Июль 2023 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Des chercheurs russes mettent au point un dispositif de diagnostic précoce de l’arthrose
• Scientists elaborated interpretive approach for recognition of depressive disorder
• Russia’s NIIEFA tests Japanese component for ITER
• Archbishop’s seal found during excavations at St. George’s (Yuriev) Monastery
• Russia to expand HE collaboration with Asia and Africa
• 3,000-year-old untouched burial of "charioteer" discovered in Siberia
• New algorithm helped to find thousands of repeated elements in bacterial genome
• Siberian Federal University scientists study climate change in the North
• Russia offers joint research on its 2027 space station to BRICS members
• 46,000-year-old worm possibly revived from Siberian permafrost
• Russian Quantum Center proposes collaboration with India in quantum technology
• Russian scientists have grown watermelons in the coldest place on Earth

Специалисты Сеченовского Университета разработали прибор для ранней диагностики остеоартрита. Работа прибора основана на методе спектроскопии диффузного отражения и позволяет увидеть начальные изменения в суставах.

Des spécialistes de l’Université Sechenov de médecine à Moscou ont mis au point un appareil de diagnostic de l’arthrose, une maladie articulaire qui conduit à la destruction du cartilage.
"Un nouvel appareil pour évaluer l’état du tissu cartilagineux pendant l’arthroscopie (une procédure peu invasive pour diagnostiquer et traiter les articulations) a été développé par des scientifiques de l’Université Sechenov", a annoncé l’Université dans un communiqué.
L’appareil "permet de mesurer objectivement le degré de dégradation du cartilage à l’aide de méthodes de spectroscopie. Les travaux ont été menés dans le cadre du programme stratégique de leadership académique Priorité 2030", selon la même source.
La spectroscopie en réflectance diffuse est une technique optique qui mesure les propriétés d’absorption et de diffusion des tissus biologiques. Le cartilage contient un liquide dont la concentration change avec la maladie ce qui permet d’évaluer les paramètres tissulaires en utilisant la réflexion diffuse de la lumière.
Selon Gleb Boudilin, chef du laboratoire de biophotonique clinique de l’Université Sechenov, l’appareil permet de faire une évaluation plus précise de l’état de l’articulation et mieux ajuster le plan de traitement du patient aux manifestations cliniques (douleur, mobilité limitée etc).
"Nous avons déjà effectué les premières mesures réussies dans la salle d’opération de l’Hôpital Clinique Universitaire No. 1", a relevé le chercheur, cité dans le communiqué.
Les méthodes modernes ne permettent pas de détecter l’arthrose à un stade précoce. En règle générale, le diagnostic approprié est posé lorsque le cartilage articulaire s’est déjà considérablement dégradé.

Ученые из Балтийского федерального университета им. Иммануила Канта и Пловдивского медицинского университета разработали способ выявлять депрессивное расстройство по снимкам мозга, полученным с помощью функциональной магнитно-резонансной томографии. Ученые сравнили нейронные связи на снимках 35 пациентов с диагностированной депрессией и 50 здоровых людей, используя ряд показателей, после чего создали алгоритм, позволяющий отличать больных от здоровых.

Scientists elaborated interpretive approach, that enables to detect depressive disorder accurately to within 82,6% using specific figures of patients’ nervous system. To achieve this aim authors on the base of photos of brain activity made functional networks, reflecting cooperation of various brain regions of ill and healthy people. Then, estimating characteristics of each knot and connections between them, researchers made the classification of ill and healthy people. New technology potentially can be used in clinical practice while making diagnosis. The results of the research, supported by grant of Russian Scientific Fund, are published in Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.
Major depressive disorder is a widespread mental illness, from which suffer about 280 million of people all over the world. Patients lose interest to every kind of activity, face insomnia, sleepiness, weakness, guilt feeling and self-effacement. For detection of depressive disorder people use subjective scales, patients’ reports and observations of a doctor, this all not always enables to diagnose severity of disease precisely. In the last years to improve the diagnostics of mental disorders doctors began to use algorithms of machine education on the base of artificial neuronal webs, similar to those that function in brain. However, attained with their help results are hard to interpret. As a result, it is impossible to segregate main parameters, on the base of which the neuronal web makes decision.
Scientists from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (Kaliningrad) and Plovdiv Medical University (Bulgaria) suggested the interpretive approach, that enables to find out depressive disorder. To achieve this aim they used photos, attained with the help of functional magnetic resonance tomography - method based on the measurement of intensity of blood flow: when some region of brain activated, blood flow to it increased. Then using the obtained photos researchers constructed graphs - complex networks, in which knots (points) imitated brain regions, and connections between knots - graph edges - reflected cooperation between regions. On the base of attained graphs scientists compared work of brain of 35 patients with depressive disorder and 50 healthy people, and then, using methods of machine education, tried to separate the area of characteristics of both groups.
The suggested approach enabled to distinguish ill and healthy people accurately to within 82,6%. By this groups were differentiated better if authors during their analysis took into account a certain set of network metrics: strength of a knot, correlating the activity of brain region, amount of edges, that is the number of correlations between regions, and also the clustering coefficient, that shows, to what degree knots tend to group together. If researchers applied characteristics separately or added other insignificant network characteristics, algorithm worked incorrect.
Thus, this method enabled to find out those characteristics of functional network of the brain, that differ patients ill from healthy ones. By this the algorithm recognized differences not only in single local connections between brain regions (as it is done by using most methods), but in the global characteristics of all neuronal web. New method will enable to track global changes in the brain’s structure of people with depressive disorder, and also to provide clinical practice with reliable device for diagnosing this disease.
"In future on the base of the attained information we are planning to single out characteristic features of functional nets of brain of healthy people and patients with major depressive disease on different levels of brain. This will enable to choose the most important biomarkers, that are to be analyzed for diagnosing of disease on the base of magnetic resonance tomography", - tells the participant of the project, supported by the grant of RSF, Andrey Andreev, candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, senior scholar of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Научно-исследовательский институт электрофизической аппаратуры им. Д.В.Ефремова (НИИЭФА) успешно завершил тепловые испытания элементов оборудования для Международного термоядерного экспериментального реактора (ИТЭР).

