Сентябрь 2022 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• A new catalyst to slow down global warming
• St Petersburg University scientists help discover a new mineral
• The discovery of a new species of freshwater crustaceans in the UAE
• Scientists from BFU assessed the possibility of destroying large asteroids and correcting their path
• Bacteria from the sewer can become producers of hydrogen fuel
• Russian scientists roll out plans to establish a poultry microbiota database
• New tool for early detection of hypertension
• In disrupted Russian academy election, researchers find signs of state meddling
• Brain found to simultaneously process linguistic and extralinguistic information
• Novel coronavirus found in Russian bats shows resistance to vaccine antibodies
• Russia to launch new system of higher education in 2023

Ученые МИСиС совместно с коллегами из МГУ и Института органической химии им. Н.Д.Зелинского разработали новый и более простой способ получения промышленных кобальт-никелевых катализаторов для переработки углекислого газа.

Russian scientists have developed a new, highly efficient catalyst for carbon dioxide industrial processing that makes the process simple and inexpensive. Scientists from MISIS University, Lomonosov Moscow State University and Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry took part in the study. The results have been published in Materials.
One of the promising ways to process greenhouse gas-related carbon dioxide is through the reaction of its interaction with hydrogen. According to the scientists, the valuable products of this reaction can be the synthesis gas, various hydrocarbons and alcohols widely used in the chemical industry. Scientific teams around the world are struggling to find sufficiently efficient and durable catalysts (compounds that accelerate the course of that chemical reaction) that will allow the scaling up of carbon dioxide processing for a green economy.
Scientists from MISIS University together with their colleagues from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry have developed a new simplified method of producing industrial cobalt-nickel catalysts for carbon dioxide processing.
"Our catalysts are a bulk alloy with a porous surface and nanoscale grains that form foamy high-activity particles. Due to this structure and the synergistic interaction of Co with Ni, the catalysts are characterized by a more intense interaction with CO₂ molecules and high stability, compared to existing analogs (active element dispersed on a ceramic carrier)," explained Sergey Roslyakov, Senior Researcher at NUST MISIS.
The scientists focused on three problems: exploring the possibilities of full utilization of carbon dioxide (which enhances the greenhouse effect on the planet), as well as simplifying the production of effective catalysts and creating catalysts based on available raw materials.
"Our work is distinguished by the rapid and simple synthesis of material via combustion of reactive sol-gels. In our approach, it is enough to apply insignificant energy to heat a small volume of the sample, up to one cubic millimeter in size, and then the synthesis proceeds in a self-sustaining mode without additional energy costs," Roslyakov said.
The use of non-standard synthesis methods has significantly reduced energy and resource costs in the production and use of the catalysts. According to the authors, cobalt contributes to the formation of a porous sponge-like microstructure of the catalyst and also triples the catalytic properties of nickel.
Since the entire volume of the catalyst consists of a metal alloy, it has a much higher thermal conductivity compared to ceramic carriers. As they explain, this significantly increases the stability of the material during long-term use.
"We have simplified the method of materials preparation, avoiding long and non-trivial stages of melting, spraying, cleaning, application of active components on the structure-forming carrier and others. Despite the simplified synthesis process and the composition of the catalyst, we have obtained a competitive technology for the catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide," Roslyakov added.
In the future, the scientific team intends to continue the search for new effective and stable catalysts.

Ученые Кольского научного центра РАН и СПбГУ открыли новый минерал, который, возможно, будет пригоден для использования в составе сверхъемких аккумуляторов. Минерал был найден в якутском месторождении Кестер и получил название сергейсмирновит в честь выдающегося российского геолога Сергея Смирнова (1895-1947). Это второй минерал, названный в его честь - первый, получивший название смирновскит, был открыт в 1957 г.

