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian air-force pilot, joined the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-11 expedition, becoming the first person from India to travel to space.
The new Modi-Putin science plan will not be affected by the invasion of Ukraine, says Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs in Sweden. "New Delhi has a vested interest in ensuring such cooperation with the long-standing partner [Russia] continues despite disruptions."
The last time the two countries scaled up their joint projects was 1987-90, when they established eight collaborative centres, including some in materials science, advanced computing and ayurvedic medicine.
India’s largest research partners (as measured by joint publications) are in Europe and the United States. Researchers with knowledge of how the Indian government organizes science told Nature that they do not anticipate these research relationships changing.
However, D. Raghunandan, president of the Delhi Science Forum, a non-profit science-policy organization, predicts that international sanctions will eventually have a more serious impact on India’s research collaborations across the board. Trade sanctions against Russia, he says, mean researchers in India and Russia might be unable to transfer research material between the countries. Moreover, banking sanctions are likely to prevent funds being transferred using international banks.
To get around this, India and Russia are reported to be discussing trading with each other using the rupee and the rouble instead of US dollars. However, Raghunandan warns there’s a risk that sanctions might extend to a ban on technologies that can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
"Monetary sanctions can be taken care of," Raghunandan says, but he predicts trouble for India’s scientists if Europe and the United States decide to extend sanctions to apply to countries that have relations with Russia. "International collaborations in science will depend on how far the US and Europe are willing to take the sanctions. We do not know how the future will unfold."
Brazil warns of ‘serious consequences’ for collaborations
Unlike China and India, Brazil is expected to experience serious consequences for its joint projects as a result of international economic sanctions against Russia, some of Brazil’s researchers have told Nature. At the same time, scientists and funding agencies are organizing to support colleagues who need to flee either Ukraine or Russia.
Before the invasion, Ricardo Galvão, a fusion-energy physicist at the University of São Paulo, was expecting to start a collaboration with two of Russia’s largest physics institutes, the Ioffe Institute in St Petersburg and the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. The project aimed to measure energy and rotation in the plasma inside tokamaks - doughnut-shaped fusion reactors with powerful magnets.
"Those plans were also destroyed by the missiles," Galvão says. At the very least, there will be delays and increased costs, he adds. In the first weeks after 24 February, the rouble lost 20% of its value against the Brazilian real.
Brazil’s research leaders are "obviously against invasion", says Jerson Silva, a biochemist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and director of the state’s science funding agency, FAPERJ. FAPERJ has launched a funding call for researchers in Rio de Janeiro who wish to host scientists fleeing Ukraine, Russia and other conflict zones.
The US$2-million-programme, which started on 24 March, will provide aeroplane tickets to Rio, travel insurance and a monthly stipend of 9,000 reais (around US$1,900) for up to a year. Some of Brazil’s 25 other science funding agencies, including FAPESP in São Paulo, are launching similar calls.
The goal, says biochemist Vânia Paschoalin, FAPERJ’s coordinator of international relations, is to allow Ukrainian and Russian researchers to continue their work. "The conflict ends," she says. "Science doesn’t. Science is always alive."
Some also disagree with the pressure to cut scientific links with Russia. Paulo Artaxo, an atmospheric physicist at the University of São Paulo, says: "You cannot exclude Israeli, South African or Russian scientists, because they are not responsible for [their] government’s actions."
Brazilian Physics Society president Débora Peres Menezes also opposes a boycott. Peres Menezes, a nuclear physicist at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis, says physics is a collaborative science and some of her students have benefited from visiting research institutions in Russia. "Scientists should not individually pay the price of conflict."

Нейролингвисты из НИУ ВШЭ и рентгенологи из НМХЦ им. Н.И.Пирогова разработали первый русскоязычный протокол функциональной магнитно-резонансной томографии, позволяющий картировать речевые зоны в мозге пациента перед нейрохирургическими операциями.

Neurolinguists from HSE University, in collaboration with radiologists from the Pirogov National Medical and Surgical Centre, developed a Russian-language protocol for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that makes it possible to map individual language areas before neurosurgical operations. The study was published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
When neurosurgeons operate on brain tumors, their goal is to remove the pathological tissue while preserving the adjacent areas critical to various motor and cognitive functions, including language, as much as possible. The ability to preserve the language areas determines whether the patient will have language disorders after the operation and be able to easily communicate with others, hold a job and lead an ordinary life.
The exact location of language areas differs from one person to the next, so special methods must be used to map them in each patient. The most accurate method is direct electrical stimulation during a neurosurgical operation. But sometimes the neurosurgeon needs to know beforehand where a particular patient’s language areas are located to make the best possible plan for the operation. Such preoperative mapping is performed using functional MRI, or fMRI. While situated in an MRI scanner, the patient performs language-related tasks. Data analysis shows which areas in the brain are activated.
Until now, most protocols for preoperative language mapping by this method were developed in English. Scientists from HSE University have developed the first Russian-language fMRI protocol that uses a language task recommended by the international scientific community - sentence completion.
The patient must read aloud a sentence that is missing the last word (such as ‘The audience watched a long …’) and then finish the sentence with an appropriate word (such as ‘play’ or ‘movie’). This task is unique in that it involves both language production and comprehension at the sentence level, making it possible to comprehensively map the patient’s language areas.
Researchers validated the protocol in a control group of 18 healthy Russian-speaking volunteers aged 30-53. This proved that the protocol successfully maps the most important language areas in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain and reveals the individual lateralisation of the language function - that is, the degree to which this function relies on the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The researchers also demonstrated the high reliability of the protocol: each volunteer underwent the procedure twice with an interval of several weeks and the results were similar. This is the first Russian-language protocol that has undergone such extensive validation.
Svetlana Malyutina, researcher at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain and a co-author of the article
'The first stage of the study has been completed, showing the validity and reliability of the protocol in the control group. We are now doing the most important part - testing the protocol in clinical practice, using it for preoperative speech mapping in patients with brain tumors and epilepsy. We plan to analyse whether the protocol works as well in clinical groups as it does in the control group. We will test how well its results match those of intraoperative mapping and, therefore, how widely it should be applied in clinical practice.'