Russia’s DV Efremov Institute of Electrophysical Apparatus (NIIEFA, part of Rosatom) says a Japanese test assembly has completed testing for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), under construction in France. Eight elements of a prototype divertor, passed 6,000 test cycles at loads from 5 to 20 MW per square metre, confirming "the compliance of the Japanese element with the highest requirements" of ITER. The tests were carried out at the ITER Divertor Test Facility (IDTF) in St Petersburg, which supports tasks for the ITER project.
The tests had to show whether the components could withstand a plasma temperature of 30m degrees C. Leading laboratory engineer Andrey Volodin noted: "We use an electron beam as a source of heat. The electrons, under the influence of an accelerating voltage with high energy, crash into the prototype surface creating a thermal load."
Anatoly Krasilnikov, director of Russian private institution ITER Centre (part of Rosatom) said the tests confirmed ongoing active international cooperation on the ITER project as well as the expertise of Russian research centres and the qualifications of Russian specialists.
Previously, a series of similar tests of both Russian and foreign equipment was carried out on the IDTF installation. These include all plasma-facing elements of the Russian full-scale prototype for the central assembly of the divertor (manufactured at NIIEF), which has already been delivered to the ITER Organisation. In 2022, eight elements for serial central assemblies were also successfully tested.
In addition to undertaking testing, Russia’s main contribution is to develop, manufacture and supply 25 systems for the ITER fusion reactor. These include switching equipment, installations for testing, port plugins, divertor dome and thermal tests, poloidal field coil, upper spigots, 170 ghz gyrotrons, diagnostic systems, first wall, blanket module connectors, and port-plagiarism. The poloidal field coil, the largest and one of the most important components for future installation, was delivered to the site in France in February.
The ITER Centre, serves as the Russian national Agency ITER, responsible for ensuring Russia's in-kind contribution to the project.
Cyclic thermal testing of plasma-facing elements is essential for ITER and an integral parts agreement for the supply of divertor components.
NIIEF is a leading Russian scientific, design and production centre for the development of electrophysical installations and complexes for solving scientific and applied problems in the field of plasma physics, atomic and nuclear physics, and elementary particle physics. Installations developed at the Institute are operating in many organisations and enterprises in Russia, the CIS countries, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
Rosatom says that, despite sanctions and restrictions, Russia continues to fulfil its obligations to the ITER Project. Rustam Enikeev, Acting Deputy General Director for Thermonuclear and Magnetic Technologies at NIIEFA says: "The International Organisation of ITER is a family. Whatever difficulties there may be in international relations, this does not affect our work. Human relations have not changed in any way."
Yutaka Kamada, First Deputy General Director of ITER for Science and Technology notes: "Collaboration with Russian colleagues is indispensable for the ITER project. We have performed very important high-temperature tests. We must work together for the success of the ITER project."

При раскопках на территории Юрьева монастыря в Великом Новгороде сотрудники Института археологии РАН обнаружили свинцовую печать архиепископа Спиридона, главы Новгородской епархии в 1229-1249 годах. Это так называемая вислая печать, использовавшаяся для скрепления документов - пятая, найденная за 10 лет археологических исследований на территории монастыря.

Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have uncovered a seal of the Archbishop of Novgorod Spiridon during excavations at St. George’s (Yuriev) Monastery.
St. George’s (Yuriev) Monastery was an important religious centre of the Novgorod Republic, a medieval state that existed from the 12th to 15th century AD and stretched from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east.
The monastery is situated on the banks of the Volkhov River in Russia’s Novgorodskaya oblast, where today it is recognised as a world heritage site for Orthodox spirituality and Russian architecture. The site is also an important source for historical information on medieval Novgorod, as part of the Novgorod First Chronicle (the Synodal text) was compiled in the monastery.
Recent excavations in the monastic layers have led to the discovery of a residential building that dates from the 13th to 15th century AD. The structure appears to have been burnt during several phases of destruction, but in the upper layers, a lead hanging seal used to fasten important documents was uncovered, the fifth example of a seal discovered during ten years of archaeological research of the site.
Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the seal bears the name of the Archbishop of Novgorod Spiridon (1229-1249), who ruled the Novgorod diocese during the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Rus’ in the mid-13th century AD. Most Rus’ principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became vassals of the Golden Horde, however, the Novgorod Republic resisted and maintained their independence.
On one side of the seal there is an inscription in five lines with the name of Spiridon, Archbishop of Novgorod, and on the other side is a depiction of Mary, which in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, describe her as the Mother of God.

Россия намерена расширять сотрудничество в сфере высшего образования со странами Африки, Ближнего Востока и Азиатско-Тихоокеанского региона. Предполагается развивать программу двусторонних стажировок, студенческих обменов, грантов и стипендий.

The Russian Ministry of Education and Science is set to expand its grants and scholarships for internships and university exchanges focusing on students who want to study in Asian and African countries, especially China.
The ministry will provide funding for 150 such internships and exchanges for students of oriental studies in August and September. It is the first time such grants and scholarships have been provided on this scale and the number will further increase in subsequent months. The move is part of a state project on the development of Oriental and African studies, which involves the expansion of Russian universities’ cooperation with universities of Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific states.
"In the context of the active development of Asian and African vectors of Russian interests at present, the expansion of Russia in Asian and African countries should take place within the framework of specialised universities and other domestic educational platforms," said Russia’s Minister of Science and Higher Education, Valery Falkov.
In a veiled reference to Russia’s deteriorating relations with the West over the war in Ukraine and its resulting orientation towards stronger ties with the East, he added: "The special program for the development of Oriental and African studies, which we are developing today, must respond to the challenges that we face today."
According to the minister, the biggest hopes of Russia lie with China, which has a huge potential and will gain momentum in scientific cooperation and student exchanges in years to come.
Project ‘already under way’
Alexey Maslov, director of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University - who is one of the main organisers of the project - said in an interview with the Russian Vedomosti business paper that the project has already been launched and involves the conduct of internships on a bilateral basis with foreign and domestic universities who also send their students to Russia for internships.
Such educational trips are funded through the embassies or ministries of education of the countries. The project also involves regular student exchanges. Maslov said: "For the first time since 1991, it has been decided that the Russian government should fund more than a hundred scholarships for internships for both students and teachers. This practice will expand every year over the next five years. The ministry of education and science will take care of the door-to-door internship [costs]: travel, accommodation and training." Maslov also added that all the internships are planned at least six months in advance. Students who have already enrolled in oriental studies will be able to go on an internship in 2024. The frequency of internships will depend on the university program.
According to an official representative of the press service of the Ministry of education and science, the program "also involves the introduction of so-called youth laboratories, the introduction of a new scientific specialty ‘Oriental and African Studies’, the development and implementation of integrated and network programs, as well as programs for improving qualifications in this area".
A spokesman of the ministry said: "Now the drafting of the project is at the final stage - and all comments and suggestions have been taken into account and agreed upon. Its presentation is planned after approval by the working group of the ministry of education and science. Since the program includes several activities, some of them will begin to be implemented from the new academic year. At present, the terms of the project implementation are being specified."
’Not just about addressing isolation’
Nikita Filin, head of the department of history at the Russian State University for the Humanities, considers the new state initiative as very important even without considering any political issues and the current isolation of Russia in the international arena.
Filin said: "Oriental studies are a promising direction today, as Asian countries are actively developing, striving for dominance in world political and economic processes. Ties between Russia and the Middle East are also strengthening. We believe our students and graduates will be in demand in the public sector, IT, journalism, tourism, and analytical companies in these countries if they decide to continue to study in them after the end of their internships."
In the meantime, almost the same position is shared by Andrey Karneev, head of the school of Asian studies, and a professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), in Moscow.
Karneev told University World News in an exclusive interview that the state decision to fund student internships at Asian universities is a timely initiative.
"This will be a great support to our educational and scientific oriental studies. Now, when diverse ties with the countries of the ‘world majority’ (China, India etc) are becoming a priority for us, Oriental studies are becoming one of the strategic areas, as the country needs high-level professionals," he said.
"The question is that that the approved internships is probably not enough to satisfy the existing demand, because there are more than two dozen universities where training in the direction of Oriental and African Studies is being conducted, and there is still a huge the number of students studying Oriental languages in other educational specialties."
Among the main developers and initiators of the project are the Institute of Asian and African countries of the Moscow State University, the Institute for African Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, Institute of China and Modern Asia RAS, the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), HSE, Saint Petersburg State University, Far Eastern Federal University, Novosibirsk State University (NSU), and the Perm National Research Polytechnic University.
Alexander Trufanov, vice-rector for Youth Policy and Information at Perm National Research Polytechnic University, told University World News that the project is one of the most important for the university.
"A priority for the university is the expansion of partnerships in the countries of the African continent. In the near future, cooperation agreements will be signed, involving mutual exchanges between universities," he said. "The possibility of scholarship support from the state in terms of covering the costs of travel, accommodation and education will both increase the flow of such exchanges and form a system of ambassadors of Russian education abroad. We believe that it would be advisable to apply this practice in the medium term for internships also in the countries of the Middle East and Latin America."
Collaboration with China a key focus
As part of these plans, a particular attention will be paid to the expansion of internships and student exchanges with Chinese universities. The Russian Ministry of Education and Science last month reported that China and Russia are developing cooperation at the level of student exchanges. Currently 32,600 Chinese citizens already study at Russian universities, including their foreign branches. In the case of Russian students, currently about 14,000 of them study in Chinese universities. According to the ministry, among the countries of the Middle East, student exchanges primarily grow between Russia and Iran. According to data from the ministry 4,700 students from Iran currently study in Russian universities on bachelor, specialist and masters programs. The number of Iranian students in Russia over the past three years has grown by 1.8 times.
It is expected that the plans will allow Russian students to find jobs in these countries after their graduation and that this will contribute to the strengthening of political and economic ties between the sides, which is especially important for Russia given its current isolation from the West.