A team of scientists from the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences and St Petersburg University has discovered a new mineral in the Kester deposit in the Verkhoyansky District, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). This could become the basis for developing super-capacity batteries.
Sergeysmirnovite belongs to the hopeite group and is composed of magnesium, zinc and phosphorus. The research findings are published in the journal Doklady Earth Sciences.
The mineral is named in honour of Sergey Smirnov (1895-1947), Full Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a famous Soviet geologist and a renowned specialist in mineralogy of ore deposits.
Sergey Krivovichev is Professor in the Department of Crystallography at St Petersburg University and General Manager of the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to him, sergeysmirnovite is the fourth new mineral to have been discovered in the Kester tin ore deposit.
‘Kesterite is a mineral whose synthetic analogues are now widely used in solar cells. It was discovered in Kester in the late 1950s. The study of Kester deposit mineralogy was resumed 50 years after the discovery of kesterite in our most recent works. We have already described the minerals epifanovite and batagaite. Like these two minerals, sergeysmirnovite was formed during the final low-temperature stage of hydrothermal activity,’ said Sergey Krivovichev.
Hydrothermal processes are endogenous geological processes of formation and transformation of minerals and ores that occur in the Earth's crust at medium to shallow depths, involving hot aqueous solutions at high pressures.
As the scientists suggest, the mineral may have good proton conductivity. Due to this property, synthetic natural-like analogues of sergeysmirnovite can be used as the basis for developing super-capacity batteries.
‘The site where the mineral was found is unique in Soviet history. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, this was the site of the Kester camp, where prisoners mined cassiterite - the ore for tin. It is no coincidence that sergeysmirnovite was named after Academician Smirnov, who received the Stalin Prize in 1946 for the discovery of the Yakut tin deposits. Thus, the names of the minerals we have discovered - epifanovite, batagaite, sergeysmirnovite - simultaneously perpetuate the tragic history of our country (batagaite) and the names of the geologists who worked in the Verkhoyansky District (epifanovite and sergeysmirnovite),’ added Sergey Krivovichev.
On 2 June 2022, the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences summarised the results of the election of new members of the academy. Sergey Krivovichev, Professor in the Department of Crystallography at the Institute of Earth Sciences at St Petersburg University, was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the field of geochemistry.
Sergey Krivovichev is an expert in geochemistry, mineralogy and crystallography and the author of over 850 scientific papers, including over 550 articles, eight monographs and four patents. He has deciphered the structures of more than 150 minerals from deposits in Russia and abroad and co-authored the discovery of more than 90 new mineral species. He has also developed the theory of anion-centred structures in minerals and the theory of structural and chemical complexity of minerals. Professor Krivovichev has obtained and studied more than 400 new mineral-like compounds of uranium and lead, investigated the transformation of feldspar structures at high pressure and developed the crystallochemical systematics of high pressure silicates.
Sergeysmirnovite has been approved by the Commission for New Minerals and Nomenclature of the International Mineralogical Association (application 2021-033). The holotype mineral specimen has been handed over to the Mineralogical Museum of St Petersburg University (catalogue number 19659/1).
The research is supported by the grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project No 19-17-00038).

Биологи из ОАЭ и России открыли новый вид пресноводных ракообразных класса жаброногих.

A team of researchers from the Department of Life Sciences at the College of Science at the United Arab Emirates University, in cooperation with a number of researchers and international centers in Russia, succeeded in detecting an unknown type of freshwater crustacean class "Diplostraka" of microorganisms in the animal kingdom of the Arabian Peninsula within a group common species.
The discovery was published among the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, led by Professor Walid Hamza, from the Department of Life Sciences at the College of Science at the United Arab Emirates University, Professor Alex Kotov, researcher Anna Nertina from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Russia, and Dr. Khaled Amiri, Director of the Khalifa Center For Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, researchers from the Babanin Institute of Inland Water Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Shamma Al Neyadi, a master’s student from the Department of Life Sciences, who spent 21 days at the Russian Institute perfecting her drawings using the world’s most advanced Lucida camera.
Lead researcher Professor Walid Hamza explained: The discovery of new species that grew in temporary bodies of fresh water, will open the door for many researchers to explore different environments not only in the country, but in the Arabian Peninsula, where this region still has a lot to discover.
He added: The importance of this scientific discovery comes in increasing the members of the biodiversity list of living organisms, especially in the United Arab Emirates. Which raises the value of preserving wetland ecosystems as a vital resource that maintains the Earth’s environment and its living organisms.

Расчеты ученых из Балтийского федерального университета имени Иммануила Канта показали, что единственный способ избежать столкновения Земли с астероидом диаметром не менее километра - вызвать на его поверхности сверхмощный ядерный взрыв, причем на большом удалении от Земли. Это позволит либо скорректировать траекторию, либо разбить астероид на мелкие фрагменты.

