Сентябрь 2024 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Ornate grave goods found in Murom burial ground
• India, China, Russia to jointly build massive nuclear power plant on moon to establish a future human lunar colony
• Rare woolly rhino mummies emerge from the permafrost
• CERN prepares to expel Russian scientists - but won’t completely cut ties
• New evidence suggests allergies were partly to blame for demise of woolly mammoth
• Geomagnetic excursions over the past 10 000 years revealed in peat deposits
• Cranes can migrate 4,000 miles, but that’s not the hard part
• Naked mole-rat has become the first mammalian to have waived infection-resistant proteins
• Russia to collaborate with Hungary on innovative cancer treatment
• Two-stage computer algorithm will detect epilepsy with high precision
• Researchers track the quality of graphene oxide during long-term storage

В полевом сезоне этого года экспедиция Института археологии РАН продолжила раскопки обнаруженного два года назад могильника народа мурома на правом берегу Оки в Нижегородской области. Ученые обнаружили семнадцать погребений, девять из которых серьезно пострадали от современных грабителей. При изучении оставшихся восьми было сделано несколько интересных находок, в том числе глиняные сосуды, форма и орнамент которых свидетельствуют, что между правобережной муромой и древнерусским населением были достаточно тесные контакты.

Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia. A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting. The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men. The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone. At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads. The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population."

По словам главы Росатома Алексея Лихачева, Индия и Китай намерены сотрудничать с Россией при создании атомной электростанции на Луне.

India and China, two historically rival nations, are set to collaborate with Russia in establishing a nuclear power plant on the Moon. This development, reported by EurAsian Times and sourced from Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass, was announced by Alexey Likhachev, head of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation. The initiative aligns with India’s plans for a manned lunar mission by 2040 and the establishment of a lunar base.
Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Likhachev underscored the international nature of the project. "With the involvement of the international community, our Chinese and Indian partners are very interested in this," he said, highlighting the collaborative spirit driving the venture.
According to Tass, the lunar power project, led by Rosatom, aims to build a small nuclear power plant capable of generating up to half a megawatt of energy. This output is expected to support the operations of a lunar base. Likhachev confirmed that both China and India are eager to participate in developing this innovative lunar energy solution.
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, announced in May that work on the nuclear power plant was already underway, with plans for its deployment on the Moon. The plant is intended to power a lunar base, a project involving collaboration between Russia and China, with India's participation potentially aligning with its lunar base ambitions.
Why Countries Are Racing to Build Nuclear Power Plants on the Moon
Russia and the United States are exploring nuclear power for future lunar bases, with NASA assessing the potential of nuclear reactors to support long-term lunar settlements. This technology is deemed crucial for the infrastructure needed to sustain lunar activities.
A stable and continuous energy source is essential for establishing a lunar colony. Nuclear power is viewed as the most viable solution.
"Establishing a colony on the Moon requires building essential infrastructure to support daily activities such as heating, drilling, refrigeration, and powering rovers," experts note.
Reliable energy is crucial for these operations, and nuclear power provides a consistent and robust source necessary for such demanding tasks. The construction of the lunar nuclear power plant is expected to be highly complex. Russia has suggested that much of the construction may be carried out autonomously, reducing the need for direct human involvement.
In 2021, Russia and China unveiled plans for a joint lunar base, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), with potential commissioning between 2035 and 2045. This ongoing project has laid the groundwork for current plans involving India.
India’s Diplomatic Balancing Act
India is navigating its diplomatic relations between the US and Russia. While engaged in the Gaganyaan mission with US collaboration, India is also exploring cooperation with China through the Russian lunar power project.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S. Somanath presented a provisional roadmap for Moon exploration during a symposium organised by the Indian Society of Geomatics and the Indian Society of Remote Sensing on November 28, 2023. This plan builds on India’s recent lunar successes and expanding ambitions for human spaceflight, including aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2040, as urged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s involvement in the international lunar nuclear project could accelerate the development of lunar infrastructure.
In 2023, India achieved a significant milestone by becoming the fifth country to successfully land a robotic mission on the Moon with Chandrayaan-3. Following this achievement, Prime Minister Modi called for the nation to pursue "new and ambitious goals," including sending astronauts to the Moon by 2040.
Though India’s timeline for lunar exploration currently lags behind Russia and China’s joint efforts, its participation in the lunar nuclear project may expedite its role in developing lunar infrastructure. Technological solutions for this complex project are reportedly nearing completion. Rosatom plans to construct the nuclear plant autonomously, reflecting advancements in space technology.
Since 2021, Roscosmos and China’s National Space Administration have been working on the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) plans. However, geopolitical tensions, especially with the US, could affect international cooperation on the lunar base.

