Ноябрь 2022 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Russian scientists have created a digital analogue of the human ear
• Arctic Indigenous People's Summit addresses preservation of cultural and linguistic heritage of Northern ethnic groups
• Brolar-bear hybrids could take over Northern Siberia, expert warns
• Bumblebees have colonized a freezing barren Arctic island by mistake
• Fluxonium qubits bring the creation of a quantum computer closer
• Study: Ediacaran animals ate green algae and bacteria
• Russian scientists create quantum neural network to recognize images
• Scientists revived ancient "zombie viruses" frozen for eons in Siberia

Ученые Томского университета систем управления и радиоэлектроники создали «электронное ухо» - математическую модель распознавания речи, работающую гораздо точнее существующих аналогов.

Scientists from the Tomsk University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics have created a mathematical model that recognizes speech and surpasses analogues in certain indicators.
Innovators note that this model could become the basis of a comprehensive personal identification system, as well as facilitate the management of "smart" technology using voice.
According to experts, a method of identifying a person through speech recognition is being developed using digital security technology used to control equipment and security systems in remote banking services.
Scientists from the Tomsk University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics have created a new mathematical model of speech recognition, which is superior in accuracy to analogues and allows you to correctly identify the speaker.
Anton Konev, Deputy Director of the Reliable Interaction Technologies Competence Center of the National Institute of Communications, says: "The mathematical apparatus differs from its counterparts in its great similarity to the human inner ear when recognizing critical speech frequencies.
The potential mechanisms underlying the current speech recognition systems in this device are only ancillary."
Experts note that the percentage of errors in recognizing the fundamental tone of speech with the new device is four times less than that of the world’s best analogues, and this makes it possible to better recognize ordinary speech and even singing. It also allows you to communicate with smart devices not through commands, but directly, as in the case of an interlocutor.
Experts assure that the new system will allow to verify the identity of the interlocutor during a communication session, which will completely eliminate some types of fraud.

2 ноября в Москве состоялся Саммит коренных народов Арктики, на котором обсудили такие вопросы, как сохранение языков и культурного наследия народов Севера, проблемы традиционной экономики, продовольственной безопасности, сотрудничества в приграничных районах и государственного регулирования деятельности общин коренных этносов.