Экспедиция Института археологии и этнографии СО РАН во время раскопок в Аскизском районе Хакасии обнаружила несколько захоронений бронзового века. В одном из них оказался так называемый «пояс колесничего», с помощью которого возница мог пристегнуться к повозке, оставив руки свободными. Это позволяет предположить, что в период поздней бронзы уже использовались конные повозки, хотя самих колесниц пока не находили.

Archaeologists in Siberia have discovered the untouched 3,000-year-old grave of a person thought to be a charioteer - indicating for the first time that horse-drawn chariots were used in the region.
The skeletal remains were interred with a distinctive hooked metal attachment for a belt, which allowed drivers of horse-drawn chariots to tie their reins to their waists and free their hands. This type of artifact has also been found in Chinese and Mongolian graves.
Aleksey Timoshchenko, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Live Science in an email that the object was found in its original placement at the waist of the person in the undisturbed grave.
"This fact, along with direct analogies in burial mounds of China, allows us to determine their purpose a little more confidently," he said.
Timoshchenko led the latest expedition to the Askizsky region of Khakassia in Siberia, where Russian archaeologists have already spent several years excavating areas ahead of the expansion of a railway. The team discovered the charioteer burial and other graves this month near the village of Kamyshta.
Unknown object
Oleg Mitko, an archaeologist at Novosibirsk State University in Russia who's a consultant for the finds but not an expedition member, said objects like the "charioteer's belt" had been found before but not understood.
"For a long time in Russian archaeology this was called a PNN - an 'item of unknown purpose,'" he told Live Science in an email. But recent discoveries of Bronze Age charioteer burials in China, along with the remains of chariots and horses, indicated that "this object is an accessory for a chariot."
No chariots had been found in Siberian burials, he said, and the hooked bronze belt plate may have been placed in the Late Bronze Age grave as a symbolic substitute.
Burial mound
The tomb of the "charioteer" was found among graves dated to about 3,000 years ago during the time of the Lugav culture, according to a translated statement. The burial consisted of an earthen mound heaped over a roughly square stone tomb; a bronze knife, bronze jewelry and the distinctive belt part were among the grave goods.
Timoshchenko said the Bronze Age people of the Lugav culture were mainly engaged in cattle breeding and were replaced in the region in about the eighth century B.C., during the Early Iron Age, by Scythian people of the Tagar culture.
According to the statement, the latest excavations unearthed burials from three Bronze Age phases in the region: the earliest from about the 11th century B.C., as the Karasuk culture transitioned into the Lugav culture; a second, with the charioteer, from the Lugav culture itself; and a third after the eighth century B.C., from the early Bainov stage of the Tagar culture.

В ФИЦ Биотехнологии РАН разработали математический алгоритм, позволяющий находить повторяющиеся элементы в геномах с учетом замен и мутаций нуклеотидов и протестировали его на девяти видах бактерий. Оказалось, например, что почти половина генома кишечной палочки Escherichia coli представляет собой три группы повторов по 400-600 пар нуклеотидов.