Российские палеонтологи описали три мумии шерстистых носорогов, найденных в Якутии в разное время и с разной сохранностью мягких тканей. У одного из них сохранился жировой горб, наличие которого у этих животных ранее предполагалось, исходя из строения скелета и древних наскальных изображений.

For most people, an extinct species is an abstraction, a set of bones they might have seen on display in a museum. For Gennady Boeskorov, they are things he has interacted with directly, studying their fur, their skin, their internal organs - experiencing these animals much as they existed thousands of years ago. Some of the well-preserved Pleistocene animals he has worked with include the mummified remains of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), an extinct form of rabbit (Lepus tanaiticus), and cave lion cubs (Panthera spelaea).
His latest paper also makes it clear that woolly rhinoceroses belong on this list. Boeskorov is a senior researcher at the Diamond and Precious Metals Geology Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as a professor at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk. This July, he and his colleagues described the relatively recent discovery of three woolly rhinoceros mummies, one of which is new to science, in a paper published in the journal Doklady Earth Sciences.
Woolly rhinos (Coelodonta antiquitatis) were stocky, long-haired, two-horned denizens that inhabited Eurasia during the Pleistocene, a period that includes the most recent glacial expansion. They coexisted with woolly mammoths, placing second on the list of largest animals in this ecosystem (behind their tusked proboscidean coevals), and shared a similar dense coat of hair to protect against the cold.
We’ve learned a great deal from their bones; we’re learning even more thanks to their mummies. Being able to directly observe their hair and skin, for example, offers more evidence regarding just how well-adapted these animals were to their harsh environment. And the preservation of soft tissue has allowed us to test a hypothesis that was based on a combination of the organization of their skeletons and depictions in cave art.
Woolly rhino fossils are abundant, but their mummies are exceedingly rare. To date, there have only been a handful of nearly complete woolly rhinos (although news of another has been recently announced). The three mummies in this paper all hail from Yakutia - also known as the Sakha Republic - in northeastern Russia, but they are vastly different in age and preservation.
A trio of finds
Sasha is the first complete baby woolly rhino ever discovered. Although missing about half of its body, it is arguably the most well-preserved of the three, maintaining its fluffy little strawberry-blonde head, a couple of legs, and much of its fluffy torso. The loss of its lower half prevents determination of its sex, but Sasha was between 12 and 18 months old when it died, based on its teeth and the sutures within its skull as seen through CT scans.
So Sasha might have still been nursing at the time of death. Wear on its frontal horn - the second horn following the one above its nose - may have been caused by "rubbing against its mother’s belly" as it nursed, scientists suggested in 2015. The mummy was found in 2014 along the banks of a river, and although the cause of death has yet to be determined, sediment in its nasal passages indicate drowning in mud.
By contrast, the newest mummy is missing much of one side of its body, including most of the intestines - the result of predation, according to the authors. The other side, however, preserves skin, some hair, and soft tissues. Nicknamed the "Abyisky rhinoceros" for its discovery in Yakutia’s Abyisky District in 2020, it is estimated to be a juvenile of about 4 to 4.5 years. This mummy was also found along the banks of a river and, just like Sasha, its sex hasn’t been determined.
Clues to its age, however, were found among the animal’s overall height, its skull bones, and the length and characteristics of its nasal horn (the horn that grows right above its nostrils). Like tree rings or the rings found in mammoth tusks, the number of transverse stripes on the outside of nasal horns indicates the animal’s age. The Abyisky mummy has little surviving hair; tufts of it appear in bits and pieces. The manner of death remains a mystery, but arthropod remnants in its hair indicate that its carcass spent time in a small body of fresh water.
Both the oldest at the time of her death and the oldest in terms of discovery, the Kolyma mummy was uncovered in 2007 in a Kolyma gold mine. The position in which her body was found - her legs pressed to her torso and her head stretched upward - indicates she fell into and was trapped within a confined space. Like the Abyisky mummy, she is well-preserved on one side of her body, but she was not preserved whole. Her horns and legs were found nearby. Her skeletonized head - once joined to the body - was separated when she was excavated from the sediment. Her hair is preserved in tufts.