Scientists from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have shown with the help of mathematical calculations that the only way to prevent the fall of kilometer-long asteroids on Earth is to cause an explosion thermonuclear power on them, enabling them to adjust their position. a path or to break a dangerous object into small pieces. Asteroids of that size may collide with Earth once every 500,000 years and cause some damage to human civilization. This work helps to evaluate the technical performance of different methods of combating the potentially harmful nature of the universe. The results of the research are published in the journal Cosmic Research.
Asteroids are small objects in the universe, which move in a certain way around the Sun. They differ from large planets and small meteorites in size: the diameter of an asteroid usually varies from 30 meters to a thousand kilometers. There are two areas where many asteroids are collected in the Solar system - the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as well as the Kuiper belt outside the Solar System.
Sometimes asteroids can come close to colliding with the planets, including Earth. The larger the body of the universe, the more destructive these impacts are. So, if an asteroid with a diameter of one hundred meters collides with the Earth, it will cause an explosion, which exceeds the power of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki tens of thousands of times. And this event happens once in ten thousand years, and the collision of an asteroid with a diameter of thirty meters - once in 150 years. In this case we need methods that will help us prevent such collisions in the future coming.
These days there are two ways to protect yourself from asteroids: correcting its path or breaking it into small pieces that are harmless and will burn completely in the atmosphere. In the near future NASA will test the first by sending the space vehicle DART to the asteroid Dimorphos, which is not dangerous for the Earth, in order to correct its path.
Technically, there are several ways to prevent the risk of small asteroids falling on Earth: you can send to the asteroid a space vehicle that connects with it, and with the help of pushing to move the dangerous object with aside, or to beat the universal body with a ram. rocket, it will change its trajectory or break into pieces. The last method works very well technically, because it requires very heavy vehicles. However, for larger asteroids the situation becomes more complicated.
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University scientists have studied the possibility of destroying or correcting the path of asteroids with a length of kilometers with the help of powerful thermonuclear explosives. Model calculations have shown that putting such cosmic bodies in a safe place would require the most powerful nuclear detonation at a distance of more than 100 million kilometers from Earth. It was also clearly shown that by such steps asteroids with a length of kilometers could be separated.
The latter conditions make it difficult to achieve the task of correcting the paths of such asteroids using nuclear explosions due to the difficulties in predicting the paths of movement of the pieces created.
"Our calculations have shown that it is possible to defend against asteroids that are kilometers long. However, to make this defense effective, an effective impact on asteroids must be made very far away and the Earth. In this regard, it is important to pay attention to potentially dangerous asteroids to make a nuclear correction of their orbits in advance. When powerful nuclear explosions can cause damage to such a cosmic body, during the next we plan to calculate the paths of dispersion of large asteroid fragments after their breakup", - shared his plans Mikhail Nikitin, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor of Immanuel Federal University Kant Baltic.

Новый штамм бактерий Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum, обнаруженный учеными из ФИЦ Биотехнологии РАН в реакторе для очистки сточных вод, оказался способен расщеплять богатые углеводами органические отходы, выделяя при этом водород.

