Январь 2023

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Siberian gravediggers find 2,000 year old Scythian-style cemetery
• Russia: Scientists to help harvest microgreens year-round through the use of low-cost vertical farms
• RUDN ecologists discover bacteria that decompose toxic substances in urban environment
• Arctic science: resume collaborations with Russian scholars
• Russia lacks professionals to pursue its policy goals in Africa
• Ancient Americans crossed back into Siberia in a two-way migration, new evidence shows
• Right hemisphere switched off during speech: Corpus callosum study
• Russia to send empty capsule to space station
• Child buried with 142 dogs in ancient Egyptian necropolis
• St Petersburg University zoologists discover four new species of micro-invertebrates
• Khanty dialects found to differ more than Slavic languages
• Mathematicians prove the existence of hidden attractors in an electrical circuit

Археологи Сибирского федерального университета провели раскопки кургана, открытого при расширении одного из красноярских кладбищ несколько лет назад. В кургане, датируемом II-I вв. до н. э, были захоронены примерно 50 человек в окружении погребальных артефактов: керамики, бронзовых изделий и пр. По одной из версий, курган может относиться к тесинской культуре, переходной между тагарской и таштыкской культурами.

While bulldozing land for a new burial ground, workers startled to discover an old one, belonging to a newly identified culture
All they meant to do is expand a local cemetery. But as gravediggers in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, were removing a hill to make room for the newly deceased in 2018, they made an unexpected discovery. That hill turned out to be an ancient burial mound created by a Scythian-type culture over 2,000 years ago.
The question is which Scythian-type culture.
Our story begins in the 19th century, when a new cemetery called Shinnoye was established on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, the second biggest city in Siberia. Little did the founders know that the land nearby had already been "used".
A century later, excavation of what remained of the ancient burial mound began in autumn 2021 and continued the next summer by a team of archaeologists from the Siberian Federal University, led by Dmitry Vinogradov.
In fact, around 150 ancient burial mounds are now known to have existed around Krasnoyarsk, but most were destroyed in the course of city development during the 20th century. This was the first to be excavated in the region in 65 years.
The chamber of death
It is indeed unfortunate that while expanding the modern cemetery, the ancient mound was bulldozed. Valuable data was destroyed, but based on old photographs and descriptions from an archaeological survey almost a century ago, the mound had been round and about 30 meters in diameter. However, the knowledge about it was lost over the years. Its existence was only rediscovered by the bucket of the bulldozer a century later.
Luckily, the tomb beneath survived the bulldozing and turned out to contain dozens of bodies in a large rectangular pit, that had been walled with timber and carpeted in birch bark.
The upper part of the tomb was damaged by the worksbut parallels with tombs from the era suggest it once had a wooden roof, thus creating what is known as a box tomb, Vinogradov explained.
Preliminary counts suggest the tomb may have contained as many as 50 people buried with grave goods ranging from beads to bronze plaques, miniature symbolic bronze daggers and battle axes, as well as knives, mirrors, and needles; and ceramic vessels that had contained foods: all items the deceased might have "needed" in the afterlife, Vinogradov speculates.
One plaque depicted a stag, a popular motif in Siberian Scythian animal art.
But the question remained, which Scythian-type culture this was.
Signs of Scythians
The Scythians are known mainly as the "barbarians" living in Crimea and north of the Black Sea, according to classical authors, mainly Herodotus from the fifth century B.C.E. However, the Eurasian steppe belt, as far east as northeastern China, was home to numerous horse-riding nomadic and semi-nomadic archaeological cultures that the Russian school of archaeology calls "Scythian".
Make no mistake. Scholars today do not ascribe to a theory of some broader unified "Scythian" nation or culture. Rather, the name refers to a triad of Iron Age archaeological features: certain styles of bronze weaponry; horse-riding gear; and art featuring real and mythical animals - mainly stags, wild felines, birds of prey and mythical griffons.
A lot of cultures throughout the sprawling Eurasian steppe belt featured the "Scythian triad" of artifacts, but the ethnic, genetic or anthropological connections between them - if any - remain unclear and highly debated, especially concerning the most far-flung of the "Scythian-type" communities.
For example, Scythian-type archaeological cultures in the Minusinsk basin in Siberia are not thought to have any relationships with the classical Scythians in Crimea or the Northern Black Sea, but rather to be related to closer people in Siberia’s Altai mountains.
It can also be said that from the Bronze Age onward and continuing into the Iron Age, there were connections between northeastern China and the Minusinsk basin in Siberia, but researchers still debate who influenced who and how. In any case, these "Scythian" cultures encompassed the full gamut of lifestyles, from nomadic to semi-nomadic to sedentary.
One of the more famous "Scythian-type" cultures is the Pazyryk living in the Altai mountains, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, best known for the Princess of Ukok and her beautiful tattoos.
Another famous Scythian-type culture is the Tagars, a semi-nomadic people who dominated the Minusinsk Basin during the late Bronze Age and Iron Age. On a number of grounds, the archaeologists suspect that the burial mound inadvertently unearthed by the latter-day gravediggers in Krasnoyarsk is associated with the Tagars.
In the early phase of their culture, the Tagars buried their deceased individually in stone box graves. In later phases, the fashion tended to large-scale wooden box tombs featuring multiple bodies, perhaps accruing over generations. And when the grave was full, the whole lot would be set collectively on fire.
Burning the dead
The large number of skeletons in the newly discovered tomb may attest that it served as a family tomb used for generations, Vinogradov suggests. When the tomb was full, it was sealed off, set on fire and left to burn.
This conclusion is supported by the colour and nature of the soil, which attests to high temperatures - and the fact that the bones had become mixed up inside, making the work for the physical anthropologist quite challenging. Usually, after burning, the tomb would be covered in soil, and that is what created the burial mound known throughout the steppe as kurgans.
However, death in the community did not end with the construction of our kurgan, as indicated by the discovery of ten pit burials around it. In fact, it was not rare for Tagar kurgans to feature later pit burials dug inside them as well. Luckily for posterity, the pits also survived the destructive claw of the bulldozer.
Each pit burial contained one or more individuals. Contrary to the wooden chamber of death, these tombs were not ignited. The dead were laid to rest in different positions - on their backs, chest, or side. Some skeletons survived the vagaries of time while others were less lucky, lacking any surviving bones, let alone articulation (anatomical order).
Nor was there a pattern to the dead in the pits: they contained both different sexes and all ages, including children. Only three contained grave goods, such as pottery and bronze, the same type as found within the wooden tomb.
From ashes, a new culture is born
The kurgan in Krasnoyarsk is similar to others in the Minusinsk basin, south of Krasnoyarsk. These types of kurgans are often associated with the Tagar culture (8th - 1st-century B.C.E).
The Tagar culture is divided into several stages. The style of our particular kurgan is similar to those from the later stages of this culture, from about 2,400 to 2,100 years ago.
The Tagars inhabited the basin from the 8th century B.C.E., the late Bronze Age. Toward the last centuries of the first millennium B.C.E, migration processes in the basin forced them to move northward, including to the territories surrounding the modern city of Krasnoyarsk. If in the early stage of their culture, the Tagans buried their dead individually, collective burials followed by cremation of the full graves marked the later phase of the culture: That was something completely new, Vinogradov explained.
Another hallmark of this final stage is that the dead were no longer buried with real bronze goods but rather miniaturized versions of these items, which presumably were of symbolic significance, the scholars believe.
Based on archaeological finds over the years in the region, some scholars have been suggesting that the late stage of the Tagar culture in the second and first centuries B.C.E., be considered a separate stage, which they call the "Tesinian culture" based on the site where these archaeological traits were first observed, on the banks of the River Tes in the Minusinsk Basin. In fact, the "Tesinian distinction" was first suggested by the late archaeologist and historian Mikhail Gryaznov (1902-1984), a leading scholar of the steppe cultures.
These Tesinians retained Tagarian traditions, from pottery style to burying the dead in kurgans with miniature items. While the Tagars did use iron, the metal only became common during the Tesinian stage and the metal started to appear in burials as well, a feature associated with the following Tashtyk culture.
Another practice whose roots we see in the Tesinian period was burial with plaster masks. These masks would become a hallmark of the later Tashtyks.
By the time of the Tashtyk culture, which flourished in the area from the 1st to the 4th century C.E., we no longer see miniature bronze items but rather iron and wooden items.
Hence, scholars today believe the final stage of the Tagar culture should be classified as a separate culture, because of the various new traditions they have observed. They believe this Tesinian culture arose from mixing between the Tagars and other populations coming from Central Asia during this time.
At this point however there are more questions than answers, Vynogradov explains.
So, based on the character of the burial mound and the goods, the kurgan is believed to belong to the transitional Tesinian culture and to date to the second or first century B.C.E. And that is the story of the first ancient mound in Krasnoyarsk to be excavated in 65 years, which revealed a people who emerged on the outskirts of the known territories of the Tagars, and may be unique and different from anything we knew before. And perhaps further archaeological investigation will teach us about what might have driven the Tagars north into these territories, and who were the Tesinians they became; and how and when they lived, and how they died.