Коллектив ученых НИТУ «МИСиС», Воронежского государственного лесотехнического университета и Тамбовского государственного университета создал простой и эффективный препарат для защиты полученных in vitro саженцев от фитопатогенов. Наночастицы оксида меди в его составе работают как иммуностимулятор, а также оказывают противогрибковое действие.

A simple and effective preparation for the protection of in vitro-derived seedlings from phytopathogens has been developed by a scientific team of NUST MISIS together with colleagues from Voronezh and Tambov. Small doses of copper oxide nanoparticles in its composition work as an immunostimulator of plants. As a result, scientists are planning to obtain a preparation that will increase the amount of harvested planting material. The results of the work have been published in the Nanomaterials international scientific journal.
Modern methods of mass phytoproduction include obtaining planting material of woody plants by clonal micropropagation in vitro. This method of vegetative propagation makes it possible to obtain new plants, genetically identical to the original specimen, in a laboratory vessel or other controlled experimental environment rather than within a living organism or natural setting.
There are some challenges with the new technology: as nutrient media for phytoclones provide ideal conditions for microbial growth, new plants need to be created and maintained in complete sterility. Antibiotics are increasingly being used to reduce the risk of contamination in plants propagated in vitro.
However, along with the bactericidal effect, antibiotics can also have a toxic effect on plant tissues, inhibit their growth and development. In addition, microorganisms can adapt to biocidal drugs by mutations, which leads to the resistance of phytopathogens. According to Russian scientists, the use of nanoparticles as sterilizing agents could be a safe alternative to antibiotics.
The research team of scientists from NUST MISIS, Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F. Morozov and Tambov State University named after G. R. Derzhavin aimed to assess the effects of copper oxide nanoparticles on the growth of colonies of spore-forming mold fungi, as well as on the production of stress resistance genes in birch clones in vitro when infected with phytopathogens.
"As we expected, copper oxide nanoparticles had a pronounced antifungal effect on phytopathogens in plant culture, which is consistent with the results of a number of previous studies. As possible mechanisms of this phenomenon, we assume both the diffusion of copper ions, which is an antimicrobial agent, and specific nanotoxic effects, such as the induction of oxidative stress or damage to the cell membrane," said Olga Zakharova, an expert from the Department of Functional Nanosystems and High-Temperature Materials at NUST MISIS.
Interestingly, according to the developers, the maximum sterility of plants was observed at the lowest concentration of nanoparticles studied. Scientists suggest that the effect is achieved not through the direct destruction of phytopathogenic microorganisms by nanoparticles, but indirectly through the stimulation of immunity of seedlings.
"Nanoparticles in low concentrations can cause moderate stress in plants, one of the reactions to which is a change in their biochemical status. Compounds such as peroxidases and polyphenols, which are part of the system of non-specific protection of plants against phytopathogenic microorganisms, are beginning to be produced. At the same time, an increase in the concentration of nanoparticles increases the 'nano' induced stress, and the overall efficiency of plant adaptation to stress begins to decrease, which is ultimately manifested by a reduced number of viable microclones at the maximum concentration of nanoparticles," Olga Zakharova added.
According to the researchers, the obtained data confirm the prospect of using copper oxide nanoparticles to optimize the technology of plant cultivation in vitro. The next stage of the project is to accurately identify the mechanisms by which nanoparticles affect plants and phytopathogens.

Как первый советский космический спутник повлиял на научный прогресс в США.