Participants in the Arctic Indigenous People's Summit, which took place on 2 November in Moscow, discussed the latest approaches to preserving the languages and cultural heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic, their traditional economy, cross-border cooperation, and state regulation of the activities of communities of Indigenous ethnic groups of the North. The Summit was held as part of the plan of events for Russia's chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2021-2023, which are organized by the Roscongress Foundation.
"Russia consistently works to improve the well-being of the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic and preserve their cultures, customs, and languages. The Summit participants presented their expert assessments and ideas concerning the most significant issues in the development of the small-numbered ethnic groups of the Russian North. I am confident that the work that was carried out will become a solid foundation for future projects in this area and will be reflected in new legislative initiatives," said Anton Kobyakov, Advisor to the Russian President and Executive Secretary of the Organizing Committee of Russia's Chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2021-2023.
Specifically, the Summit participants discussed the implementation of the Arctic Council's project 'Digitalization of the Linguistic and Cultural Heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic', which was initiated by Russia. Mikhail Pogodayev, Special Representative of Russia's Chairmanship of the Arctic Council for Indigenous Peoples and Regional Cooperation and Deputy Minister for the Development of the Arctic and the Peoples of the North of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), said the project primarily aims to preserve the endangered languages and cultures of the peoples of the North. As part of the project, a GIS map of the languages of ethnic groups in Russia will be created. In the future, these materials will be used for educational purposes and to promote the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic.
Reports were also presented on the initiatives of the Association for the Preservation and Development of Native Languages, an interactive atlas of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East, as well as an Olympiad in the native languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
"We will encourage interaction between Indigenous and economic operators in high latitudes. This is important for the people and to ensure the socioeconomic development of the regions. I would like to specifically point out the Arctic Council's project 'Indigenous Youth, Food Culture, and Change in the Arctic', which aims to study the gastronomic traditions of the peoples of the North, promote the products of Indigenous Peoples, and increase their added value. This will all help to solve food security problems. We are also mulling the possibility of putting forward an initiative to establish the Creative Arctic project. This is an important project that will help to develop and establish creative competencies and skills among representatives of the Indigenous Peoples of the North," said Nikolay Korchunov, Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials and Ambassador-at-Large for Arctic Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Summit participants also discussed the implementation of a programme to provide state support for the traditional economic activities of the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation, which was approved in 2021. Soslan Abisalov, Director of the Department for the Development of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation and the Implementation of Infrastructure Projects of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Arctic, said the programme includes 40 measures that aim to improve the well-being of Indigenous Peoples and develop infrastructure, education, and the tourism industry. The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Nenets and Chukotka Autonomous Districts are participating in the programme.
"The plan's measures aim to support Indigenous communities. Some of the interesting projects that are being implemented include the creation of a network of trade and logistics centres for northern deliveries, the establishment of production facilities for nomads on the territory of the Nenets Autonomous District, and the provision of vehicles for educational organizations in Yakutia," Abisalov said.
An expanded meeting of the Expert Advisory Council of the Russian Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs on the socioeconomic development of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East was held as part of the Summit. Experts from specialized organizations, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, and the Government of the Nenets Autonomous District discussed the practice of registering the place of residence of Russian citizens from among Indigenous Peoples who lead a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle and do not have a permanent place of residence.
During the Summit, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova and President of the Association of Indigenous Minorities of the North Grigory Ledkov signed an agreement on cooperation to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, organize educational projects, exchange information about human rights violations, and hold joint events to draft bills and promote them in parliament. The discussions were attended by representatives of 40 Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic, the legislative and executive authorities, as well as experts and specialists from public organizations.
Nyadma Nyaruy and Masne Vanuyto, artists from the National Cultures Centre of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, performed on the side-lines of the Summit.
The Summit was held as part of the 3rd Peoples of Russia National Forum and was timed to coincide with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032). The event was organized by the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs. Russia is the chair of the Arctic Council in 2021-2023.
One of the main priorities of Russia's chairmanship is to develop human capital in the region, including the Indigenous Peoples of the North. Russia devotes special attention to maintaining the sustainability and viability of the peoples of the North, promoting measures to adapt them to climate change, improving people's well-being, health, education, and quality of life, and ensuring sustainable socioeconomic development throughout the region.
The Russian side has initiated projects to digitalize the cultural and linguistic heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, develop renewable energy sources, create an international Arctic research station that runs on carbon-free energy, and ensure biosecurity in the Arctic. In addition, Russia is preparing draft proposals on the traditional medicine of Indigenous Peoples and the development of creative industries in the Arctic, and is working on an initiative to create Digital Museums of the Arctic.

Из-за изменения климата у бурых и белых медведей, обитающих на севере Якутии, начинают пересекаться ареалы - бурые все чаще забредают в арктические зоны. Это означает, что в будущем могут появиться гибриды этих двух видов - явление не новое, но пока редкое.