Scientists from The Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Research Center of Biotechnology RAS) elaborated mathematical algorithm that enabled to find dispersed repeated elements in genome with great accuracy. Authors tested this approach on genetic sequences of nine kinds of bacteria, and discovered early unknown repeats in all of them. Thus, for example, it turned out that almost 50% of genome of E. coli is presented by quite long repeats (400-600 pairs of nucleotides long). Such repeats represent a definite code, that is placed upon existing genes of bacteria over coding amino-acids. The found dispersed repeats can help to find new genetic targets, that are interesting from the point of view of biotechnology, for example, parts of DNA, impact on which will enable to increase productivity of bacterial strains. Results of the research are published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
In genomes of many eucaryotic (multicellular) organisms - from yeast to human - there are repeated sequences of nucleotides that are a kind of letters, that compose DNA. Each such repeat is several hundreds of nucleotides long and they are spread all over the whole genome. In sum they form a family that can have significant number of separate copies. The amount of such families, and also position and number of repeats in each family differ in various species and so they can tell about evolution and origin of different living organisms. There are many mathematical algorithms for searching of dispersed repeats (those ones that are more or less equally spread in a genome), such algorithms that even enable to find out "corrupted" copies, those repeats, where some mutations took place and the sequences of which are different from others. However, in the process of evolution such changes can be so numerous, that it becomes impossible to find in genome two insufficiently similar sequences. In this connection scientists search new approaches for searching of dispersed repeats, spread in genomes of various organisms. It is significant to note that such families of repeats were earlier found only in genomes of eukaryotes (multicellular) organisms, whereas they were unknown in organisms of bacteria.
Scientists from the Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Research Center of Biotechnology RAS) suggested a new method of searching of dispersed repeated sequences. Principle of its work can be compared with search of mathematic matrix, consisting of columns and lines, that describes the family of repeats in the best way. The suggested approach is optimal as far as accuracy of finding "dispersed" repeats in the whole genome is concerned, because it takes into account the ability of changing nucleotides and their insertions and deletions, in other words, mutations.
Researchers tested this algorithm on artificially generated sequences, that contained thousands of repeats each, a part of which contained mutations. A comparison with widely used in bioinformatics search systems showed that the suggested method enabled to find out repeats of one family with a greater number of mutations between them (up to the change of half of the nucleotides in a sequences) more precisely.
Then authors of the research applied algorithm for search of repeats in genome of nine kinds of bacteria: Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Azotobacter vinelandii, Clostridium tetani, Methylococcus capsulatus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Shigella sonnei, Treponema pallidum and Yersinia pestis. Analysis enabled scientists for the first time to find out three families of repeats, 400-600 pairs of nucleotides long, in Escherichia coli, which in total take almost 50% of the whole genome of bacterium. Earlier in this microorganism there were known similar elements only of less length - up to 300 pairs of nucleotides - and in smaller numbers. In genetic sequences in other bacteria, they managed to find 1-2 families of repeats of the same length (400-600 nucleotides). By this less of them were found in Treponema pallidum, that can be connected with small size of a genome of this microorganism.
"The found families of dispersed repeats are discovered in genes, and they represent a definite code placed on genes over triplet code, that provides coding of amino acid sequences by genes. By this it is not important on which DNA strand genes are situated. The obtained code can serve as a base for folding DNA in so called nucleoid, that in most degree defines expression of bacterial genes. It can be said that in bacterial DNA there is a code providing its folding into a nucleoid, and now we have obtained an ability to manage it. It opens great opportunities for creating new microorganisms, useful for people", - tells about results of the research Eugine Korotkov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, head of the group of mathematical analysis of DNA sequences and proteins the Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Research Center of Biotechnology RAS).
The suggested approach can be used for analysis not only of bacterial genomes, but also genetic sequences of multicellular organisms, for example, animals or plants. It can help to understand evolution of genomes and their separate elements better, and also in the case of bacteria to find targets for creating new antibiotics or increasing productivity of strains that are important for biotechnology.

Российские, швейцарские и канадские исследователи проследили, как менялось сочетание стабильных изотопов кислорода, углерода и водорода в годичных кольцах хвойных деревьев в субарктических регионах более чем за сто лет. Полученные данные позволяют не только определить прошлые климатические изменения в прошлом, но и смоделировать будущие.