Russia has never had a great image in the United States. The biggest country in the world was notorious in the public consciousness for controlling the Soviet Union during the Cold War, spreading Communism after the Bolshevik Revolution and even purportedly throwing its weight behind Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Yet if not for Russian scientific genius, Americans - and the rest of the human race - would live in a very different world, and certainly a far less interesting one.
The Golden Age of Soviet Science is, not coincidentally, pretty much one and the same as the Golden Age of Space Exploration. The pivotal year was 1957, when a satellite the size of a beach ball was shot into space. Known as either Sputnik or Sputnik-1, the seemingly insignificant hunk of metal came into being because both the Soviet Union and the United States recruited as many German scientists as they could for their missile programs. Although Soviet space programs languished when Joseph Stalin led that empire - he had little interest in aerospace technology - his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, instantly saw the potential of having the Soviets eclipse the United States in this budding tech sector.
Under the leadership of rocket scientists like Mikhail Tikhonravov and Sergei Korolev, a new program was approved by the Soviet Academy of Science in 1954 and quickly put America's scientists to shame. When Sputnik was launched on Oct. 4, 1957, the 183-pound gizmo circled Earth's surface once every 98 minutes, transmitting interesting data (by the standards of the 1950s) about various points on the planet's surface. At the same time, it was hardly a masterpiece of technology - the Soviets knew that it would not last very long, nor was intended to. The goal was to achieve the historic first, in this case being the first country to send a man-made object into space.
Their next goal was to be the first country to send a living creature into space. Soviet scientists picked Laika, a stray mongrel found on the cold streets of Moscow. Experts were not sure if any organism could survive outside of the planet's orbit, and Laika's journey would if nothing else demonstrate whether that was the case. On Nov. 3, 1957 - less than one month after Sputnik-1 was launched - Laika became the first animal to enter space on board Sputnik-2. While scientists dishonestly claimed at the time that they unsuccessfully tried to bring her back home alive, subsequent reports reveal that they knew before her launch that she was doomed. One scientist, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky, took her home with his children the night before she was strapped into the satellite, later writing that "Laika was quiet and charming" and that "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live."
Laika's final hours were far less wholesome: She died of either overheating or asphyxiation shortly before she was meant to be euthanized by poison. (Notably, American space programs also resulted in the deaths of a number of space-borne animals, mostly monkeys.)
Of course, the crowning achievement of Soviet science occurred when a human being, Yuri A. Gagarin, finally journeyed through space. Finishing the trail that Laika had blazed, Gagarin's spacecraft Vostok 1 launched in what is now Kazakhstan on April 12, 1961 - only five days before America would humiliate itself again with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. Gagarin only stayed in space for 1 hour and 48 minutes. When his spacecraft landed near the western Russian city of Engels, Gagarin was greeted by a bewildered farmer and his daughter who had wandered over the mysterious round capsule that fell from the sky. Approaching them in a strange silver suit, Gagarin reassured them, "Don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"
This is not to say that all aspects of the Soviet scientific golden age were, well, truly golden. There was also a tremendous amount of censorship, especially if a scientific discipline ran afoul of the whims of the Soviet intellectual elite. Perhaps the most notorious incident involved Trofim Lysenko, a biologist and agronomist who abused his power as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Lysenko disagreed with Mendelian genetics, which correctly held that genetic traits are passed through chromosomes. Lysenko, by contrast, argued that both environmental and somatic factors could also influence heredity. Scientists who did not echo his inaccurate views were fired, imprisoned and sometimes even killed. These included one of Lysenko's mentors, botanist Nikolai Vavilov.
Nor was his negative legacy limited to persecuting dissidents. When Lysenkoism was applied to agricultural policy in Communist countries like the Soviet Union or China, the end result was invariably famine.
The point here is not that the Soviet Union was inherently superior to the United States, either morally or scientifically. It is rather that, while it is easy to condemn Russia when it is causing geopolitical chaos, it is important to remember the nation's positive legacy in many respects. Indeed, the space race spurred by Soviet scientific advances led to American state investment in science and education to a degree that still resonates today - yielding a generation of American scientists and engineers who might not be here if not for the non-violent Cold War competition.

Команда ученых из США, России и Европы представила некоторые результаты изучения влияния продолжительного пребывания в космосе на мозг человека, сравнив американских, европейских и российских космонавтов.

Scientists from the U.S., Europe and Russia are part of a team releasing the results of a large collaborative study involving the effects of long duration spaceflight on the brain. It appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers found that while all of the astronauts and cosmonauts they studied had a similar level of cerebrospinal fluid buildup in the brain, along with reduced space between the brain and the surrounding membrane at the top of the head, there was a noteworthy difference when it came to the Americans. They had more enlargement in the perivascular spaces in the brain, passages that serve as a cleaning system during sleep. That’s something the researchers say warrants further investigation.
Donna Roberts, M.D., a neuroradiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina who helped lead the study, said a challenge when it comes to exploring the effects of spaceflight has been that there aren’t many people in the U.S. who have traveled to space. Combining information about NASA astronauts with that of Russian cosmonauts and astronauts from the European Space Agency gave the study depth.
"By putting all our data together, we have a larger subject number. That’s important when you do this type of study. When you're looking for statistical significance, you need to have larger numbers of subjects."
The study focused on 24 Americans, 13 Russians and a small, unspecified number of astronauts from the ESA. It used MRI scans of their brains before and after six months on the International Space Station to evaluate changes in the perivascular spaces.
Lead researcher Floris Wuyts, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, put the scope of the project in perspective. "I think it is one of the largest studies on space data, and for sure, one of the very few studies with NASA, ESA and Roscosmos data. It comprises data of almost 10% of all people who went into space." Roscosmos is the Russian space corporation.
Fellow researcher and neuroscientist Giuseppe Barisano, M.D., Ph.D., who works at the University of Southern California, said they looked for differences between the crews. "And in this analysis, we found an increased volume of fluid-filled channels in the brain after spaceflight that was more prominent in the NASA crew than in the Roscosmos crew."
Roberts explained what that might mean. "An important implication of our findings is that the volume of fluid-filled channels in the brain of astronauts is linked to the development of the spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, a syndrome characterized by vision changes and whose mechanisms are still not completely clear."
But space physiologist Elena Tomilovskaya, Ph.D., of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said further study is needed to determine if there are clinical implications for future flights. "We need to understand how specific microgravity-countermeasure usage, exercise regimes, diet and other factors may play a role in the differences we found between crews."
Roberts agreed. "It is important not to speculate about pathology or brain health problems at this time. The observed effects are very small, but there are significant changes when we compare the post-flight scans with the preflight scans," she said.
The idea for the large study came about as the scientists gathered at annual meetings held by NASA and ESA. "Independently, we had previously reported similar changes in space crews at post-flight brain MRI, including enlargement of the cerebral ventricles. We discussed our findings and realized how valuable it would be to perform a joint analysis of our data. I would like to point out that Dr. Wuyts, in particular, was instrumental in organizing our group, which met regularly for two years to carry out this analysis," Roberts said.
"I believe it highlights the importance of international cooperation in understanding the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human body. In fact, we believe international cooperation in space medicine research is essential to ensure the safety of our crews as we return to the Moon and on to Mars."
The study, "The effect of prolonged spaceflight on cerebrospinal fluid and perivascular spaces of astronauts and cosmonauts," was funded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, NASA, ESA, the Belgian Science Policy Prodex, FWO Flanders and the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.

В Алтайском государственном аграрном университете разработали хвойно-витаминную кормовую добавку для сельскохозяйственных животных и птиц. Метод экструзии позволил избавиться от специфического вкуса хвои, ограничивавшего ее использование в рационах.