В Сибирском федеральном университете предложили способы усовершенствования технологии выращивания микрозелени, трав, салата и овощей в вертикальных гидропонных фермах, что позволит значительно снизить затраты. Ученые максимально автоматизировали процесс - программы контролируют водно-солевой баланс, влажность, освещенность, выявляют некачественные ростки.

Scientists of the Siberian Federal University have offered ways to improve the technology for growing various crops in vertical hydroponic farms. The software has been developed to help carry out continuous monitoring of plant life in a city farm, as well as a neural network responsible for detecting poor-quality seeds and seedlings. The development will significantly reduce the cost of growing microgreens, aromatic herbs, lettuce, and vegetables for both restaurant holdings and private farms.
The experts engineered several programs - one of them is responsible for maintaining the parameters of the hydroponic installation that are comfortable for plants by adjusting the balance of salts; the other one monitors the acidity of the solution feeding the greens in the installation. General control over the seed material is carried out by a smart neural network that detects low-quality sprouts to be removed.
"Our neural network is able to control the quality of plants - to track and discard weak and diseased sprouts in order to minimize the rejection of finished products. The hardware implementation of the neural network is made on a chip, which speeds up all calculations several times. The same calculations on a computer would take more time," said Anton Khantimirov, author and software developer, senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science of SibFU, and employee of the interdisciplinary city-farming laboratory of the Gastronomy R&D Park of SibFU.
The scientists advocate that such automation of the process significantly saves time for employees - there is no need to take measurements manually anymore, and the programs independently monitor the balance of acids and salts, injecting the missing components from two prepared solutions into the hydroponic installation.
"The program measures the electrical conductivity of the solution that feeds the plants and adds salts of potassium, nitrogen, and so on. If necessary, the water-salt balance is monitored in this way. A special microcontroller, if necessary, starts pumps that pump in salts or acidify the nutrient solution in the installation", the scientist continued.
Network monitoring is good because researchers can track the well-being of their green charges over long distances. For example, using a special application installed on a smartphone, laboratory employees receive a report every morning with graphs that show the basic indicators of humidity, acidity, and the illumination of plants. One can monitor the status of a hydroponic installation from home or on a business trip, and even while on the road. The demo version involves only monitoring, but in a couple of months, the employees of SibFU’s city farm will be able to remotely influence the indicators of hydroponic installations through the application. This will reliably protect the crop from death in force majeure situations.
"We successfully grow microgreens, aromatic herbs (various varieties of basil), and several varieties of lettuce. Vegetables are next in turn, first of all - tomatoes. The beauty of urban vertical farms is that products, being fresh and with the right balance of nutrients and vitamins, almost immediately, without long transportation and associated logistics costs, go to restaurants and shops or directly to consumers. For example, greens grown by us are used in less than an hour after they were collected at student restaurant, which is both a gourmet restaurant open to all guests and a training laboratory for student projects of the School of Gastronomy of Siberian Federal University. Also, restaurants of Bellini Group, the largest Krasnoyarsk holding, are consumers of our products," said Anton Khantimirov.
An installation for growing vegetables using hydroponics is currently involved in another experiment - SibFU scientists use special phosphors to change lighting characteristics quickly, which allows you to choose the optimal conditions for plants. It is known, for example, that blue lighting makes plants stockier, not allowing them to stretch excessively in height, and red lighting helps fruit ripen.
An important advantage of hydroponic installations with software developed at SibFU is their low cost, which makes them much more profitable than analogs available in the market. In addition, such city farms can be almost entirely equipped with domestically produced parts made as a part of an import substitution strategy.