An udder and nipples are among the anatomical evidence that this is a female. The transverse stripes on her horn, along with teeth, skull, and height, confirm her age at death was approximately 20 years. Spores and pollen within her preserved stomach confirm what was deduced by previous studies of woolly rhino teeth: They enjoyed an herbivorous diet of grasses, shrubs, and numerous other plants.
Over the hump
The skin, hair, and soft tissues preserved in these mummies complement and expand on what we’ve learned over centuries of studying their bones. We know these animals were well-adapted to their cold, arid climate, but the thickness of their skin and the density of their hair offer further evidence. The team in this paper describes how woolly rhino hair changed over time, transitioning from lightly colored and relatively soft to darker, coarser hair as they aged. Arguably, however, this sample size is small, and there is some question about whether hair undergoes chemical changes as a result of being buried for thousands of years. This has been suggested to be the cause of different colors of woolly mammoth hair, for example.
What stands out the most in the new research is an anatomical feature suggested by the woolly rhino’s bone structure but never seen before: a fatty hump on the back of the juvenile Abyisky woolly rhino.
That hump, Boeskorov explained by email, "could serve as an additional reservoir of nutrients." The team conducted a chemical analysis of the hump, and they expect to publish further research about it in the future. As to why it has never been seen before, Boeskorov wonders if the hump may have only developed closer to winter when fat storage might have been advantageous or whether it had been a favorite meal for predators.
Adrian Lister, who was not involved in the research, is a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum in London. He was not surprised to learn of the hump, he noted by email, as "we knew from the skeleton and other carcasses (and cave art) that there was a big shoulder hump - maybe this is the first time fat has actually been discovered there, which for sure is a great discovery if so."
He agrees that it might have served as food storage but also said that "such structures are generally considered to function as part of the display gestalt of the animal - the very big, heavy shoulder, together with the horns, providing a fearsome sight for a competitor or potential predator!"
Work on the Abyisky woolly rhino is not done. Yet to be studied, Boeskorov noted, is the area of the body that might contain internal organs such as the stomach, which could reveal more about the animal’s diet and environment. He describes being able to work with the Abyisky mummy and others as "very interesting," as not everyone gets to touch something so ancient and so exquisitely preserved.
Plotnikov echoes this sentiment. He was also not involved in this research but collaborated on research about Sasha that was presented at a conference. He is a freelance paleontologist and, like Boeskorov, has worked on various Pleistocene mummies. "The feeling of touching something that lived tens of thousands of years ago is indescribable," he explained by email. "It's mesmerizing."
But beyond the personal experience, researchers don’t lose track of the scientific value. "Each bone or mummy discovery carries valuable information," he said. The three mummies described in this paper have so much more to tell us, and future papers promise to reveal some discoveries that are currently in progress. For now, there are many questions yet to be answered, some of which may not be solved by either bones or mummies.
"People take woolly mammoths and rhinos to be ‘fellow travelers’ in the last Ice Age, which they often were," Lister said, referencing how fossils of both species are often found together. "But intriguingly, there were large areas inhabited by mammoths that woolly rhinos never breached." Among them, he said, is the Taymyr Peninsula in northeastern Russia. And, he continued, "while mammoths made it across the Bering Strait (probably on multiple occasions) into North America, woolly rhinos never did." The mystery as to why may be extremely difficult to ascertain.

Европейский центр ядерных исследований ЦЕРН готовится полностью прекратить официальное сотрудничество с Российской Федерацией с 1 декабря этого года, однако сохранит контакты с Объединенным институтом ядерных исследований в Дубне, в частности, продолжит совместную работу по текущими проектам.
Полный текст статьи доступен по подписке.