A team of scientists from the Altai State Agrarian University, Russia, has developed a coniferous vitamin supplement, which can reportedly replace imported carotene in the diets of cattle and poultry.
The price of carotene on the Russian market is projected to jump to $105 to $130 per kilogram, as supplies from the main European production capacities in Germany, the Netherlands and France are disrupted due to Western sanctions, the Russian state news outlet Regnum reported, citing local analysts.
Challenges of using coniferous as a feed additives
"Nowadays, the potential of enriching animal feed with coniferous woody greenery is not fully used," said Vladimir Khaustov, the leading researcher.
"It is very rich in chlorophyll, carotene, vitamins, macro- and microelements, phytohormones, phytoncides, bacteriostatic and anthelmintic substances," he said, adding that the attempts to use this substance as a feed additive was a challenge due to the presence of tannins, resinous substances and bitterness in coniferous greenery.
Technical advancements
However, the technology the scientists describe as "extrusion of logging waste" promises to solve that problem, Russian scientists said.
"Feeding needles in the form of a coniferous vitamin supplement gives the best results since it retains up to 95% of the original nutrients. The main problem lies in the selection of optimal dosages and delivery forms," Khaustov said.
Trails with dairy cows: Higher milk yields
The feed additive has already passed the first field trials at Prigorodnoye educational farm in Altai Krai. Under the experiment, 20 heads of black-motley breed heifers were divided into the experimental and control group. The first group’s diet included 300 grams of coniferous-vitamin feed additive per head per day for 40 days - 20 days before calving and 20 days after calving.
At the end of the study, it was estimated that the average daily milk yield increased by 7.7% in the experimental group. The scientists also reported that "a clear trend of improving blood parameters was recorded," not providing any further details.
Poultry also benefit
Another experiment aimed at studying the effect of a coniferous vitamin feed additive on poultry has been carried out at Lindovskaya goose farm in Altai Krai, involving two groups of 1,000 heads each. The scientists said that the use of the new feed additive decrease the average mortality rate by 12%, and increased egg production by 10.44%, compared to the control.
The coniferous-vitamin feed additives also turned out to bring promising results when added to the diet of sires and chicken parent flock, the scientists reported, not elaborating.
There is no information on whether the scientists plan to submit the new additive for commercial use.

При прохождении ударной волны, например, от взрыва сверхновой, через космические молекулярные облака газа и пыли в них возникают плотные области, из которых, в свою очередь, могут начать формироваться звезды. Этот процесс трудно смоделировать на компьютере, поэтому астрофизики из Франции, Германии, России, Великобритании и Японии воспроизвели его в лаборатории с помощью лазера и шарика из вспененного полимера.

Molecular clouds are collections of gas and dust in space. When left alone, the clouds remain in their state of peaceful equilibrium.
But when triggered by some external agent, like supernova remnants, shockwaves can propagate through the gas and dust to create pockets of dense material. At a certain limit, that dense gas and dust collapses and begins to form new stars.
Astronomical observations do not have high enough spatial resolution to observe these processes, and numerical simulations cannot handle the complexity of the interaction between clouds and supernova remnants. Therefore, the triggering and formation of new stars in this way remains mostly shrouded in mystery.
In Matter and Radiation at Extremes, by AIP Publishing in partnership with China Academy of Engineering Physics, researchers from the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, the Free University of Berlin, the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, the University of Oxford, and Osaka University modeled the interaction between supernova remnants and molecular clouds using a high-power laser and a foam ball.
The foam ball represents a dense area within a molecular cloud. The high-power laser creates a blast wave that propagates through a surrounding chamber of gas and into the ball, where the team observed the compression using X-ray images.
"We are really looking at the beginning of the interaction," said author Bruno Albertazzi. "In this way, you can see if the average density of the foam increases and if you will begin to form stars more easily."
The mechanisms for triggering star formation are interesting on a number of scales. They can impact the star formation rate and evolution of a galaxy, help explain the formation of the most massive stars, and have consequences in our own solar system.
"Our primitive molecular cloud, where the sun was formed, was probably triggered by supernova remnants," said author Albertazzi. "This experiment opens a new and promising path for laboratory astrophysics to understand all these major points."
While some of the foam compressed, some of it also stretched out. This changed the average density of the material, so in the future, the authors will need to account for the stretched mass to truly measure the compressed material and the shockwave's impact on star formation. They plan to explore the influence of radiation, magnetic field, and turbulence.
"This first paper was really to demonstrate the possibilities of this new platform opening a new topic that could be investigated using high-power lasers," said Albertazzi.

Российская академия наук намерена обсудить с Индией возможности партнерства в области фармацевтики, космоса и цифровых технологий после того, как Китай приостановил научное сотрудничество с Россией по ряду проектов.

Russia has reached out to India to enhance and launch new collaboration between scientific establishments and bodies after China’s recent refusal to continue its partnership with the Russian Academy of Sciences, a 300-year-old institution and one of Europe’s leading scientific establishments.
China has suspended scientific cooperation with Russia following the launch of Russian "special military operations" in Ukraine, according to the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeev.
While the Chinese Foreign Ministry has downplayed the development, Beijing’s move could hurt ties with Moscow. ET has learnt Russia has reached out to India for collaboration in specific sectors following Beijing’s surprise move.
Sergeev’s remarks on China in what can viewed as critique was made at the Digital International Relations 2022 conference organised last week in Russia. He noted that interaction with Chinese scientists became more complicated after the imposition of sanctions. He further noted that contacts with academies of sciences in Western countries has also been frozen due to sanctions.
"If we talk about the southern or eastern directions, unfortunately, I can say directly that our Chinese scientific colleagues have also pressed the pause [button], and over the past month we have not been able to enter into serious discussions, despite the fact that we had excellent cooperation along with regular communication," Sergeev said.
Sergeev noted that India is a "positive example" while compared to China and the West and the Russian Academy of Sciences wants to discuss the possibilities of cooperation in pharmaceuticals, space and digital with India. Russian diplomats have been tasked to explore partnerships between scientific bodies of India and Russia, ET has learnt.
While civilian space sector has been one of the traditional areas of collaboration between India and Russia and even involved training of Indian cosmonauts for Gaganyaan program, Russia has been making nascent moves to partner Indian counterparts in the digital sphere. Russia has also recently reached out to source medicines and medical equipment from India.
In his last week’s remarks Sergeev further noted that some foreign academies have made statements that he characterizes as "aggressive." At the same time, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences stated that the Academy planned to "behave in such a way as not to break off relations and try to maintain them." West has imposed large-scale sanctions that affected the scientific and technical cooperation of Russia Academy of Sciences with its counterpart.