Экологи РУДН совместно с коллегами из Пущинского научного центра биологических исследований РАН обнаружили бактерии рода Micrococcus, способные разлагать токсичные полициклические ароматические углеводороды, которые входят в состав мелкодисперсной пыли, одного из самых вредных загрязнителей городской среды. По активности этих бактерий можно судить об экологической ситуации в городе.

RUDN ecologists, together with colleagues from the Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have discovered bacteria that can decompose toxic substances in urban dust. The activity of these bacteria can be used to judge the ecological situation in the city. The results are published in Microorganisms
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are organic compounds that have two or more benzene rings. They are formed during the combustion of hydrocarbons during forest fires, are found in car exhausts and industrial emissions. PAHs have carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. Bacteria, some of which are able to consume PAHs, are helping to partially solve this problem. However, this ability has been studied to a greater extent only in soil bacteria. The ability of bacteria inhabiting urban dust remains unknown. This issue was investigated by RUDN University ecologists.
"Pollution of the urban ecosystem with PAHs is a serious problem. Their accumulation in the environment is of great danger, because many of these compounds are toxic and carcinogenic. PAHs are part of fine dust, one of the most harmful pollutants in the urban environment. Microorganisms also live on dust particles. Bacteria capable of degrading PAHs reduce the concentrations of these compounds in the environment. The role of such bacteria in soils is already well understood. However, bacteria capable of decomposing PAHs and living in urban dust have not yet been studied," Maria Korneykova, PhD, Senior Researcher at the Smart technologies for sustainable development of urban environment in the conditions of global change at RUDN University.
Scientists compared the composition of PAHs on the road and in the leaves of trees in two large cities - Moscow and Murmansk. Using DNA analysis, the authors determined which bacteria live on the dust particles. There were 27 species of bacteria capable of decomposing PAHs in Murmansk and 15 species in Moscow. As for the PAHs themselves, their concentration and composition turned out to be different on the leaves and in the road dust.
Using the statistical analysis of the results by the method of "principal components", ecologists found out that bacteria of the genus Micrococcus, capable of decomposing PAHs, are sensitive to anthropogenic pollution. From this, it was concluded that bacteria of this genus can be used to monitor environmental pollution.
"The results of our research allow us to answer the question of how many bacteria that can cleanse the environment are part of the microbial community," Maria Korneykova, PhD, Senior Researcher at the Smart technologies for sustainable development of urban environment in the conditions of global change at RUDN University.

Климатологи из Кембриджского университета и Университета Осло в письме в редакцию журнала Nature призвали к возобновлению научного сотрудничества с российскими учеными, несмотря на разразившийся геополитический кризис. По их мнению, международное научное взаимодействие слишком важно в условиях глобального изменения климата.

The inclusion of data and expertise from Russia is crucial for mitigating global climate change. As well as being the world’s largest country, Russia has the longest Arctic shoreline and the largest forest biome and permafrost zone. We therefore call for a resumption of academic relations and scientific collaborations with Russian scholars and institutions, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February and the ensuing geopolitical and socio-economic crises.
Since the invasion, international communication networks with scholars from Russia have collapsed (see Nature 607, 432; 2022). However, peer-to-peer and institutional interaction in the global community of climate scientists is crucial for the continuity of observations, experiments and data sets, including those on greenhouse-gas emissions from industry, wildfires, permafrost thawing and carbon-cycle dynamics.
Collaboration also facilitates diplomatic soft power. For instance, Norway will take over from Russia as chair of the Arctic Council in May, but it is unclear how the handover might be achieved without scientific cooperation and mutual understanding. This could be an opportunity to reset international relationships in an increasingly uncertain world.

У России обширные планы на политическое, экономическое и научное сотрудничество с странами Африки, однако острая нехватка компетентных африканистов этим планам не способствует. Требуются специалисты, не только владеющие языками регионов и знающие их историю и культуру, но и разбирающиеся в экономических и геополитических вопросах. Отсутствует также координация между различными государственными и негосударственными учреждениями, работающими с Африкой.