Scientists from the Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied bacterium discovered in a wastewater treatment bioreactor. This microorganism has adapted to life in an acidic environment and breaks down carbohydrate-rich organic waste to form hydrogen. The bacterium was named SP-H2 and turned out to be the new strain of Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum. The features of this bacterium and its potential in the production of hydrogen fuel, the scientists described in their paper in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
Products of combustion of petroleum-based fuels in an internal combustion engine pollute the atmosphere, and oil prices are constantly rising. Hydrogen fuel could become an alternative to fossil fuels. When hydrogen is burned, no greenhouse gases are formed, the only product is water. The first hydrogen vehicles are already produced by such big car manufacturers as Audi, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Ford, BMW. Production of "green" hydrogen from renewable sources is more progressive and environmentally friendly compared to production from fossil fuels, which are rapidly depleted. Microorganisms are increasingly being used as microbial cell factories for the production of various chemicals and materials to achieve a sustainable chemical industry. Over millions of years of evolution, they have adapted to the assimilation of various substances and obtaining energy literally from the air, and often not only without it, but also without light. One of these microorganisms was studied by Russian scientists.
«It is estimated that only 0.001% of all extant microbial taxa have been discovered to date. Even most of the microorganisms that surround us every day are difficult to culture in laboratories, so we knew little about them until the recent advent of new molecular genetic methods. More in-depth research in this field opens up an inexhaustible supply of enzymes and systems for obtaining a wide variety of substances and performing tasks for energy, pharmaceuticals, chemistry, agriculture and many other industries. One of such examples is a newly isolated strain of bacterium Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum, named SP-H2, which enables us to learn many facts about the production of hydrogen from organic compounds», - tells co-author of the study, the head of Laboratory of Microbiology of Anthropogenic Habitats of the Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuriy Litti.
Scientists have found the DNA of a bacterium in wastewater that breaks down the building blocks of carbohydrates and produces hydrogen gas, as well as ethanol, acetate and butyrate. To figure out what kind of microorganism it is, the scientists conducted the analysis of 16S rRNA. In this section of the DNA sequence, a part of the ribosome is encoded - the structure responsible for protein assembly in the cell. The results showed that the bacterium belongs to a new strain of Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum. It was found to be a thermophilic microorganism, optimally growing at a temperature of 55-60°C in a slightly alkaline environment with a pH level of 7.5.
Scientists carried out experiments to find out which substrates are consumed by SP-H2 with the highest production of hydrogen. The "menu" of SP-H2 included both hexoses, such as maltose, glucose, mannose, fructose, lactose, galactose, saccharose, raffinose, cellobiose, and pentoses (xylose and arabinose). Scientists also tested if the bacterium feels good in the real industrial wastewater, rich in organics: cheese whey, confectionery wastewater, and sugar-beet processing wastewater. The highest hydrogen yield was observed from maltose, a bit less - from lactose and cellobiose. Cheese whey and confectionery wastewater turned out to be the best industrial wastewater for hydrogen production.
"To date, the low yield of the target product is still a problem that hinders the large-scale implementation of dark fermentative hydrogen production. On average, the process yields 1-2 moles of H₂ per mole of glucose. A part of organics, even under the most favorable conditions, will be left and avoid conversion. Moreover, acidic by-products accumulate during the reaction, which can drastically lower the pH and inhibit bacterial growth. In our studies, we achieved a yield of 1.91 mole of hydrogen per mole of hexose; the highest hydrogen production rate was observed during decomposition of xylose. Also, our studies have shown that Thermoanaerobacterim thermosacharolitycum SP-H2 can be considered a promising strain for obtaining hydrogen from wastewater, which is not affected by indigenous microorganisms. When we find a way to increase the yield of the target product, we can learn how to produce hydrogen fuel using biotechnology on an industrial scale", - comments Yuriy Litti.

В России планируется создать базу данных образцов кишечных микробиоценозов домашней птицы. Данные будут использоваться при разработке новых ветпрепаратов, а также кормов и биотехнологий для снижения риска развития различных заболеваний.

A group of Russian scientists have started working on creating a database of intestinal microbiocenoses collected among the domestic poultry population to better understand the impact of the use of antibiotics and improve feeding effectiveness in the domestic poultry industry.
The project has been launched by the All-Russian state centre for the quality and standardisation of medicines for animals and feed and is claimed to facilitate achieving goals set in the Russian law "on biological safety in the Russian Federation".
The scientists explained that they identify differences in the taxonomic composition of microbiota in free-range poultry and in poultry kept in cages on industrial farms. One of the tasks of the studies is to understand the relationship between intestinal microbiomes, i.e., the genes of the microbiota, and the drug load, the scientists said.
Battling diseases
"The researchers are conducting work to diagnose the state of the gastrointestinal microflora of birds under the influence of antimicrobial and probiotic substances," the state centre said in a statement. "This will contribute to the prevention of campylobacteriosis, clostridiosis, colibacillosis, salmonellosis and other microbiome diseases."
The scientists explained that, as in other species in poultry, the intestinal microflora is involved in forming the body’s resistance against various diseases and protecting the gastrointestinal tract from foreign microorganisms. However, its understanding of how microbiota performs these functions remains scarce.
The new project is designed "to assess the diversity of bacteria contained in it at the level of genera, classes, types and families" and to determine "the population of the most dominant groups of intestinal microorganisms" among the poultry population at Russian farms.
Looking at the impact of antibiotics use
Russian farmers were allowed to use antibiotics in virtually unlimited quantities for years. The Russian veterinary standards only prescribed that no antibiotics residues above the permitted limits must be found in the finished products. However, the authorities started tightening control over the use of in-feed antibiotics in 2021, eyeing to cut their use on farms.
The state centre also disclosed that the project would pave the way to a detailed assessment of disturbances in the microflora of poultry under antibiotic load, determine the possibilities for modulating the microbiomes of poultry with the help of probiotics, as well as to create a state database of their intestinal biomaterials, genes and pure cultures.
"These data will be used in the development of new veterinary drugs, as well as feed and biotechnologies aimed at reducing the risk of developing infectious and non-communicable diseases," the scientists said.