Ученые Сколтеха и Института геоэкологии им. Е.М.Сергеева РАН спрогнозировали, как нефтяные и газовые скважины нагревают вечную мерзлоту вокруг себя. Представленная модель охватывает 30 лет эксплуатации скважин и учитывает не только таяние льда в мерзлой почве, но и постепенное высвобождение запертого в ней метана.

Skoltech scientists and their partners from Sergeev Institute of Environmental Geoscience of RAS, with support from the R&D unit of TotalEnergies, have predicted how oil and gas wells heat up the permafrost around them. Presented in Geosciences, the new model encompasses 30 years of well operation and accounts for not just the melting of ice in frozen soil but also the gradual release of methane locked up in it. Understanding these processes is becoming increasingly relevant for accident-proof extraction and greenhouse gas emission monitoring as oil companies shift their attention to deposits in the Arctic region.
Oil and gas deposits in the Arctic region lie beneath a 100-to-500-meter layer of permafrost. As comparatively hot hydrocarbons rise up along the well shaft drilled in the frozen soil, it heats up. This causes the surrounding permafrost to thaw, compromising its ability to support structures, including the well itself. Moreover, if the frozen soil is saturated with methane, which is typical for the northern part of Western Siberia and the Yamal Peninsula in particular (Russia's major oil and gas companies such as Gazprom and Novatek are active there), the thawing permafrost releases methane - a potent greenhouse gas and a fire hazard.
The first author of the study, Skoltech Leading Research Scientist Evgeny Chuvilin commented on the findings that they "modeled thawing around a production well that operates on the Yamal Peninsula, but similar processes can occur elsewhere and on other types of oil and gas wells, because by definition, hydrocarbons rising up from the depths carry heat: Every time you go 100 meters deeper, things heat up by about 3 degrees Celsius. With extremely deep drilling, oil can get as hot as 100 C or more."
The model proposed by the team shows how the permafrost surrounding an active well gradually heats up and thaws, but there's more to it. Chuvilin added that they "looked at the case with permafrost that is more complexly structured: At the depth of between 60 and 120 meters, it contains gas hydrate inclusions - icelike solids made up of frozen water and natural gas locked up in it. They are stable within a certain range of temperatures and pressures, but when these conditions are disrupted, they decompose, releasing about 170 liters of free gas per liter of solid gas hydrate. We have shown that operating one gas well for 30 years may melt the surrounding permafrost in a 10-meter radius, releasing up to 500,000 cubic meters of methane into the atmosphere."
The team stresses that correct predictions of the well-permafrost thermal interactions are necessary for preventing critical ground depressions and cave-ins, which in turn may result in flooding and disrupt well shaft stability, potentially resulting in major repair costs. As for the emission of methane, that aspect is important for two reasons. First, that combustible gas may create the risk of fires or explosions, which might ruin the well and lead to substantial economic loss. Second, methane is a potent greenhouse gas whose release into the atmosphere needs to be monitored so that researchers could understand global and regional climate change better.

Ледостойкая платформа «Северный полюс» станет первым российским научно-исследовательским судном, работающим на экологичном топливе со сверхнизким содержанием серы. Ходовые испытания начнутся в конце мая, а в октябре планируется первый выход в арктический лед.

The "Severny Polyus" (North Pole) will be the first Russian science expedition ship to be fueled with Ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD), the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) informs.
The ice-resistant self-propelled platform started mooring trials last autumn at the shipyard in St. Petersburg, with a plan to sail out for the first testing in the Baltic Sea on May 21, Russia’s Day of Polar Explorers. If all go well, the voyage around Scandinavia towards Murmansk will take place in September.
Ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) contains an absolute maximum of 15 parts per million (ppm) of sulfur. This is significantly less than that of certain types of other fuel oil, in which the ppm could even reach 3000. When used alongside modern pollution-control technology, ULSD helps reduce soot and pollutants in diesel exhaust up to over 90 percent.
From Murmansk, the "Severny Polyus" will sail into the Arctic sea ice on her maiden expedition in October, Russia’s Minister of Natural Resouces and Ecology, Aleksandr Kozlov, said a last week’s meeting on Arctic issues held by President Vladimir Putin. The low sulfur-containing fuel is produced by the Omsk Oil Refinery, while it is supplied by the Gazpromneft Marine Bunker, a subsidiary of Gazpromneft, which focuses on year-round refills of marine fuels and oils for sea and river transport vehicles, news online Lenta informs. There will be 34 scientists and a crew of 14 on board when the self-propelled platform sails into the ice for a short period of testing of key equipment this autumn.
The first real voyage will start in 2023 when the "Severny Polyus" according to plans will sail into Arctic waters for a two-year expedition. The ship is designed to be able to drift uninterruptedly with the Arctic currents for two years. It will be operated by the Russian meteorological service Roshydromet.
Environmental groups have for years called on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to put a ban on all use of heavy fuel oils (HFO) in or near Arctic waters. In 2020, Norway proposed a total ban on the use of heavy fuel oils in all waters around Svalbard archipelago. The Clean Arctic Alliance followed up with a call on the IMO to ban heavy fuel oils in all shipping in the circumpolar north. The alliance wants Arctic shipping to abandon also the use of very low sulfur fuel oils, and switch to distillate fuels or even other cleaner alternatives.
"The Clean Arctic Alliance is calling for IMO Member States to require ship operators to switch from heavy fuel oils or very low fuel oils to distillate fuels or other cleaner alternative fuels when operating in or near the Arctic. A switch from HFO to distillate fuels will reduce black carbon emissions by around one-third. This would then allow the installation of an efficient particulate filter (already required for road transport) which would reduce black carbon emissions by over 90%," the Clean Arctic Alliance Lead Advisor, Sian Prior, said at the time.