Understandably more than three decades after Soviet collapse, Russia has few well-trained multipolar-oriented specialists and professionals to work seriously on its diverse policy goals across Africa. As simple as the narratives in several reports, Russians have bitterly complained of acute shortage of policy leaders with the necessary adequate knowledge and expertise who could advance efforts at directing, coordinating and monitoring purpose-driven action plans and deliver impact at a scale expected in Africa.
With the rapidly-evolving multipolar world, the increasing competitiveness for influence and the need to reinforce cooperation between the government and business sectors, Russia has to focus on its agenda and take suitable strategies for implementing policy set goals in Africa. Perhaps now, Russians are acknowledging their existing weaknesses. Complaints of inadequate professional staff in several reports could be interpreted for the poor performance and as a cover-up for its policy pitfalls in Africa.
On the other hand, Russia has so many reputable educational institutions graduating thousands of candidates yearly. The Russian Diplomatic Academy, Moscow State University's Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russian University of Peoples' Friendship, St. Petersburg State University, the Institute for African Studies et cetera. If Russian officials still maintain there is lack of professionals, then it must be due to poor planning, poor vision and poor coordinating efforts between state institutions of government and educational centers as pointed in a policy report November 2021.
That report titled - "Situation Analytical Report" - was prepared by 25 policy experts headed by Professor Sergei A. Karaganov, Dean and Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of World Economy and International Relations of the National Research University's Higher School of Economics (HSE University). Karaganov is also the Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy.
The report was very critical of Russia's current policy towards Africa. It indicated inconsistency in policy implementation, and further underlined the fact that have been little definitive results from various efforts in dealing with African countries. It says in part: "Apart from the absence of a public strategy for the continent, there is shortage of qualified personnel, the lack of coordination among various state and para-state institutions working with Africa."
Last December, Interfax News Agency reported that the Russian Science and Higher Education Ministry was preparing new educational programmes for developing countries within the context of emerging multipolar world. Since Soviet's collapse, Russia has trained graduates and professionals for the past three decades in many of its institutes and universities in the Russian Federation.
"The challenge is transformation of the system of international relations and the re-focusing of educational and scientific flows to the East and the South. We realize that this turn requires a substantial number of competent professionals, so we are preparing a new educational and scientific programme called Oriental and African Studies," Russian Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov said during Government Hour in the Federation Council.
"We need specialists who are not just fluent in languages of the regions and have a profound knowledge of their history and culture but who are also proficient in economic and geopolitical matters," he said at the Federation Council, the Upper Chamber of Parliament.
Russian International Affairs Council, non-government organization and policy think tank, also published an opinion article authored by Kirill Babaev, Director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor at the Financial University. He made an excellent analysis of the relations between Russia and Africa.
The article highlighted future perspectives, successes in building political dialogues during the previous years. On the other hand, he exposes for serious consideration by authorities some existing obstacles and weaknesses.
He wrote that Russia's return to Africa has been discussed in the media and at various levels of power for two decades. That the African elites, especially those who studied at Soviet institutes and universities, still have memories of the struggle for the political freedom of Africa. During the Soviet times, at the height of fighting against Western colonialism, there were economic offerings of the Soviet era.
However, all these cards are a matter of the past, while in the present it has been difficult for Russia to offer Africa anything of value that could compete with large-scale Western investment or Chinese infrastructure projects, he wrote in his article.
Today the situation has changed radically, according to his assessment. He pointed out the challenges Russia faces, one of them is "an immense lack of personnel for successful work in Africa" and further suggested the necessity of putting together a distinctive group of experienced professionals and specialists for working on practical, consistent and effective policy challenges as well as geopolitical tasks with African countries.
In an insightful long-ranging conversation in April 2022, the newly appointed Rector of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Oleg Yastrebov, told me that his university was established back in 1960, it primarily provides higher education to Third World students during the Soviet days. Many students especially from developing countries still come to this popular university from Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is Russia's most multidisciplinary university, which boasts the largest number of foreign students and offers various academic disciplines.
Without mincing words, the youth is the future. The whole development and technological progress depend on them - the present young generation learn to become professional leaders in various fields, get equipped with the necessary skills that help them to acquire the knowledge of communication internationally.
"We are the most international, the most multidisciplinary and the friendliest university in Russia. It has the strongest language school. By studying languages, students receive an extra diploma of a translator. A student can choose from 12 foreign languages to study: European, Oriental or Russian as a foreign language," he told me authoritatively.
He unreservedly argued that the university staff and academic teams provide the necessary knowledge and cutting-edge skills for young aspiring leaders from 160 countries and that makes the university first-class among many others in the Russian Federation. The countries include those in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
The Institute for African Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1959. Since then it has undergone various changes and carried out huge scientific research on Africa. It has nearly a hundred staff including well-experienced researchers, academic fellows and specialists on various African issues and directions.
Professor Dmitri Bondarenko, Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies (IAS), told me during discussions, just before the first Russia-Africa summit and precisely the 60th anniversary of the IAS, that state institutions and business companies seek the Institute's consultancy services more and more often nowadays. In particular, the Institute played an important role in the preparation of the first Russia-Africa summit held in October 2019.
"The situation has been changing during the last few years. Today the importance of Africa for Russia in different respects, including political and economic, is recognized by the state, and the Russian Foreign Ministry and other state institutions dealing with the Russia-African relations in various spheres, ask us for our expert advice on different points quite often," said Bondarenko.
According to him, the situation now is much better for African studies than for a long time before. In particular, today there are much more opportunities for doing fieldwork in Africa. Russian Africanists and their work are becoming better known in the global Africanist community. Quite a lot of junior researchers join the academy nowadays. In an assessment, African studies in Russia are on the right road and in broadening international cooperation with Africanists worldwide.
Unlike the United States and Europe, Russia has poor relations with its trained African professionals and African specialists who graduated from Soviet and Russian educational establishments. Without doubts, some of them could serve as bridges between Russia and Africa. Why not? At the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, there was an explicit indication to engage African professionals in the entire structure in the process of re-setting relations and move it unto the next stage. That is an irreversibly strong positive step.
Are Russia-Africa relations truly based on long-standing traditions of friendship and solidarity created from the Soviet Union? Is forging closer relations within their agreed framework to continue coordinating positions on platforms? Why are Russians complaining? Have they already trashed the joint declaration adopted, after the first summit, on the key areas of Russian-African cooperation or will be considered only as an important historical document in the State Archival Library of Vladimir Lenin?
The accelerated development of human resource potential is inextricably linked to economic development. The 21st century has heralded the rise of the knowledge economy, and Russia really needs people who will be able to make vital contributions in tackling social and economic challenges facing Africa. Of course, the Soviet Union made an invaluable contribution to developing the scientific and educational potential of a number of African countries.
Obviously, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reminded several times that Africa is Russia's priority especially during this emerging democratic polycentric world order. There should have been a well-coordinated efforts toward working with graduates trained in Russian institutions, and in an integrated manner work closely with African specialists in opening up practically a new page in the history of Russia's relations with Africa.