Ученые НИТУ «МИСиС», МГУ, МФТИ и Копенгагенского университета предложили новый подход для раннего выявления гипертонии с использованием наночастиц серебра и поверхностно-усиленной рамановской спектроскопии. Серебро позволяет повысить чувствительность исследования и обнаружить изменения в клетках крови на ранних стадиях.

Russian scientists have come up with a new tool for early detection of hypertension. They applied surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy powered by silver nanoparticles to detect hypertension-induced molecular changes in blood cells at early stages of the disease. The study was published in Biosensors.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is one of the most important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, leading to organ hypoxia and consequent damage, such as heart failure, stroke, vasculopathy, and nephropathy.
Hypoxic conditions can develop as the result of hypertension-induced alterations in vessel structure or abnormal changes in hemoglobin's affinity for oxygen, leading to the decreased ability of hemoglobin to transport and release oxygen in peripheral tissues.
Identification and monitoring of such changes occurring at the cellular level could help develop new tools for early diagnostics and personalized targeted treatment.
A group of scientists from NUST MISIS, Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and University of Copenhagen have proposed a new approach for the selective study of the hemoglobin in erythrocytes with SERS using a colloidal solution of silver nanoparticles and silver nanostructured surfaces.
"The nanostructured surfaces were obtained by dissolving 0.3 g of silver nitrate in 40 mL of water, followed by the addition of 30 mL of 20% sodium hydroxide solution. The resulting substance was then washed, followed by the addition of 5 mL of 25% aqueous ammonia and 25 mL of water. The obtained solution was then sprayed onto the surface of coverslips and subjected to heat treatment. These nanostructures allowed us to achieve the enhancement of the Raman scattering from molecules near the nanostructure surface," noted Georgi Maksimov, Professor at the Materials Physics Department in University MISIS.
The researchers applied plasmonic SERS nanosensors to assess changes in the properties of erythrocytes in normotensive and hypertensive rats. They were able to detect changes in erythrocyte properties in hypertensive rats, such as a decrease in the erythrocyte plasma membrane fluidity. One of the explanations of this phenomenon is the increased level of cholesterol. Increasing cholesterol leads to a decrease in membrane fluidity and changes in the erythrocyte function.
For the first time, the scientists observed a decrease in the in-plane mobility of heme in hemoglobin in hypertensive rats, which is impossible to detect by other methods. The researchers believe that this can be explained by the increasing stiffness of the membrane, which may reduce the ability of a heme to adapt to changing oxygen concentrations and affect the affinity of hemoglobin to oxygen. That in turn can impair oxygen supply to tissues in hypertensive conditions.
The proposed SERS-based approach may be used to develop novel diagnostic tools to detect early pathologies and to assess treatment outcomes in CVD and beyond, the researchers believe.

Итоги выборов президента РАН.