Петербургские, томские и новосибирские биологи обнаружили в черневой тайге Западной Сибири новый вид почвенной амебы, получившей название Leptomyxa silvatica n. sp. Черневая тайга или «сибирские джунгли» - регион с уникальной экосистемой и чрезвычайным биоразнообразием.

Scientists from St Petersburg University, together with colleagues from Tomsk and Novosibirsk, have discovered a new species of soil amoeba Leptomyxa silvatica n. sp. in Chernevaya taiga located in the south of Western Siberia.
Chernevaya taiga, which is also called the "Siberian jungle," is an area in Western Siberia that has its own unique ecosystem. It is listed in the World Wildlife Foundation's Global 200 project as an ecoregion with outstanding biodiversity.
Alla Lapidus, Professor in the Department of Cytology and Histology at St Petersburg University, noted that the first thing that catches your attention in Chernevaya taiga is the completely unexpected gigantism of the herbaceous plants. In summer, the herbaceous cover of Chernevaya taiga has an average height of 1.5-2 meters, and in some areas it is tall enough to hide a person on horseback.
"I came up with the idea that this plant gigantism is not so much the result of climatic conditions, but is most likely due to the unique properties of the soil microbiota. When this phenomenon is well explained, the discovery is most likely to find application in agriculture. We have already found some evidence to support this hypothesis," said Lapidus.
Professor Lapidus added that the project to study Chernevaya taiga is an interdisciplinary research project conducted in collaboration with colleagues from National Research Tomsk State University. The project also involves researchers from: the All-Russian Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences; the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and the Central Siberian Botanical Garden of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The scientists are conducting research in the south of Western Siberia-a region with unique natural characteristics that have been largely understudied.
"The scientists have studied the soil protozoa; in particular, the diversity of amoeboid protists, which play critical roles in soil ecosystems, the turnover of organic matter and energy in soil habitats. Our colleagues, project participants from St Petersburg University, made very interesting discoveries, including the discovery of a new soil amoeba species," clarified Alla Lapidus.
Alexey Smirnov, Associate Professor in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University, emphasized that a number of rare and previously unknown amoeba species have been discovered in this study.
Thus, when studying amoebae from the rare and highly productive soil of Chernevaya taiga the scientists found a new species of a leptomyxid amoeba showing 18s rDNA sequence significantly different from those of other known species of the order Leptomyxida. This species has both morphological and sequence differences from related ones. It was labeled Leptomyxa silvatica n. sp. from the Latin word for "forest"-silva. The full name of the new species means "originating from the forest" to signify that the amoeba was isolated from a forest soil habitat.
"This discovery once again shows how little we know about the whole wide world of microscopic animals. Tens of thousands of heterotrophic protists can be found in a gram of forest soil. They are the most important natural component that regulates the functioning of communities of soil fungi and bacteria. At the morphological level, we know only a small portion of all this diversity. Molecular analyses of DNA extracted directly from various types of soils show that 'with our own eyes' we could see less than 5% of the organisms that live in soil. Not only individual species, but much of the extant soil biodiversity remains undiscovered. It is for this reason that modern morphological and molecular-genetic research is so important. Isolated DNA sequences can be used to identify their 'owners' who are literally living under our feet, while making a considerable contribution to the processes occurring in the soils of Chernevaya taiga," concluded Smirnov.
The scientists emphasize that further in-depth research of Chernevaya taiga is vital, including for the purposes of protecting the soil in the "Siberian jungle." According to the experts, degradation of this unique natural resource will have irreversible negative consequences, when restoration of one of the rarest native ecosystems may prove impossible.

Небольшая летучая мышь-нетопырь Pipistrellus nathusii поставила новый рекорд дальности миграции, преодолев почти 2500 км из Вологодской области, где была окольцована сотрудниками Дарвиновского биосферного заповедника, до коммуны Люлли на востоке Франции, где ее в итоге и обнаружили. 2486 км - кратчайшее расстояние между этими двумя точками, поэтому реальный маршрут, скорее всего, был еще длиннее.

A small bat migrated at least 2,486 km from Russia to the French Alps, according to recently uncovered evidence published in De Gruyter’s international journal Mammalia. This migration beats the previous record flight, from Latvia to Spain, by 260 km.
The female bat was ringed with an information tag in 2009 by Russian researchers in the Darwin Nature Biosphere Reserve in Russia’s Vologda Oblast. Then, over 63 days, it flew across Europe before its body was found in Lully, a village near the French Alps.
Since 2,486 km is the shortest distance between the bat’s ringing location and Lully, the actual distance it covered could be even further.
"It’s a very big surprise," said lead author Dr. Denis Vasenkov of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences. "We thought that our bats were migrating to countries in south-eastern Europe and other neighboring countries, not France."
The researchers think the bat may have navigated using the coast of the Baltic Sea, since other bats are commonly found along this coast during migration season. In that case, it could have flown more than 3,000 km.
In Europe cases of bats flying more than 1,000 km are rare. Even in tropical climates some bats will only migrate up to 2,000 km.
Why the bat took such a long route is currently unclear. The researchers suggest it might simply have gotten lost during its regular migration route, or perhaps long migrations are more common than previously thought.
The bat’s extraordinary journey came to light thanks to cooperation between researchers in France and Russia. Dr. Jean-François Desmet of GRIFEM in France first sent information about the tag to Dr. Igor Popov at St Petersburg State University. Information about the bat then moved through the Russian research community before reaching Dr. Vasenkov last year.
Dr. Vasenkov and co-author Dr. Natalia Sidorchuk intend to continue their work ringing and recording bats to get more information about migration routes and how bats orientate during migration. "We hope that we can get GPS tracking for the biggest bat in Russia, the greater noctule," says Sidorchuk.
Interest in bat migration has grown dramatically in recent years as Europe continues to build more wind farms, which are known to cause hundreds of bat deaths each year.
Understanding bat migration routes will be important when planning new wind farms to make sure these deaths are minimized, the authors say.