Хорошо известно, что в древности люди путешествовали из Сибири в Северную Америку через Берингов пролив, причем неоднократно. Новые данные свидетельствуют о том, что миграция шла не только туда, но и обратно. Команда ученых из Китая, Германии, Израиля, Южной Кореи и России проанализировала генетические данные десяти человек возрастом от 500 до 7500 лет, чьи останки были обнаружены в Алтае-Саянах, на Дальнем Востоке и на Камчатке. Результаты показали, что когда-то Северная Азия была прямо-таки очагом миграции, а ее жители контактировали с населением не только Северной Америки, но и Японии, и Гренландии.

Science has long known that people living in what is now Siberia once walked (and later paddled boats) across the Being Strait into North America. But new evidence now shows that these early migrations weren’t one-way trips: in a study published on Thursday in Current Biology, researchers say they have uncovered traces of Native American ancestry in the DNA of Siberians who lived centuries ago.
This American heritage - still present in the genomes of some Siberians today - adds to a scattering of archeological evidence suggesting that North Americans were in contact with their northern Asian neighbors for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.
The discovery is not wholly unexpected. "Human movement is rarely unidirectional," says the new study’s co-author Cosimo Posth, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Tübingen in Germany. "There is usually some back and forth."
Exactly when and how people first arrived in the Americas is one of the longstanding debates in archaeology. Hypothesized dates vary widely, but many researchers agree that the earliest migrants likely traveled across the Bering Land Bridge, a strip of land that periodically connected northern Asia to modern-day Alaska in prehistory. This transcontinental highway succumbed to rising sea levels sometime between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago, but that didn’t stop migrations between the landmasses. Genetic studies and archaeological digs indicate that people from Siberia made the move into North America several more times, including as recently as 1,000 years ago.
But even though a lot of research has focused on reconstructing the arrival of people into what is now Alaska, "very little is known about migration in the other direction," Posth says.
That is slowly starting to change. A 2019 study found genetic evidence that ancient people living on opposite sides of the Bering Strait were in contact with each other. And a small number of archeological finds in Alaska - including the discovery of 15th-century glass beads that may be of Venetian origin - have pointed toward ongoing trade between North America and the rest of the world.
But how far from the strait these ties extended is unclear. Little is even known about how people moved around within Siberia in the past few thousand years. Hoping to reconstruct this part of the region’s history, Posth and his colleague’s sequenced DNA from 10 ancient people whose remains were unearthed at various sites around Siberia.
The oldest of these samples dates back 7,500 years. The study also included genomes from three people who lived on the Kamchatka Peninsula - which dangles down from the Russian Far East well to the southwest of the Bering strait - just 500 years ago. These sequences were the first ancient DNA samples to come out of the remote peninsula, Posth says.
Siberia was once a hotbed of migration that put ancient Siberians in contact with populations as distant as Japan and Greenland, the researchers found. Their analysis also revealed a previously unknown connection between Native Americans and people who were living in Kamchatka a few centuries ago. The team found that the ancestors of these Kamchatkans had met with North Americans at least twice before: once between 5,500 and 4,400 years ago and again around 1,500 years ago. These connections show the influence of Native Americans farther inland than previous studies.
Posth says he expected to find some evidence of Native American contact in Siberia, but he was surprised by how long ago these run-ins had occurred. Those ancient encounters weren’t the last time Kamchatkans interacted with North Americans either. The team found an even higher percentage of Native American DNA in the genomes of modern Kamchatkans, suggesting that the people of the peninsula were also in contact with North Americans during the past few centuries.
It remains unclear how DNA from North America made its way into Kamchatkans, Posth says. The Kamchatkans’ ancestors could have inherited the DNA from other Siberians carrying this heritage, or they may have come into contact with Native Americans themselves. Still, Posth and his colleagues’ study builds on previous genetic research by showing that DNA was moving from North America into Siberia, says Dennis O’Rourke, an anthropological geneticist at the University of Kansas, who was not involved with the new paper.
The fact that people from northern Asia and North Americans did come into contact isn’t that surprising if one considers how close the two landmasses are to each other, says Anne Stone, an anthropological geneticist at Arizona State University, who also was not involved with the new research. For one thing, the Aleutian Islands (where the Aleut people historically hunted and traded) form a chain that starts just off southwestern Alaska and runs westward to point directly at Kamchatka.
As for the Bering Strait, Stone says that although the region’s early inhabitants may have become isolated from one another after the disappearance of the Bering Land Bridge, later generations wouldn’t have been so limited. "They’ve got boats," Stone says. "So they could visit and trade with each other."

Исследование, проведенное в Центре языка и мозга НИУ ВШЭ, подтвердило роль мозолистого тела в латерализации языка, то есть в распределении функций обработки речи между полушариями мозга. Для измерения латерализации ученые разработали уникальное речевое задание и применили методы нейровизуализации к собранным данным. Сравнение данных фМРТ и измерений мозолистого тела у участников исследования показало, что чем больше объем последнего, тем меньше смещение языковой функции в правое полушарие.