Brolar-bear hybrids could take over parts of northern Siberia, an expert has warned.
Brown bears and polar bears living in Yakutia have been observed merging into each other's habitat, meaning they could mate in coming years, said Innokentiy Okhlopkov, director of the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch, TASS reported on Monday.
This would result in brown- and polar-bear hybrids - a phenomenon that has been observed before but remains rare.
Okhlopkov told the Russian media outlet that brown bears specifically have been spotted wandering into the lower reaches of Yakutia's arctic zone, where the polar bears live.
Climate change is thought to be the main cause of this. Arctic ice - which is a polar bear's habitat - is rapidly disappearing due to the warming climate, meaning the species wander inland. At the same time, brown bears begin wandering into arctic territories as the ice melts and prey becomes available to them there.
Brown bears and polar bears have been known to mate before. The resulting hybrids have been dubbed "pizzly bears," as brown bears are also sometimes referred to as grizzly bears.
Scientists already know that the two species are able to produce fertile offspring but remain rare, Charlotte Lindqvist, a bear genetics expert and associate professor of biological sciences at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, told Newsweek.
"So far, observations of recent hybridization have been rare, possibly caused by uncommon and atypical mating preferences of a few individuals. But the two species may be coming into increasing contact due to climate change and change in their typical habitats, causing brown bears to move into polar bear habitats and polar bears spending more time on land in the summer. It is likely we will encounter more hybrids of the two species in the future," Lindqvist said.
"Hybridization between the two species can have various impacts. If hybridization causes hybrids to be poorly adapted to either habitat of the two species, they may not survive for long. However, in a changing environment, particularly the shrinking of the main habitat of the polar bear - the Arctic Sea ice - we can easily imagine that the introduction of new genes (for example, brown bear genes into the polar bear species) may change the polar bear as we know it, with hybrids perhaps even outcompeting one or both of the parent species."
A polar- and brown-bear hybrid was spotted in Canada in 2006. The bear was mostly white but had brown marks on its fur. It also had a strangely shaped muzzle. The bear was shot, and DNA tests showed that it was, in fact, a hybrid, TASS reported.
A June 2022 study from the University at Buffalo, co-authored by Lindqvist and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that polar bears and grizzly bears could actually have been mating for thousands of years.
Scientists found that DNA data from an ancient polar-bear tooth shows there was "at least one ancient introgression event from brown bears into the ancestor of polar bears, possibly dating back over 150,000" years.

На арктическом острове Колгуев в Баренцевом море уральские энтомологи обнаружили пять видов шмелей. Некоторые виды появились на острове, скорее всего, еще в раннем голоцене, когда остров был частью материка, другие мигрировали позже.

Bees may have colonized a freezing Arctic island in Russia's north by mistake, having been carried there by violent storms.
Five bee species were found living on Kolguev Island in the Barents Sea by scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Urals Branch, Russian news outlet TASS reported. Bees are able to travel over large distances, meaning it is likely these species migrated from the mainland over 40 miles away, lead researcher Grigory Potapov told the news outlet. But Kolguev Island is not their typical habitat.
The island is based in the tundra zone - a region just below the ice caps of the Arctic. This means harsh winds blow constantly around the island, creating difficult conditions for the insects.
"It is fascinating that such a diversity of bumblebees has colonized so barren an island far north of the polar circle. Winters are extremely long and harsh and overwintering [queens bees] must be able to survive freezing temperatures for many months," Lars Chittka, author of the new book The Mind of a Bee and leader of Queen Mary, University of London's Bee Sensory and Ecology Lab, told Newsweek.
"Spring and summer combined there last only 3 months, and in this short period, queens have to secure a sheltered nesting site, build honeypots and brood chambers from wax, lay eggs, keep the brood warm, collect nectar and pollen from flowers, and raise workers, males and new queens before freezing temperatures kick in again. It's testimony to the extreme resilience of some bumblebees, their ability to keep warm by using flower nectar as an energy source, and their sheltered nest constructions further providing warmth for their young." Chittka said it is likely that this particular colonization may have occurred by mistake.
"Such colonizations happen when an inseminated queen bee manages to cross the sea to make it to an island - but a queen deliberately flying out over open sea (when a body of land is not visible as the flight target) would risk almost certain death. So the queens that started these populations most likely got to the island by accident, perhaps displaced by violent storms. The vast majority of queens so displaced would not have been so lucky as to find an island along the way."
Climate change may explain how the bees are able to survive in such conditions, as they may not be as cold as they were previously. "It is perfectly plausible that climate warming contributes to the chances of survival of the bees - milder winters will mean that more queens survive, longer summers mean there is a longer time window to visit flowers and provision the young," Chittka said. But climate change also poses negative effects for the species.
"Kolguyev Island was in the news a few years ago because the local reindeer population nearly completely collapsed- in part a result of mismanagement, but also a result of weather changes," Chittka said. "Icy rains had covered the already sparse vegetation resulting in starvation of the reindeer - but where reindeer can't access the leaves, bees also can't access the flowers either. And when there's no nectar, there's no energy to keep warm - which is essential to survival in such arctic conditions."