Europe’s particle-physics laboratory CERN will expel hundreds of scientists who are affiliated with Russian institutions on 30 November unless they move to establishments outside of the nation. The date marks the official end of the lab’s collaboration with the Russian Federation, following CERN’s decision to cut ties with the country after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
But tension over CERN’s relationship with Russia remains among researchers, because the organization will continue to work with Russia-based scientists through an agreement with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), an intergovernmental centre in Dubna, near Moscow. JINR’s arrangement with CERN is separate from Russia’s. The decision to not cut ties with the lab has divided researchers.

Команда химиков и зоологов из Израиля, Италии и России обнаружила в образцах тканей сибирских мамонтов иммуноглобулины и органические соединения, соответствующие пыльце растений. Сочетание этих находок позволило исследователям выдвинуть предположение, что с потеплением климата и широким распространением растений животные могли начать страдать от аллергии на пыльцу, что вело к проблемам с дыханием, потере обоняния и последующим трудностям с поиском еды, воды и потенциальных партнеров, а в итоге - к вымиранию.

A team of chemists and zoologists from Israel, Italy and Russia, has found evidence suggesting that part of the reason woolly mammoths went extinct was the onset of allergies that made it difficult for them to find mates.
In their paper published in the journal Earth History and Biodiversity, the group describes how they found antibodies and allergens in tissue samples of frozen mammoths that suggest the large animals may have had difficulty in finding mates due to loss of smell.
Prior research has shown that woolly mammoths, relatives of modern elephants, once lived in parts of North America, Asia and northern parts of Europe. They went extinct approximately 4,000 years ago. Studies looking into their demise suggest it was a likely combination of climate change and hunting by humans.
In this new study, the research team suggests another possible cause; allergies to pollen that led to stuffed up noses, making it difficult for the mammoths to smell things, such as potential mates. The researchers note that the sense of smell is very important to modern elephants; without it, elephants would find it difficult to locate food and water, and potential mates.
To learn more about the ancient creatures, the research team obtained and studied multiple tissue samples from frozen mammoths found in Siberia. They found evidence of antibodies that had been deployed to fight off infections. They also found organic compounds consistent with pollen that would have been mixed in with the air the mammoths were breathing.
The researchers suggest that together, the two finds suggest that the mammoths were suffering from allergies. Such allergies, they further note, would have made it very difficult to find food, water and potential mates.
The research team also notes that the extinction of the woolly mammoth came during a time when the planet was growing warmer, allowing plants to grow in places where the mammoths lived that they had not grown in before - plants that would have released pollen into the air, possibly giving the animals that lived there breathing and smelling problems.
They suggest that the evidence they found hints at the possibility of allergies as a third cause of the demise of the woolly mammoth.

Исследования торфяных отложений в Нижнем Приамурье, проведенные в Институте тектоники и геофизики им. Ю.А.Косыгина ДвО РАН, позволили добиться существенного прогресса в понимании изменений магнитного поля Земли за последние 10 тысяч лет. Ученые проследили так называемые экскурсы - незавершенные процессы смены магнитных полюсов, когда северный и южный полюса начинают смещаться, но потом возвращаются в исходное положение. Каждый такой экскурс, последний из которых случился 2,5 тысячи лет назад, сопровождался климатическими и экологическими изменениями.