SibFU scientists, as part of an international scientific group, have studied the temporal changes in the variations of stable isotopes of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen in the annual rings of coniferous trees in Subarctic regions.
Tree ring data show climate changes in the past and simulate future ones. The results of the study were been published in the Science of The Total Environment journal.
Boreal (or northern, from the ancient Greek βορεας - North) forests cover a huge area from 50° to 70° north. In northern Canada, central and north-eastern Siberia, large areas of boreal forest are overlapped by permafrost, which thaws and releases additional organic carbon into the atmosphere due to rising air temperatures.
Melting permafrost and uneven subsidence of rocks and soil due to thawing of underground ice make boreal forests extremely vulnerable to climate warming.
Previously, scientists found that boreal forest trees are very sensitive to climate change and are good at registering summer air temperature signals. However, since the 1990s, in some boreal regions of the American and Canadian subarctic, there was a decrease in the sensitivity of tree growth to summer air temperature. This could potentially be due to dry conditions, reduced precipitation, and increased air temperatures.
According to Olga Churakova, Dr.Sc. (Biology), leading researcher at the Ecosystem Biogeochemistry Laboratory, SibFU, changes in spring-summer air temperature affect the growth of trees in regions with a sharply continental climate, and information about these changes is recorded in tree rings.
"Tree growth is also influenced by other parameters such as rainfall, relative humidity, sunshine duration. These parameters can be recorded in isotope ratios of carbon (13С/12С), oxygen (18O/16O) and hydrogen (2H/1H) in tree rings. Based on these stable isotopes and the available climate data, it is possible to re-enact the climate of the centuries or millennia ago", told Olga Churakova.
She explained that the combination of three stable isotopes in tree ring studies could provide a comprehensive description of climate variability in the boreal forest zone and improve the quality of temperature and ecohydrological simulations. The reliable and high-quality information about past climate change may give more accurate models of future climate change.
According to the scientist, the current temperature changes in Siberia differ by 4°C from the data of the pre-industrial period, while European chronologies and models predicted a deviation of 1.5-2.5°C. This indicates the need for an expanded description of climate parameters and enhancement of climate reconstructions that would improve the quality of climate models and forecasts.
The SibFU scientists have obtained comprehensive data on all three stable isotopes for the subarctic regions of Siberia and Canada. They are important for modelling of sunshine duration and relative humidity, as well as winter-spring temperatures, which can be extracted from tree growth rings.
According to the researchers, for more reliable forecasts, it is necessary to comprehensively study past climate changes. This will require both defining changes in air temperature and considering hydroecological characteristics, including the effects of permafrost in the subarctic of Eurasia.
The scientists explained that the melting of permafrost and the formation of thermokarst lakes can lead to the death of trees and the destruction of infrastructure. In addition, meltwater can be used by trees during warm periods of growth, which can be recorded in the isotopic ratio of the stable isotope of oxygen (δ18O) in tree rings.
Today, the scientific team’s task is to model three stable isotopes in tree rings for boreal forests located both inside (Siberia, Canada, Alaska) and outside of the permafrost zone (Finland, Sweden, Norway).
It is necessary to simulate the depth of thawing permafrost and assess the adaptive abilities of forest ecosystems to changing climatic conditions, as well as to identify triggers that lead to an increase in the lack of elasticity of water vapour and a decrease in the duration of sunshine over the past 1500 years. The scientists explain that stratospheric volcanic eruptions are one of such triggers.
The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (21-17-00006). SibFU is implementing the Centre for Low-carbon Development and Climate Policy strategic project within the framework of the Priority 2030 program.

Россия предложила странам БРИКС (Бразилия, Индия, Китай) совместными усилиями построить модуль для Российской орбитальной станции (РОС), которая в настоящее время находится на стадии проекта.

In a proposal to BRICS, Russia has offered the countries to form a specialized module on the Russian Orbital Station (ROS), which is expected to be launched in 2027.
The other countries of the organization - Brazil, India, China, and South Africa - along with Russia could conduct their scientific research, announced Yuriy Borisov, Director General of Russia’s space agency ‘Roscosmos,’ an equivalent of US’ NASA.
"I would like to propose that our partners in BRICS consider the opportunity to take part in this project and create a full-fledged module through joint efforts, which would enable BRICS countries, as part of the ROS project, to use the opportunity offered by [the ROS’] low near-Earth orbit to carry out their respective national space programs," Borisov said, as reported by TASS.
Sometime after Roscosmos officially announced its exit from the International Space Station in 2022, citing concerns about its aging modules, the space agency also announced that it would be launching its own space station, operated solely by Russia, sometime in the mid-2020s.
A preliminary design of the space station has been created, and construction will be underway soon.
ISS to be decommissioned by the time Russian space station is launched
The ISS launched 24 years ago, was one of the last remaining channels of cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Marking a new chapter for Russian space exploration, Borisov added that the Russian orbital station would be the next step in developing manned cosmonautics. In September, Borisov said the space station would orbit Earth around the poles, enabling it to look down on far more Russia's vast territory and gather new data on cosmic radiation, reported Reuters.
Russia eyeing missions to Moon & Mars
Back in June, the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, which is part of Roscosmos, had said that the crew on ROS would initially include two cosmonauts, who would be delivered to the space station and returned by crewed transport ships, for which they would be trained.
According to TASS, the new station is also expected to develop critical technologies for future space flights, including those to the Moon and Mars.
Borisov also said that Russia had initially offered African countries the opportunity to participate in the ROS project and is now open to cooperation with other nations.
The ROS's science and power module will be launched in 2027, and another four modules will be dispatched to orbit in 2028-2030.