Физики из НИТУ МИСИС и МГТУ им. Н.Э.Баумана осуществили двухкубитную операцию, используя сверхпроводящие флаксониевые кубиты и супериндуктор для защиты от шума. По сравнению с чаще используемыми в квантовых вычислениях трансмонами флаксониумы сложнее, зато имеют более длинный жизненный цикл и могут работать на низкой частоте - около 600МГц.

Russian scientists from University of Science and Technology MISIS and Bauman Moscow State Technical University were one of the first in the world to implement a two-qubit operation using superconducting fluxonium qubits. Fluxoniums have a longer life cycle and a greater precision of operations, so they are used to make longer algorithms. An article on research that brings the creation of a quantum computer closer to reality has been published in npj Quantum Information.
One of the main questions in the development of a universal quantum computer is about qubits. Namely, which quantum objects are the best to make processors for quantum computers: electrons, photons, ions, superconductors, or other "quantum transistors." Superconducting qubits have become one of the most successful platforms for quantum computing during the past decade. To date, the most commercially successful superconducting qubits are transmons, which are actively investigated and used in the quantum developments of Google, IBM and other world leading laboratories.
The main task of a qubit is to store and process information without errors. Accidental noise and even mere observation can lead to the loss or alteration of data. The stable operation of superconducting qubits often requires extremely low ambient temperatures - close to zero Kelvin, which is hundreds of times colder than the temperature of open space.
Russian physicists from the Superconducting Metamaterials laboratory at MISIS University and Bauman Moscow State Technical University were one of the first in the world to implement a two-qubit operation using superconducting fluxonium qubits. To protect qubits from noise, the researchers added to the circuit a superinductor (a superconducting element with a high level of resistance to alternating current) which is a chain of 40 Josephson contacts - structures of two superconductors separated by a thin layer of dielectric.
"Fluxonium qubits are more complex and less studied than transmons. The main advantage of fluxoniums is that they can be operated at a low frequency of about 600 MHz. We know that the lower the frequency, the longer the lifetime of qubits, which means that more operations can be performed with them. During the tests, it turned out that the dielectric losses of fluxonium qubits allow to keep the state of the superposition longer than that of transmons," said Ilya Besedin, one of the authors of the study, an engineer of the scientific project at the NUST MISIS Superconducting Metamaterials laboratory.
To implement a universal set of logical operations, scientists used high-precision two-qubit gates: fSim and CZ. In order to bring the qubits into resonance with each other, parametric modulation of the flow of one of the qubits of the system was used. The authors of the study note, that due to the tunable coupling element, it was simultaneously possible not only to obtain the accuracy of two-qubit operations above 99.22%, but also to suppress the residual ZZ interaction between the qubits, which allowed to perform parallel single-qubit operations with an accuracy of 99.97%.
"The low frequency of computational qubits opens the way not only to longer qubits' lifetimes and accuracy of valve operations, which will lead to making longer algorithms, but also makes it possible to use subgigahertz electronics in qubit control lines, which significantly reduces the complexity of the quantum processor control system," said Ilya Besedin.
The obtained results reveal an interesting and promising approach toward fault-tolerant quantum computing with low-frequency qubits that can be a good alternative to the transmon system.
In the future, scientists plan to continue research with computations based on fluxonium qubits, optimizing the qubit control system, improving readout rates and beginning to develop multi-qubit systems based on them.