The Kremlin tightened its control over the 300-year-old Russian Academy of Sciences this week when its current president, Alexander Sergeev, withdrew his bid for a second term a day before the election, citing the "administrative pressures" many RAS members face for "speaking out." The 67-year-old laser physicist, who was widely expected to win, declined to explain his withdrawal in more detail to members attending the RAS annual meeting in Moscow, but said it was a "forced decision." Instead, Gennady Krasnikov, who leads Mikron, Russia’s biggest chipmaker, won the 20 September election.
The disruption shows how state interference continues to weaken the once-powerful academy, already hobbled under 2 decades of rule by President Vladimir Putin, says Michael Gordin, who studies the history of Russian science at Princeton University. Keeping competitive candidates off the ballot through coercion is "part of a menu of actions that the Russian state takes to ensure favorable election outcomes," agrees Robert Moser, who studies Russian politics at the University of Texas, Austin.
Some outspoken RAS members tried to organize an election boycott on short notice. But a narrow quorum was present and willing to go ahead with a secret ballot for the two remaining candidates: Krasnikov and Dmitriy Markovich, who leads a thermophysics research institute in Siberia and is not well known outside the region. Krasnikov won by a comfortable 871-397 vote.
In the last RAS election, in 2017, Vladimir Fortov, the then-incumbent president running for reelection, also withdrew on the opening day of the meeting. "The difference is, back then everyone withdrew and elections were postponed," says Askold Ivantchik, an RAS member and historian at the RAS Institute of World History and France’s national research agency, CNRS. Six months later, Sergeev won, with Krasnikov coming in third. This time, Ivantchik says, "The door was left open for the candidate preferred by the government."
Speaking the day before elections, Yuri Solomonov, chief designer for ballistic missiles at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, threw his support behind Krasnikov because of what he said were "unfortunate" signals that Sergeev didn’t have the support of the country’s leadership. (Solomonov had endorsed Sergeev in 2017.) Krasnikov, 64, is a lifelong Mikron employee, and in 2016, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea triggered sanctions, Putin put him in charge of electronics as a national technological priority.
Markovich, meanwhile, was an unusually progressive candidate who talked about issues that rarely get attention in Russian science, such as gender imbalances. He used his final campaign speech to spotlight a scientist who he said was "mistakenly" charged with treason. (Since 2000, several dozen scientists, often working in fields related to hypersonic weapons, have been charged with treason and jailed.)
Irina Dezhina, a science policy researcher at the Institute for the Economy in Transition, says the election chaos will be "a blow" to RAS. The academy has always been "entirely a creation of the state," which pays its bills, Gordin notes. But in the turbulent 1990s it had gained unprecedented influence over the nation’s research budgets, which Putin then reversed in a 2013 change stripping RAS of most of its control over research institutes. "It is now a shadow of its former self in terms of power and social influence," Gordin says.
At his first press briefing as president-elect, Krasnikov said the academy should be brought back into high-level decisions about science funding and policy. This echoes an academy call, published in August in its annual "state of the science" report, for a bigger role for itself in the "operational management" of science. Dezhina thinks the government will ignore the vague calls and adds, "We’ve got enough managers in science, it’s the managed that are the issue, with the number of researchers falling every year." R&D budgets in Russia have stagnated at about 1% of gross domestic product, well below the average for developed nations.
The invasion of Ukraine has isolated Russian science and triggered wide-ranging sanctions - including measures against Mikron. It has also deeply fractured the scientific community. In his concluding remarks before the vote, Markovich wished for peace, a risky stance: Just 2 days later, public antiwar displays led to the detention of more than 1400 street protesters across Russia.
In his election platform, Krasnikov blamed the recent technological constraints crippling Russian science on Western sanctions rather than Russia’s own actions. After his election, he also said he would prioritize "technological sovereignty" - a cause touted by Putin, who is expected to formally relieve Sergeev of his duties and confirm Krasnikov in the coming days.

Международная группа ученых из Великобритании, Испании, Дании и России провела эксперимент, продемонстрировавший, что во время вербального общения мозг одновременно обрабатывает линвистическую и экстралингвистическую информацию. В частности, человек одновременно определяет род глагола и пол говорящего, понимая, верно ли сочетаются подлежащее и сказуемое.