Биологи из России, Германии, Швейцарии, США и Ирландии опубликовали результаты исследования червей-нематод, найденных в 2018 г. в вечной мерзлоте Колымы. Первичноротые беспозвоночные, возраст которых на тот момент оценили примерно в 40 тысяч лет, после разморозки ожили и даже дали потомство. В новом исследовании ученые пришли к выводам, что, во-первых, черви относятся к ранее неизвестному виду, получившему название Panagrolaimus kolymaensis, во-вторых, их возраст составляет около 46 тысяч лет, а в-третьих, механизмы криобиоза, позволившие им выжить, сходны с теми, которые используют некоторые современные виды нематод.

At first glance, nematodes are unassuming roundworms - but don’t underestimate them.
In 2018 scientists announced they had discovered and revived two types of microscopic nematodes found in the Siberian permafrost, estimating they may have been 42,000 years old. Now these roundworms are the subject of more research, which posits that one of these nematode varieties represents a new species, dubbed Panagrolaimus kolymaensis for the Kolyma River where they were found. The new research, published on July 27 in the journal PLOS Genetics, also compares the Siberian worm’s survival mechanism with one found in another nematode species, Caenorhabditis elegans - a model organism used in laboratories around the world. The researchers further claim that the P. kolymaensis worms are actually 46,000 years old, based on their dating of plant matter found with these nematodes.
"The radiocarbon dating is absolutely precise, and we now know that they really survived 46,000 years," says study co-author Teymuras Kurzchalia, a cell biologist emeritus at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden.
Panagrolaimus species are found around the world and are known for surviving in environments that regularly expose them to desiccation or freezing, says Ann Burnell, an emeritus professor of biology at Maynooth University in Ireland, who was not involved in the new study.
If the worms really are as old as the study suggests, they would be by far the most stunning examples of what scientists call cryptobiosis - an organism’s ability to suspend its own metabolism in poor conditions.
"I thought it was an impressive and interesting piece of work," says David Wharton, an emeritus professor of zoology at New Zealand’s University of Otago, who was not involved in the new research.
But some scientists are skeptical of the study’s findings, which was also the case when the specimens were first reported in 2018. At that time outside researchers expressed concerns that the analyzed nematodes might be modern contamination. Byron Adams, a biologist at Brigham Young University, was one of those skeptics and remains unconvinced by Kurzchalia and his colleagues’ new work. "I would love to believe that the animals they are describing have survived being frozen for 40,000 years in permafrost," Adams says. "And if I were a betting man, I would bet that it could actually happen, and these things really are this old."
But Adams contends that the analysis in the paper doesn’t prove the worms’ age - only that of the plant material found nearby. "I don’t doubt the age of the organic material in the permafrost," he says. "Those values are likely legit."
Adams adds, however, that "the authors haven’t done the work to show that the animals they have recovered are not simply surface contaminants." One way to verify the ages, he says, would be to sample soil in the area and confirm that nematodes in it represent different species from those found living in the permafrost.
Kurzchalia wasn’t involved in the original collection process, which was conducted in 2002 as part of a years-long series of excursions. But he says he trusts the sterility procedures the scientists used to avoid modern contamination. Kurzchalia first encountered the worms much later, after he reached out to express interest in initial reports of these "resurrected" nematodes and invited a Russian co-author to bring some specimens to his laboratory for analysis.
In addition to the radiocarbon dating, the authors of the new study also confirmed that they could successfully induce the nematodes to enter and exit the dormancylike state of cryptobiosis using special preparatory cues.
Wharton says, however, that the freezing mechanism the researchers tested is not realistic because it involved drying the nematodes out before abruptly freezing them. It’s more likely that in nature, temperatures gradually fell while water remained present, he adds. "This is hardly a natural situation," Wharton says. "Since the nematodes need water to be active and to reproduce, it seems more likely they have been frozen in contact with water."
The new paper also includes genetic analyses, which Kurzchalia says are challenging in this case because P. kolymaensis is parthenogenic, meaning females of the species can reproduce without a male partner (although typically less profusely). (In addition, the nematodes are triploid, containing three copies of each chromosome; typically, chromosomes come in pairs, with half contributed by each parent.) Kurzchalia says one type of genetic analysis used by the team requires some 2,000 to 4,000 worms. That number is trivial for the common lab species C. elegans but difficult to achieve when working with P. kolymaensis.
The struggle to raise enough worms was worth it, according to Adams, who calls the genetic analyses "solid and interesting, regardless of the questions about the age of the recovered animals."
During the analyses, the researchers also looked for genes that the common C. elegans is known to use when a particular form of that worm, called the dauer larva, goes into the dormancy of cryptobiosis. Kurzchalia’s lab had previously shown that these dauer larvae need to process a sugar called trehalose in order to survive being frozen. In the new study, the genes required for that process appeared to be present in the P. kolymaensis as well, the team found.
"This survival kit is the same as it was 46,000 years ago," Kurzchalia says.