Изучив окаменелости возрастом 550 млн лет, австралийские и российские палеонтологи выяснили некоторые подробности процессов питания и пищеварения у представителей эдиакарской биоты, древнейших многоклеточных организмов на планете. В частности, калиптрина и кимберелла уже имели рот и кишечник, питаясь водорослями и бактериями, а не столь эволюционно продвинутая дикинсония, вероятно, пользовалась внешним пищеварением.

The oldest animals appear in the fossil record among Ediacaran biota communities. In new research, paleontologists from the Australian National University and elsewhere examined the gut contents of three Ediacaran species - the 558-million-year-old tube worm-like Calyptrina and the mollusk-like Kimberella as well as one of the key Ediacaran animals, Dickinsonia - using biomarker molecules. Their results show that Calyptrina and Kimberella possessed a gut and shared a diet of green algae and bacteria, while Dickinsonia had a different feeding mode and possible external digestion.
Calyptrina, Kimberella and Dickinsonia are part of the Ediacaran biota that lived on Earth about 20 million years prior to the Cambrian Explosion, a major event that forever changed the course of evolution of all life on Earth. These ancient creatures has a structure and symmetry unlike anything that exists today.
"Ediacaran biota really are the oldest fossils large enough to be visible with your naked eyes, and they are the origin of us and all animals that exist today. These creatures are our deepest visible roots," said Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy, a researcher at GFZ-Potsdam.
"Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacaran biota were a mixed bag of outright weirdos, such as Dickinsonia, and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had some physiological properties similar to humans and other present-day animals."
In the study, Dr. Bobrovskiy and his colleagues analyzed Ediacaran macrofossils containing preserved phytosterol molecules - natural chemical products found in plants. By examining the molecular remains of what the animals ate, the researchers found that both Calyptrina and Kimberella had a gut and digested food the same way modern animals do. They also found that Dickinsonia was less complex and had no eyes, mouth or gut. Instead, it absorbed food through its body as it traversed the ocean floor.
"The energy-rich food may explain why the organisms of the Ediacaran biota were so large. Nearly all fossils that came before the Ediacaran biota were single-celled and microscopic in size," said Australian National University’s Professor Jochen Brocks.
Using advanced chemical analysis techniques, the authors were able to extract and analyze the sterol molecules contained in the fossil tissues. The molecules contained tell-tale signatures that helped them decipher what the animals ate. Their results reveal that Calyptrina and Kimberella shared a diet of green algae and bacteria.
"The difficult part was differentiating between the signatures of the fat molecules of the creatures themselves, the algal and bacterial remains in their guts, and the decaying algal molecules from the ocean floor that were all entombed together in the fossils," Professor Brocks said.
"Scientists already knew Kimberella left feeding marks by scraping off algae covering the sea floor, which suggested the animal had a gut."
"But it was only after analyzing the molecules of Kimberella ’s gut that we were able to determine what exactly it was eating and how it digested food."
"Kimberella knew exactly which sterols were good for it and had an advanced fine-tuned gut to filter out all the rest."
"This was a Eureka moment for us; by using preserved chemical in the fossils, we can now make gut contents of animals visible even if the gut has since long decayed."
"We then used this same technique on weirder fossils like Dickinsonia to figure out how it was feeding and discovered that Dickinsonia did not have a gut."
The results appear in the journal Current Biology.

Российские физики разработали первый в мире алгоритм, использующий архитектуру гибридной квантовой нейронной сети для распознавания четырех классов изображений с очень высоким уровнем точности.