A study by the HSE Centre for Language and Brain has confirmed the role of the corpus callosum in language lateralisation, ie the distribution of language processing functions between the brain’s hemispheres. The authors came up with an innovative language task for their study subjects and applied advanced neuroimaging methods to the data collected. A paper on their findings has been published in PLoS ONE. The research was financed by a grant from the Russian government as part of the ‘Science and Universities’ National Project.
Functional asymmetry between the two cerebral hemispheres in performing higher-level cognitive functions is a major characteristic of the human brain. For example, the left hemisphere plays a leading role in language processing in most people. However, between 10% and 15% of the human population also use the right hemisphere to varying degrees for the same task.
Traditionally, language lateralisation to the right hemisphere was explained by handedness, as it is mainly found in left-handed and ambidextrous (using both hands equally well) individuals. But recent research has demonstrated a genetic difference in the way language is processed by left-handed and ambidextrous people. In addition to this, some right-handed people also involve their right hemisphere in language functions.
These findings prompted the scientists to consider alternative explanations-in particular, by looking at brain anatomy to find out why language functions can shift to the right hemisphere. Researchers at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain hypothesised that language lateralisation may have something to do with the anatomy of the corpus callosum, the largest commissural tract in the human brain connecting the two cerebral hemispheres.
The researchers asked 50 study participants to perform a sentence completion task. The subjects were instructed to read aloud a visually presented Russian sentence and to complete it with an appropriate final word (eg ‘Teper’ ministr podpisyvaet vazhnoe…’ - ‘Now the minister is signing an important …’). At the same time, the participants’ brain activity was recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Additionally, the volume of the corpus callosum was measured in each subject.
A comparison between the fMRI data and the corpus callosum measurements revealed that the larger the latter’s volume, the less lateralisation of the language function to the right hemisphere was observed.
It can be said that in processing language, the brain tends to use the left hemisphere’s resources efficiently and to suppress, by means of the corpus callosum, any additional involvement of the right hemisphere. The larger a person’s corpus callosum, the less involved their right hemisphere is in language processing (and vice versa). This finding is consistent with the inhibitory model suggesting that the corpus callosum inhibits the action of one hemisphere while the other is engaged in cognitive tasks.
"The study’s innovative design and use of advanced neuroimaging have made this conclusion possible. Brain lateralisation in language processing is usually hard to measure accurately, as typical speech tasks used in earlier studies (eg image naming, selecting words that begin with a certain letter or listening to speech) tend to cause activation only in some parts of the brain responsible for language functions but not in others. Instead, we developed a unique speech task for fMRI-sentence completion-which reliably activates all language areas of the brain", - Olga Dragoy, Director of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain.
It is important to add that the authors reconstructed the volume and properties of the corpus callosum from MRI data using an advanced tractography technique: constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD). This is more suitable than traditional diffusion tensor imaging for modelling crossing fibres in the smallest unit of volume, the voxel (3D pixel), and is therefore more reliable.

Роскосмос намерен отправить в феврале на Международную космическую станцию пустой космический корабль «Союз МС-23», чтобы забрать трех космонавтов. Они должны были вернуться на пристыкованном к МКС «Союзе МС-22», но после утечки охлаждающей жидкости в декабре прошлого года корабль стал непригоден для использования.

Russia said Jan. 11 that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) next month to bring home three astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a tiny meteoroid.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule docked with the ISS that sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.
Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the ISS on Feb. 20 to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.
"We’re not calling it a rescue Soyuz," said Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. "I’m calling it a replacement Soyuz. "Right now the crew is safe onboard the space station."
MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the ISS in September after taking off from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were scheduled to return home in the same spacecraft in March, but their stay on the ISS will now be extended by several extra months.
"I may have to find some more ice cream to reward them," Montalbano joked.
MS-22 began leaking coolant on Dec. 14 - shortly before Russian cosmonauts were to begin a spacewalk - after being hit by what U.S. and Russian space officials believe was a tiny space rock. Montalbano said "everything does point to a micrometeoroid" and not space debris, or a technical problem. The executive director of Human Space Flight Programs at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, said the "current theory is that this damage was caused by a small particle about one millimeter in diameter."
MS-23 had been scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara to the ISS on March 16.
SpaceX Crew Dragon
The decision was made to use MS-23 to fly the current crew home, Krikalev said, because of concerns over potential high temperatures in the damaged MS-22 during reentry to Earth’s atmosphere. He said it could still potentially be used "in case of emergency."
Another emergency scenario involves using the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that is currently docked with the ISS after flying four astronauts to the space station in October for a six-month mission.
Montalbano said discussions have been underway with SpaceX about using the Crew Dragon capsule to fly home other astronauts aboard the ISS.
"We could safely secure the crew members in the area that the cargo normally returns on the Dragon," Montalbano said. "All that is only for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate ISS," the NASA official stressed. "That’s not the nominal plan or anything like that."
Krikalev said an uncrewed MS-22 would return to Earth, probably in March, following the arrival of the replacement vehicle. It would bring back equipment and experiments that are not "temperature sensitive," he said. When the original MS-23 crew will get to the ISS is still being worked out, Montalbano added.

Археологи Центра египтологических исследований РАН обнаружили в некрополе Фаюмского оазиса к югу от Каира странное захоронение, датированное примерно I веком до н. э. - ребенок лет восьми был погребен в окружении 142 собак, в основном щенков. Судя по всему, собаки погибли в результате наводнения.