Российский квантовый центр, негосударственная исследовательская организация, заинтересован в сотрудничестве с научными центрами Индии в области квантовых технологий. Индийская сторона признает потенциал партнерства с Россией, однако решение пока не принято, а все переговоры идут на уровне отдельных учреждений.

An official proposal is expected to be presented to India at the upcoming BRICS meeting, hosted by Russia, for possible collaborations in the field of quantum technology. The Russian Quantum Center, a non-profit scientific institution, has expressed interest in partnering with Indian research institutes to develop quantum applications and hardware for public services. While individual Russian institutes are already in talks with research centers in India, the formal proposal will be presented at the BRICS meeting scheduled for next year.
Ruslan Yunusov, co-founder of the Russian Quantum Center, stated that India has made significant progress in quantum technology and discussions are ongoing with Indian research institutes to explore areas where expertise can be shared and collaboration can take place. However, no official contracts have been signed, and the discussions are currently limited to an individual institute level.
India’s National Quantum Mission, launched in April, has been the basis for discussions between Indian and Russian delegations. Currently, the talks are focused on knowledge and technology sharing at an individual level, and no decision has been made by the government to enter into partnerships with Russia.
Venugopal Achanta, the director of the National Physical Laboratory, acknowledged the potential for a partnership with Russia in quantum technology. However, he emphasized that the discussions are happening at an individual level and not as part of India’s quantum mission.
India’s National Quantum Mission aims to scale up scientific and industrial research and development for quantum technologies. With an estimated allocation of ₹6,003 crore over the next eight years, India aims to join the ranks of countries that have developed quantum computers and invested in research and development in this field.
Quantum technology, based on the principles of quantum mechanics, has applications in secure communication, disaster management, computing, simulation, chemistry, healthcare, cryptography, and imaging. It enables the creation of unbreakable codes and super speedy information processing through quantum superposition.

На антарктической станции «Восток» ученые Арктического и антарктического научно-исследовательского института, Агрофизического научно-исследовательского института и Института медико-биологических проблем РАН успешно провели эксперимент по выращиванию арбузов.

Scientists have successfully grown watermelons in an unlikely place: Antarctica.
The agricultural feat was part of an experiment at Vostok Station, a year-round Russian research station located at the Pole of Cold, so named because it's classified as the coldest place on Earth, where recorded temperatures once reached a frigid minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 89.2 degrees Celsius).
Watermelons arose in what is now Sudan more than 4,300 years ago and show up in the region's ancient artwork, including at an Egyptian tomb in Saqqara. In other words, the berry evolved far away from the frigid environment of Antarctica.
To make Vostok Station's greenhouse more hospitable to watermelons, researchers from the Russian Antarctic Expedition of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), alongside colleagues from the Agrophysical Research Institute and the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, created an oasis where they could increase the air temperature and humidity to conditions that were favorable to the juicy fruit.
The team purposely selected two varieties of early-ripening watermelons not only for their delicious taste but also for their ability to adapt to the low atmospheric pressure and lack of oxygen inside the greenhouse. They planted the seeds in a thin layer of soil substitute and used special lighting that mimicked sunlight. Because there were no insects to pollinate the plants, the researchers were tasked with pollinating everything by hand, according a translated statement from AARI.
Exactly 103 days after planting the seeds, the researchers were greeted by eight "ripe and sweet fruits" growing across six different plants. The melons grew to be up to about 2 pounds (1 kilogram) each with diameters of up to 5 inches (13 centimeters), according to a translated statement from the Russian Geographical Society.
Not only was the experiment successful in proving that, under the right conditions, watermelons can be grown in the coldest spot on the planet, but it also provided an exciting snack to the scientists living in Antarctica's harsh conditions.
"Naturally, all polar explorers were glad to remember the taste of summer," Andrei Teplyakov, lead geophysicist of the AARI, told the Russian Geographical Society. "Even the observation of seedlings, growth and the appearance of fruits … [elicited] positive emotions."
This isn't the first time that produce has been grown at Vostok Station. In 2020, researchers successfully grew a variety of plants, including dill, basil, parsley, arugula and cabbage, according to the statement.
And in 2021, Korean scientists grew watermelons at King Sejong Station in West Antarctica, which had a lowest recorded temperature of minus 78.1 F (minus 25.6 C), according to The Korean Bizwire.
Next up on the menu, the scientists plan to farm a variety of fruit, including blackberries, blueberries and strawberries.

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