Russian physicists developed the world's first algorithm that makes use of hybrid quantum neural network architecture to recognize images with a very high level of precision. This approach can be implemented in both emulators and real quantum processors, said Alexei Fedorov, a 28-year-old graduate of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, who is considered a physics prodigy.
As reported this Friday by Fedorov, head of the scientific group of the Quantum Center in Moscow, for the first time it was possible to implement the proposed approach to solve the problem of classifying four classes of images using eight quantum bits to encode data and four auxiliary quantum bits.
The creation of the so-called quantum artificial intelligence is one of the main tasks of all the main participants in the world "quantum race".
Under this term, scientists understand the widespread use of quantum technologies and effects to speed up the work of neural network algorithms and physical devices that emulate some of the properties of biological neural networks.
The group of researchers led by Fedorov, who is also a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, developed a hybrid approach for the first time in the world, allowing the use of quantum computers to speed up the work of individual layers of neural networks capable of recognizing different types of images with a high level of precision.
Neural networks are one of the most popular approaches in developing artificial intelligence systems, in which the initial data is processed using several overlapping layers of artificial similarities of neurons with different properties.
Their applications makes it possible to gradually bring out the most important key features of the analyzed images or other forms of information and use them to classify objects.

Изменение климата и таяние вечной мерзлоты может привести к тому, что на поверхности почвы окажутся древние, но вполне живые и по-прежнему патогенные микроорганизмы, как это уже случалось с спорами сибирской язвы. Исследователи из Франции, России и Германии подтвердили это, выделив из образцов вечной мерзлоты возрастом до 50 тысяч лет 13 ранее неизвестных вирусов, большинство из которых принадлежит к семейству гигантских пандоравирусов, и успешно заразив ими амебы Acanthamoeba castellanii.

As the world warms up, vast tranches of permafrost are melting, releasing material that's been trapped in its icy grip for years. This includes a slew of microbes that have lain dormant for hundreds of millennia in some cases.
To study the emerging microbes, scientists have now revived a number of these "zombie viruses" from Siberian permafrost, including one thought to be nearly 50,000 years old - a record age for a frozen virus returning to a state capable of infecting other organisms.
The team behind the work, led by microbiologist Jean-Marie Alempic from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, says these reanimating viruses are potentially a significant threat to public health, and further study needs to be done to assess the danger that these infectious agents could pose as they awake from their icy slumber.
"One quarter of the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost," write the researchers in their paper.
"Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decompose into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect."
The 48,500-year-old amoeba virus is actually one of 13 outlined in a new study currently in preprint, with nine of them thought to be tens of thousands of years old. The researchers established that each one was distinct from all other known viruses in terms of their genome.
While the record-breaking virus was found beneath a lake, other extraction locations included mammoth wool and the intestines of a Siberian wolf - all buried beneath permafrost. Using live single-cell amoeba cultures, the team proved that the viruses still had the potential to be infectious pathogens.
We're also seeing huge numbers of bacteria released into the environment as the world warms up, but given the antibiotics at our disposal it might be argued they would prove less threatening. A novel virus - as with SARS-CoV-2 - could be much more problematic for public health, especially as the Arctic becomes more populated.
"The situation would be much more disastrous in the case of plant, animal, or human diseases caused by the revival of an ancient unknown virus," write the researchers.
"It is therefore legitimate to ponder the risk of ancient viral particles remaining infectious and getting back into circulation by the thawing of ancient permafrost layers."
This team has form for diligently digging up viruses in Siberia, with a previous study detailing the discovery of a 30,000-year-old virus. Like the new record holder, that was also a pandoravirus, a giant big enough to be visible using light microscopy.
The revived virus has been given the name Pandoravirus yedoma, which acknowledges its size and the type of permafrost soil that it was found in. The researchers think there are many more viruses to find too, beyond those that only target amoebas.
Many of the viruses that will be released as the ice thaws will be completely unknown to us - although it remains to be seen how infectious these viruses will be once they're exposed to the light, heat and oxygen of the outdoor environment. These are all areas that could be investigated in future studies.
Virologist Eric Delwart from the University of California, San Francisco, agrees that these giant viruses are just the start when it comes to exploring what lies hidden beneath the permafrost. Though Delwart wasn't involved in the current study, he has plenty of experience resuscitating ancient plant viruses.
"If the authors are indeed isolating live viruses from ancient permafrost, it is likely that the even smaller, simpler mammalian viruses would also survive frozen for eons," Delwart told New Scientist.
The research has not yet been peer-reviewed but is available on bioRxiv.

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