Российские биологи установили, что скальные ящерицы Darevskia, распространенные на юге России, в Грузии, Абхазии, Турции и некоторых других странах, могут быть переносчиками клещевых инфекций наряду с грызунами и дикими животными.

April in Siberia is a month when mites awaken and find their first victims. Traditional reservoirs of mite‐transmitted infections are rodents and wild animals: rabbits, foxes, squirrels, and others. A Russian Science Foundation-supported research team has discovered that a major role in the transmission cycle of mite‐transmitted infections is played by rock lizards, which can be found in the south of Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia, and Turkey, and in other countries with a warm climate. The study is published in Journal of Vector Ecology (Q2).
The researchers analyzed 872 articles on rock lizards and 352 samples of reptiles in the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences that were collected in Russia (Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories and Kabardino-Balkaria), Georgia, Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. The scientists found 93 mites of three species in samples.
"The collection is the largest in post-soviet states and one of the largest in the world. Some of the samples were collected in the 19th and even the 18th century, which gives us the opportunity to get a comprehensive idea of the parasite fauna of the whole groups of reptiles," says Maria Orlova, scientist at the TSU Biological Institute and one of the authors of the article. "Reptile-associated mite fauna is not yet well-studied. However, it is very interesting, especially from the practical point of view: most of the mites we discovered belong to species that are proved to be transmitting dangerous natural infections such as tularemia, borreliosis, hemorrhagic fevers, babesiosis, and others."
The starting point of the research was the genus Darevskia - legendary rock lizards, famous because some species are capable of parthenogenesis (a type of reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by sperm). One of the most common mite species in samples is a dog mite Ixodes ricinus. It inhabits the European part of Russia and is a carrier of several strains of encephalitis and a huge number of bacterial infections.
"In the south of Russia (Rostov and North Caucasus), these mites cause outbreaks of human and animal diseases," says Maria Orlova. "However, lizards are not usually viewed as a reservoir of infection, even though they often are. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated what the prize for limited knowledge of the pathogen transmission paths can be. That is why our primary task is to investigate parasitology-wise understudied animals."
To spread the information about mite infections, TSU Information Policy Division together with the specialists of Siberian Medical University and Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing created a project "The Small. The Bad. The Ugly". The project explains how to minimize the risks of being infected by mites.

Ученые Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета и Института органической химии им. Н.Д.Зелинского РАН разработали похожий на термос реактор, способный обеспечить эффективное протекание химических реакций без использования внешних нагревателей и, соответственно, сократить затраты энергии.

Scientists of St Petersburg University, together with the researchers from N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have developed a tube-in-tube reactor that provides for efficient reactions without the use of external heaters. This approach significantly reduces energy costs when performing chemical research.
The results of the research are published in the International Journal of Molecular Science.
Chemical reactions may proceed with heat release (exothermic) or with heat consumption (endothermic). In the first case, the resulting thermal emissions often dissipate. However, they can be used to launch the reactions of the second type requiring additional heat for absorption. The structure developed by the chemists looks like a thermos allowing for the use of released heat energy to launch the second reaction.
The scientists developed a special tube-in-tube reactor that provides for efficient reaction of the hydrolysis of calcium carbide - interaction of calcium compound and carbon with water. Today, calcium carbide is actively used in industry to obtain gaseous acetylene and use it to produce acetic acid, ethyl alcohol, plastic, rubber resin and even jet engines.
The reactor consists of an outer tube and inner tube connected by a joining part printed with nylon by a 3D-printed. The tubes do not come into contact with each other. This structure helps to create a so-called heating thermos. The heaters are located in the space between the two tubes or in the "wall" of the reactor.
To carry out an effective reaction, the researchers placed granules of calcium carbide into the space between the tubes, added a solvent and water and mixed it. The mixture heated and the resulting heat went into the inner part starting endothermic reaction between the reagents in it. The researchers were able to carry out two types of reactions with lower energy consumption without using external heaters.
The released and absorbed heat was recorded with a thermal imager, which demonstrated a change in temperature inside the device during the reaction in real time mode.
It turned out that the thermal effect in the reactor depends on the type of solvent as well as on the amount of water and carbide. Thus, if the "wall" of the device contained little water (only 5%) and a lot of solvent, almost no heat release was detected. Increasing the amount of water to 50% and more, on the contrary, lead to a fast increase in temperature up to 90 °С only within five minutes.
"Calcium carbide is capable of starting reactions without external heat sources. The 'tube-in-tube' device that we developed helps to control and change the speed of hydrolysis if needed. It can be used in industry to obtain acetylene, for example. Adding water to carbide generates so much heat that the released acetylene polymerises and becomes useless. Mixtures of solvents and water can slow down this process, stop the undesired polymerisation and carry the heat away in a more efficient way," said Konstantin Rodygin, Principal Investigator, Research Associate at the Laboratory of Cluster Analysis at St Petersburg University.
The research group of chemists at St Petersburg University is also working on a strategy for carbon neutral production cycle that decreases carbon dioxide emissions.