Egypt’s sands have revealed many treasures over the ages, but, more recently, archaeologists digging in a necropolis close to Cairo discovered something that has them scratching their heads. Experts found the bones of an eight-year-old child carefully spread out among the corpses of 142 dogs.
The team from the Centre for Egyptological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CEI RAS) had been working on excavations at the necropolis in the Faiyum Oasis. Specifically, the necropolis lies west of the Nile River and is around sixty miles south of Cairo. The burial likely took place in the first century B.C.E., reports Euro Weekly News.
According to the CEI RAS, "a child of eight to nine years old was laid on top of the bodies of 142 dogs of different ages, mostly puppies… However, archaeologists found something much stranger: a linen bag had been put over the child’s head."
"Burials like those discovered by the Centre’s specialists are not typical for Egypt," CEI RAS noted, speculating that "the mass burial of dogs may indicate a synthesis of religious and magical ideas of the Egyptians and foreigners living in [Faiyum], which gave rise to new forms of ritual practice."
Clues for archaeologists
Although the scene was puzzling, researchers were able to find some clues as to what could have happened to the dog and the child.
Blue clay was reportedly found on the dog bones by archaeologists, as reported by Heritage Daily. As this clay was also widely found in ancient Egyptian reservoirs, it is probable that a catastrophic flood was responsible for the extinction of these animals. Since the dogs show no signs of having been abused, drowning is the most likely cause of their deaths.
The child’s involvement at the burial is unclear. It is unknown what the eight-year-old’s relationship was to the dogs, although archaeologists have theorized that the child may have been caring for the animals at the time of their sudden deaths.
The linen bag on the child’s head
What about the linen bag that was on the child’s head, though? That raises even more questions. A body in a similar bag was discovered at the necropolis earlier but with a significant difference. That person had been executed, as indicated by the arrow found in his chest.
While many mysteries still surround the ancient Egyptians, the finding of the child and the dogs provides intriguing insight into their daily lives. The mysterious discovery was uncovered close to Crocodilopolis, an ancient Egyptian town named after the crocodile god Sobek.
CEI RAS archaeologists have spent years digging at the cemetery of Faiyum Oasis. Aside from the child buried with the 142 dogs, other graves going back to the fourth century B.C.E. through the seventh century C.E. have also been discovered in the area.
Hopefully, these graves will provide a more complete picture of what life for people in ancient Egypt was like over a thousand years ago. Lastly, perhaps further exploration of the necropolis will also reveal the fate of the young child and the dogs.

Зоологи СПбГУ и Зоологического института РАН провели первое в России фаунистическое исследование тихоходок с помощью баркодирования ДНК, в результате чего количество видов этих микроскопических беспозвоночных выросло с 3 до 13. Среди новых видов четыре ранее в российской фауне не отмечались, а еще три впервые получили подтверждение своего обитания здесь молекулярными методами.

Zoologists from St Petersburg University and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have discovered four previously unknown for the Russian fauna species of tardigrades. Tardigrades are micro-invertebrates renowned by their extreme stress tolerance and adaptability. For three other tardigrade species, the researchers have revealed significant genetic differences between the populations found in the North-West Russia and in other countries.
The research findings are published in the scientific journal Invertebrate zoology.
Tardigrades are microscopic invertebrates - the largest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm. They were named Tardigrada, which means 'slow walkers', for their slow movement (2 to 3 mm per minute). These micro-invertebrates are able to adapt to living in almost all terrestrial and aquatic environments, from the ocean depths to highest mountains ranges. Moreover, the tardigrade has been the first terrestrial microorganism that can survive in the cold, irradiated vacuum of outer space.
Traditionally, species in the phylum Tardigrada were identified based primarily on their morphology. Due to their minuscule size, however, it is quite difficult to notice the differences between species. Hence, the prevailing scientific opinion was that tardigrades are highly variable and there are a small number of widespread species. With the advent of molecular systematics, it became obvious that the Tardigrada species diversity is much broader. At present, around 1,400 species are found worldwide.
We have conducted a unique study - the first in Russia and second worldwide - a targeted faunistic investigation of tardigrade fauna using the method of DNA barcoding. Despite the small amount of studied samples from relatively small geographic region the research findings show that the real species richness of tardigrades has been largely underestimated (Denis Tumanov, Principal Investigator of the project, Assistant Professor in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University).
DNA barcoding is a molecular method of species identification based on species-specific differences in short regions of their DNA. One of the advantages of this method is that it is less costly and time-consuming than traditional molecular identification methods. Some genes evolve very fast and their structures - nucleotide sequences - can be used to distinguish an organism from all other species. The method of DNA barcoding relies on sequence variation within a short and standardised region of the genome, designated as a 'barcode', to provide accurate species identification. There is a DNA barcode database that includes the molecular markers of most of the animal species. For instance, mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene is used as a DNA barcode for tardigrades.
Using the method of DNA barcoding to study specimens collected in the North-West Russia, the researchers discovered 11 species of tardigrades, four of which are new for the fauna of Russia. For three other species, the study has demonstrated significant genetic differences between the populations found in the North-West Russia and the data obtained from the GenBank sequence database. In future, the researchers plan to study the new species in detail and give integrative descriptions of these species.
According to the Principal Investigator of the project Denis Tumanov, the research can be scaled up through changing the previous ideas about the tardigrade fauna of Russia and making a significant contribution to the field of tardigrade taxonomy and faunistics.
The facilities of the resource centres of the Research Park of St Petersburg University Centre for Molecular and Cell Technologies and Centre for Culture Collection of Microorganisms were used by the researchers in the course of this project. The continuation of this research work has been supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project 'Study of the fauna of terrestrial tardigrades in Russia').

Изучение диалектов хантыйского языка показало, что их не два, а три, при этом они настолько отличаются друг от друга, что, по мнению автора исследования Идалии Федотовой, их следует считать скорее отдельными языками.