An international team of scientists from the UK, Spain, Denmark and Russia (including researchers from the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience) conducted an experiment demonstrating that people automatically integrate extralinguistic information into grammatical processing during verbal communication. The study findings were published in the Scientific Reports Journal.
During our everyday communication, listening to the radio or watching television, people perceive and process verbal information which includes both linguistic and extralinguistic features. The former is related to the semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology of the language, while the latter signal the speaker's gender, age, status, and mood. Successful communication relies on the effective processing of both types of information.
At early stages of language processing, the human brain is capable of detecting whether a grammatical construction, eg a subject-verb agreement in a phrase, is correct. Extralinguistic information, such as the speaker's gender, is also processed at the early stages of speech analysis. But until recently, it was unclear what happens earlier: processing of the grammatical gender or the speaker's gender.
To answer this question, the researchers conducted an experiment involving 37 native Russian speakers: 17 men and 20 women aged 19 to 32. The Russian language was chosen for the experiment because, first, it has gender agreement, the grammatical feature examined in the study. Second, in this language the extralinguistic information can be reflected in grammatical constructions: past tense verbs can have masculine, feminine or neuter gender forms. This allowed the researchers to study the processing of linguistic and extralinguistic information at the same time.
During the experiment, the participants watched Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit animated film (directed by Nick Park and Steve Box, 2005) with the sound turned off. At the same time, they were played phrases via earphones spoken in two voices - male and female. The phrases used ten Russian verbs in the past tense singular form (which is gender-marked in Russian). While the phrases were grammatically correct, the verbforms sometimes agreed or disagreed with the speaker's gender. The phrases were repeated 20 times in a pseudo-random order. The participants were instructed to ignore the auditory stimuli and to concentrate on the film. During the experiment, the brain’s electrical activity was recorded using EEG.
After watching the film, the participants were asked to fill in a multiple-choice questionnaire to make sure that they had paid attention to the film and not to the auditory stimuli. Then, they were instructed to read and choose the 10 experimental verb forms out of 20 fillers (verb forms that were not used in the experiment).
The EEG data demonstrated that both selected features - the grammatical gender and the speaker's gender - were analysed simultaneously and automatically during the early speech processing.
Maria Alekseeva, the study author, Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Cognition and Decision Making: 'Our research combines linguistics, psychology, cognitive sciences, and neuroscience. The findings presented in the paper will not only contribute to our understanding of the way language works and how it is processed by the brain, but can also facilitate our interpersonal communication.'

Новый SARS-подобный коронавирус, обнаруженный российскими учеными у летучих мышей в окрестностях Сочи в 2020 г. и получивший название Khosta-2, оказался способен передаваться человеку, будучи при этом устойчивым к существующим вакцинам.

A new coronavirus discovered in Russian bats has prompted experts to push for an immediate attempt to create a broad vaccination. They warn that if a lethal wildlife disease spreads to humankind, it may very well spark a whole other disease outbreak.
Resistance to Vaccine Antibodies of Russian Bats
The newest pulmonary influenza identified between many bats, identified as Khosta-2, is coated in excitation proteins that may invade living tissue via the identical nooks as SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, troubling is its evident susceptibility to immunotherapies and serum produced in COVID-19 vaccination patients. In other sense, the existing conventional treatments cannot combat this emerging pulmonary pathogen, Science Alert reported.
Although Khosta-1 could not infiltrate living tissue by itself in the research, when a protein-eating engine was introduced to the mix, the pathogen was unexpectedly capable to enter living tissue by a unique turnstile.
Regrettably, plenty of the existing vaccinations are targeted at certain diseases that scientists believe enter living tissue or that appear to represent the greatest danger of infecting people. In the laboratory, this bat disease was susceptible to infiltrate human liver cells via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) channels, similarly like SARS-CoV-2. As per the scientists' conclusion covered by media site, Business Standard, the research suggests that some coronaviruses potentially infiltrate living tissue via a hitherto undiscovered channel. Furthermore, Sarbecoviruses were already demonstrated to co-circulate in bats, thus this variance in sensor utilization between many highly associated infectious agents might very well perhaps constitute a biological evolution mechanism for infectious survival throughout the repository host group, News Medical Live Sciences noted.
During the research, serum from immunized patients was less efficient at eliminating the pseudovirus when the binding affinity areas on a SARS-CoV-2 virus were substituted with Khosta-2 associated proteins. It's unclear if the bacterial infection that attacks these bats may spread to sentient beings in the modern environment, but preliminary studies in the lab indicate it's likely feasible. If the Khosta-2 virus co-infects a recipient with some other coronavirus, the two infections might very well merge to create a completely special generation. However, when researchers delved at them further, group members were astonished to discover they were capable of infiltrate living tissue.
Possible Novel Coronavirus
Skeptically, these research results underscore the crucial necessity to pursue developing novel, as well as more broadly protective, sarbecovirus immunizations. According to Washington State University virologist Michael Letko, these strange Russian infectious agents appeared similar to several of the viruses that had previously been identified throughout the entire planet, however since they didn't appear to be resemble SARS-CoV-2, hardly anyone believed they were truly something to get enthusiastic on, WSU Insider updated.
When scientists in Russia discovered Khosta-2 and similar bat bacterial infection, Khosta-1, in 2020, neither infection appeared to be especially harmful. Presently, organizations are working to develop a vaccine that not only safeguards towards the upcoming type of SARS-2, yet also towards sarbecoviruses in broad sense.
Aside from the premise that both diseases correspond to the exact similar category of pulmonary infections coronaviruses classified as sarbecoviruses, immune responses produced from the omicron variation were ineffective towards the bat infection, which was shown to the study posted under PLOS Pathogen.
Khosta-2 was discovered amongst lesser horseshoe bats in Russia's Sochi National Park, a species also widespread in Europe and North Africa.
As per The Weather Channel, the sooner researchers act, the greater our chances of preventing future lethal coronavirus to emergence and spread. If this highly contagious repository spreads to people, conventional coronavirus vaccinations that primarily target the ACE2 interface will also no doubt be ineffective.