В Норильске состоялась Вторая научно-техническая конференция «Опыт и перспективы строительства зданий и сооружений на вечномерзлых грунтах», на которой собрались как ученые, так и представители промышленности.

Russian metals producer Nornickel continues backing efforts to revive studies of permafrost, an area of continuously frozen soil, which covers a significant part of Russia, including the world's northernmost city of Norilsk, home to many of the company's operations.
The second scientific and technical conference "Experience and prospects for the construction of buildings and structures on permafrost soils" at the Norilsk Industrial Institute (NII) gathered scientists and business officials, represented by Nornickel managers.
Zhanna Petukhova, director of NII's Research Center for Construction Technologies and Monitoring of Buildings and Structures in the Arctic, thanked Nornickel for promptly "packing" the research center's permafrost laboratory with equipment.
The head of the laboratory, Mikhail Elesin, has already tested the equipment during a unique expedition to the islands of Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land. Professor Elesin briefed the participants and guests of the forum on the actual geophysical research in the archipelagos in a separate speech.
Nornickel's Polar Division Deputy Chief Engineer Anton Pryamitsky, who oversees the company's large-scale project to monitor the state of industrial buildings and structures at Polar Division facilities, noted that the satellite monitoring programme of Russian space agency Roscosmos might join the project.
The geotechnical monitoring system, launched in Norilsk in the summer of 2021, was launched into pilot operation late last year and almost immediately showed its effectiveness. At the first stage, the system has already covered 165 facilities. Before the launch, comprehensive surveys were carried out at all facilities to determine their condition and draw up design schemes. All readings from the equipment on the main parameters of the facilities' safety end up in a database in the system's control room in real time.
Pryamitsky knows all the participants of the scientific and technical forum. With many of them, the Polar Division "has interacted, is interacting and will continue to interact."
Dmitry Sergeev, the head of the geocryology laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Geoecology Institute, briefed the conference on the developments on substantiation of indicators and analysis of geocryological monitoring data.
Before flying to Norilsk, the scientist made a presentation on this topic for Nornickel's engineering team, and in the northern city, he wanted to understand what is a priority in the territory today, what tasks should be addressed first.
"Science cannot and should not stew in its own juice," Sergeev said.
Mikhail Korolev, the head of the Laboratory of Geomechanics and the deputy director of the Institute of Applied Mechanics, who has repeatedly advised Norilsk enterprises on permafrost soils, presented a report "Promising methods for determining the mechanical characteristics of permafrost soils."
NII rector Dmitry Dubrov hopes that the conference would become regular and contribute to the training of local permafrost experts and to the second stage of construction in Norilsk, which is impossible without scientific support.

Хиральные молекулы существуют в двух зеркальных версиях-энантиомерах, «левой» и «правой», очень похожих, но не идентичных, которые не могут быть совмещены в пространстве. Кроме того, энантиомеры могут обладать совершенно противоположными свойствами. Международная группа ученых из Института им. Фрица Габера Общества Макса Планка и Института общей физики им. А.М.Прохорова РАН нашла способ контролировать такие молекулы, заставляя их вращаться по отдельности за счет изменения микроволнового излучения.

Using a new experimental method, a team led by physicist Sandra Eibenberger-Arias of the Fritz-Haber-Institut has transferred the mirror-image forms of chiral molecules into different rotational states more efficiently than ever before. This opens doors to a deeper understanding and manipulability of this common type of molecule for future applications.
Chirality, while not a rarity in the world of molecules, is nevertheless a special property. If a molecule is chiral (from the Greek word chiros = hand), it exists in two mirrored versions that are very similar but not identical - like two hands that can be folded together, but cannot be placed congruently on top of each other. This is why we speak of right-handed and left-handed molecules, or enantiomers, which means "opposite shape" in Greek.
An international team of scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society and the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences has found a way to address these molecules separately. Since chiral molecules are very similar to each other, this is a real challenge. "The trick is to expose them to electromagnetic radiation in a way so that only one 'hand', i.e. one enantiomer, responds. This allows us to specifically control right- or left-handed molecules and learn more about them," says Dr. Sandra Eibenberger-Arias, head of the Controlled Molecules group at the Fritz-Haber-Institut.
Learning this is important because enantiomers sometimes have very different biological and chemical qualities, for which explanations are sought. Take, for example, the chiral molecule carvone: one 'hand' smells like mint, the other like caraway. Or the notorious sedative thalidomide, which is named after its active ingredient, a chiral molecule: while one form had the intended sedative effect, the other caused birth defects. Eibenberger-Arias' group studies the physical properties of chiral molecules. "Theory predicts a small energy difference between the two enantiomers, due to what is called parity violation. However, this has not been shown experimentally so far," explains JuHyeon Lee of the Fritz-Haber-Institut, first author of the published results, which appeared in the journal Physical Review Letters.
With a clever combination of different methods, however, the group of scientists has come a little closer to achieving this. They irradiate chiral molecules in the gas phase with UV radiation and microwaves. As a result, right-handed and left-handed molecules are put into different rotational states by changing the microwave radiation. The researchers have thus gained more control than ever before over which "hand" is in which rotational state. They have also, for the first time, compared experimental results with accurate predictions from theory, leading to an improved understanding of the underlying physical effects.
While complete separation of the enantiomers may not yet be achieved using this method, it is remarkable that they could be controlled so successfully in the first place. This contradicts the often-used over-simplified account that they have the same physical properties. "If that were the case, we would not be able to control the enantiomers using physical methods," says Sandra Eibenberger-Arias. The international team of three female and three male scientists has thus laid a good foundation for follow-up experiments, and perhaps even for experimental proof of parity violation. This would be a milestone for basic research - and for all future applications as well.

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