Idalia Fedotova, researcher at HSE University and the RAS Ivannikov Institute for System Programming, examined lexical differences across Khanty dialects and found that members of this relatively small ethnic group speak three distinct languages - rather than two, as previously thought. The findings are published in Ural-Altaic Studies.
The Khanty are an indigenous people with a population of approximately 30,000 living in Russia's Western Siberia, mainly in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra. Their native language belongs to the Uralic family and is close to Hungarian. Scholars traditionally separate the Khanty dialect continuum into two dialectal groups: Northern (Western) and Eastern Khanty. Southern dialects of Khanty disappeared in the 20th century. In another terminology, these groups are referred to as separate languages: Northern and Eastern Khanty.
In the last decade, new sources on Khanty dialects have become available, including 18th-century archives, 19th and 20th-century vocabulary lists, new academic dictionaries, and records from many years of field research. The new findings, published on LingvoDoc, make it possible to perform etymological and statistical analysis of Khanty dialects' basic vocabulary. Terms for body parts (arm, leg, head), simple actions (walking, standing, lying down, sleeping), and landscape features (mountain, land) are considered basic vocabulary, because such terms exist in all languages and are independent of cultural specifics.
Fedotova used a list of 110 basic concepts, matched them with words from 14 sources, and calculated the percentages of coincidence across vocabulary variants. She found that Khanty dialects today consist of three, rather than two, groups, since the eastern dialectal group falls into two distinct variants: Surgut Khanty and Vakh Khanty. For language variants to be defined as a single language or at least as dialects of the same language, their basic vocabulary must coincide by more than 90%. In this case, coincidences were much lower: 79%. The researcher therefore argues that these variants can be recognized as separate languages.
"Generally, dialects are described as variants of the same language when people speaking different variants can still understand each other. Indeed, even speakers of different but closely related languages can communicate. In the case of Khanty, speakers of its different variants are sometimes unable to comprehend each other's speech. While the Khanty identify as one people, the differences between their dialects are greater than those between certain Slavic languages, eg between Russian and Czech or between Serbian and Polish," says Idalia Fedotova, Lecturer, HSE School of Foreign Languages; Junior Research Fellow, Institute of System Programming, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Ученые СПбГУ и Института радиотехники и электроники имени В.А.Котельникова РАН совместно с профессором Калифорнийского университета Леоном Чуа впервые экпериментально доказали существование скрытых хаотических аттракторов в простейшей электрической цепи.

Scientists from St Petersburg University and the Kotelnikov Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IRE RAS), together with Professor Leon Chua from the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated experimentally the existence of hidden attractors - points in the basins of attraction in a simple electrical circuit.
An attractor in a dynamical system is a set of states toward which the system tends to evolve over time. One of the examples of systems with trivial attractors is a roly-poly toy. The attractor here will be an upright position, the so-called state of rest. Another example is a swinging pendulum, for which the attractor will be the pendulum's equilibrium position when it hangs vertically.
However, there are also attractors of another type: chaotic attractors. For systems with chaotic attractors, trajectories for the passage from equilibrium to attractor are more difficult to predict. One of the key tasks of nonlinear dynamics as a scientific direction is to reveal all possible limiting dynamical regimes of oscillations (non-trivial attractors) and the initial conditions from which the trajectories tending to hidden attractors start.
In turn, non-trivial attractors can be hidden or self-excited. Self-excited attractors are easy to detect and localize in a physical experiment and by numerical analysis. For example, the onset of respiration at birth is the result of self-excitation of the lungs. From a state of rest, the respiratory organs come to a stable cycle mode of operation, which corresponds to a self-excited attractor.
For humans, breathing is cyclic and automatic. In the case of respiratory failure, however, it is necessary to restart respiration. For this, it is essential to determine the appropriate level of impact on the respiratory organs in order to return the respiratory system to the basin of attraction of the stable cycle mode of the lung and heart function. In this case, the initial state of equilibrium is stable and continuous breathing corresponds to a hidden periodic attractor.
To explain and demonstrate these states, the scientists use the Chua circuit as a reference model illustrating these principles in electrodynamics. The Chua circuit is a simple nonlinear circuit that exhibits a range of limiting chaotic oscillations. It was invented in 1983 by an American electrical engineer and computer scientist Leon Chua for studying and generating dynamical chaos.
Since then, many different forms of chaotic oscillations have been identified in the Chua circuit. All of them, however, were self-excited attractors that could be observed when the circuit is switched on at the zero initial data, corresponding to the zero equilibrium state. Hence, a conjecture was that the chaotic behavior is possible only in the case of unstable zero equilibrium.
Later, Professor Nikolay Kuznetsov, Head of the Department of Applied Cybernetics at St Petersburg University, predicted the existence of hidden attractors. Back in 2009, he mathematically proved the existence of hidden chaotic attractors in the Chua circuit.
"The emergence and development of the theory of hidden oscillations opened up a number of fundamentally new opportunities for determining the boundaries of stability and identifying undesirable chaotic oscillations to prevent technological and man-made disasters. This enabled mathematical modeling of various configurations and scenarios for the birth of hidden attractors in the Chua circuit," says Professor Nikolay Kuznetsov, Head of the Department of Applied Cybernetics at St Petersburg University.
The existence of hidden attractors in the Chua circuit was experimentally confirmed at the Saratov branch of the Kotelnikov Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IRE RAS). To this end, the scientists from IRE RAS and St Petersburg University, together with Professor Chua himself, designed a special experimental setup to validate the mathematical models. The setup features an additional sub-circuit included in the classical Chua circuit, which enables simulation of the impact of external disturbances, allowing for selection of the initial conditions at the moment of starting the setup.
In a radiophysical experiment, the scientists ran the modified Chua circuit and were able to detect and visualize attractors that can be considered hidden because at the initial - unmodified - conditions, they are not observed.
According to Professor Kuznetsov, the discovery is important not only for fundamental science. It makes possible many practical applications. For example, the chaotic oscillations generated in the Chua circuit can be used as a random number generator in encryption systems for covert data transmission and in many other applications.
Thus, various memristive system technologies based on Chua's theory have been developed. Memristors, being non-volatile memory devices, can become the basis for a new generation of computers, in which the storage and processing of data is carried out by the same physical device.
The research findings are published in Nonlinear Dynamics.

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