Россия предполагает запустить новую систему высшего образования взамен Болонской в начале следующего года.

The new national system of higher education, designed to replace the Bologna system, will be officially launched in Russia at the beginning of 2023, according to Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov.
This is the first time a timeframe has been given for when Russia will drop out of the Bologna system, which was set up in 1999 to create a universal standard for higher education across Europe and is recognised in 49 countries. Russia signed up to the system in 2003 and dropped Soviet-era ‘specialist’ degrees in favour of a two-tier system of four-year bachelor degrees and optional two-year postgraduate qualifications in 2009.
Falkov said the Ministry of Science and Higher Education will submit proposals to the State Duma in the first week of October on the format of a new national system this autumn.
"So far, the ministry has formed several working groups, which include university heads and scientists, that will define the goals and principles of the new national system of higher education," he said. There is a possibility that the new system will be based on the 2+2+2 concept which provides more flexible opportunities for students to change their educational programme. The ‘2+2+2’ system implies that the first two years of study will be dedicated to the formation of the fundamental knowledge of a student, that will be equivalent to a bachelor degree, the second two years to profiling (a specialist degree), and the last two years on ‘Magister’ courses for deepening the obtained knowledge. Under this system, a student will be able to choose the direction of his or her training from the third year of study.
Andrei Fursenko, assistant to the president of Russia, a former Russian minister of science and education and one of the major initiators of the reform, said: "By focusing on two years of training, we can enable a person to change the trajectory in the learning process. The system could be more efficient and flexible. There are now several educational institutions in Russia that are ready to test this initiative."
A spokesperson for Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University said any system should be based on the cultural and historical characteristics of the country, but the Bologna system is designed in accordance with well-established Western values and is not suitable for Russia.
Ministry of higher education officials say the new system will increase the popularity of higher education in Russia, which is important amid the rapidly changing demands of the labour market. The government is confident that the new scheme will be workable for most of the domestic universities and their programmes and courses. According to Ministry of Science and Higher Education officials, the transition of the domestic universities to the Bologna system, initiated in 2009 and completed in 2013, led to the disappearance of specialties and specific qualifications of graduates. This, in turn, created certain difficulties in the labour market for them, since the qualification ‘bachelor’ or ‘master’ did not prepare them for specific professions in Russia, with many employers saying they were unhappy with the skill level of university graduates and that they could not offer them good jobs prior to additional training.
The ministry officials say the new system will draw on both the positive Western experience, including for instance the provision of student exchanges and internships, and the national interests of the country. But there will not be a return to the Soviet system of studying rigidly for five years on a fixed course, without the option of changing course. Representatives of leading Russian universities believe the transition to the new system will contribute to the strengthening of domestic higher education institutions’ research and educational potential.
Irina Abankina, a professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, one of Russia’s most prestigious universities in the field of economics, said the new state initiative was very important. Abankina said: "Since 2012 a number of serious problems has accumulated in the Russian system of higher education. It is important to expand the specialty in certain areas, primarily in engineering, in technological specialties.
"Now there is a high state demand for engineers as well as technologists who could help solve the problems of import substitution and establish broken supply chains of interaction within business.
"The system should become more flexible, as there could be a bachelor degree and a masters degree and a specialist, that is, all these levels."
But Egor Yablokov, director of E-kvadrat Consulting and Media and an expert in the field of higher education, said the rejection of the Bologna system would only increase the isolation of Russian universities. According to him, that will lead to narrowing of paths of Russian university graduates to professional activities and will not allow them to work in today’s post-industrial economy. He added that many young people will prefer to study abroad and not return to Russia after their graduation.

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