A recent study conducted by Dr. Aleksey Peskov, Director of the Kosygin Institute of Tectonics and Geophysics of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ITiG FEB RAS), has made substantial progress in comprehending Earth’s magnetic field fluctuations over the last 10 000 years.
This study, published in the Russian Journal of Pacific Geology, used peat deposits to provide new information about historical geomagnetic behavior offering a better understanding of past, and future, geomagnetic and climatic shifts.
Two key terms essential to understanding the Earth’s magnetic field are "inversion" (geomagnetic reversal) and "excursion."
Inversions refer to major shifts where the magnetic poles switch places, with the last such event occurring around 780 000 years ago. The frequency of these inversions varies widely, from tens of thousands to millions of years. In contrast, excursions are more subtle variations in the magnetic field and were discovered by scientists only a few decades ago. These excursions occur much more frequently than inversions but can significantly impact climate and environmental circumstances on the planet.
Dr. Peskov’s research focused on geomagnetic excursions by looking at peat deposits from the Khabarovsk Territory, which have a thorough and continuous record of geomagnetic variations over the last 10 000 years.
In an email exchange with The Watchers, Dr. Peskov explained, “The main problem of studying records of the Earth’s magnetic field in the past is the search for objects in which this record is well preserved."
“For the fine structure of the geomagnetic field (excursions and other "fast" variations), rocks are not a very good object, since the duration of such variations and the rate of fixation of magnetization in rocks can often coincide, so the magnetic record of excursions in rocks is absent or presented incompletely."
"In our research, we found that peat deposits are a good and promising object for studying the fine structure of the field, in which the record of geomagnetic field variations in the Holocene is most fully presented."
The Holocene is the current geological epoch, which began approximately 11 700 years ago after the end of the last Ice Age. It marks a period of relatively stable and warmer climate, during which human civilization developed and flourished. This epoch is part of the Quaternary period and represents an interglacial phase within Earth’s ongoing cycles of glaciation.
It’s important to note that in 2019, the US National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) updated the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) earlier than scheduled due to significant errors of up to 40 km (24.85 miles) in calculating the position of the planet’s magnetic poles.
"This was a consequence of a sharp increase in the drift speed of the north magnetic pole," Peskov said.
In the 1970s, the speed of the north magnetic pole was 10 km (6 miles) per year, but by 2015, it had increased almost fivefold, reaching 48 km (30 miles) per year.
"Therefore, today, research on changes (variations) in the Earth’s magnetic field and forecasts regarding its future behavior are becoming especially relevant and are forming a new scientific trend in world science," Peskov said.
"To understand the future, it is necessary to have a good understanding of how these events occurred in the past. This is exactly the kind of research that is being conducted in the Khabarovsk Territory, at our Institute."
A magnetic excursion is an incomplete inversion, where the poles begin to shift but return to their original positions. It’s a sudden change in the characteristics of the magnetic field, which can lead to climate changes on Earth.
The most recent magnetic excursion occurred 2 500 years ago, during which the North Magnetic Pole moved to southern latitudes before returning to its original position. This event is indirectly supported by research from Japanese scientists. In 2019, they published a study based on ancient Assyrian clay tablets that contained records of the northern lights seen over Assyria 2 500 years ago.
These sightings occurred at 30-40 degrees north latitude, where auroras are not seen today due to the current position of Earth’s magnetic poles.
Additionally, studies of oxygen isotopes in sedimentary rocks from Israel show significant cooling on Earth 2 500 years ago.
Numerous studies have demonstrated a connection between variations in Earth’s magnetic field and climate changes. Furthermore, Italian and British scientists recently conducted experiments proving that magnetic field reversals affect plant evolution by influencing gene expression rates.
One of the study’s primary results is a clear link between the 1 700-year harmonic and multiple Bond events, which are significant climatic occurrences associated with changes in global temperature and environmental circumstances.
This correlation showed a possible link between geomagnetic behavior and climate change. Such findings enhance the ability to use geomagnetic data to study past climate patterns and understand how they might influence or be influenced by geomagnetic fluctuations, providing a clearer picture of the interplay between geomagnetic variations and climate.
The research also offered light on geomagnetic excursions, such as the Etruscan and Solovki, and their potential impact on climate.
By evaluating the timing and nature of these excursions, the study brought attention to the fact on how geomagnetic field fluctuations may correspond with periods of climate cooling and other key environmental occurrences.
"Today, scientists around the world are trying to predict when the next excursion will occur with all the ensuing climatic and man-made consequences," Peskov stated, stressing geomagnetic studies’ broader implications for understanding historical climate dynamics and the role of geomagnetic changes in shaping regional and global climate patterns.
The study also brought into light the importance of peat sections as archives for paleomagnetic studies.
The Tyapka peat portion, in particular, contains a rich record of geomagnetic field shifts and climatic events, making it an ideal location for future research. While the work faced challenges in interpreting long-period harmonics and their climatic connections, it also opened up new options for further investigation of these linkages.
The conclusions of this study have important consequences for humans and life on Earth. Even minor geomagnetic excursions can disturb environmental and climatic conditions, having an impact on agriculture, ecosystems, and human health. With the north magnetic pole rapidly drifting, knowing geomagnetic behavior is important for anticipating future climate alterations and their consequences for society.
Geomagnetic excursions also endanger modern technology, particularly systems that rely on satellite navigation, power grids, and worldwide communications. As society becomes more electronically dependent, understanding and preparing for magnetic shifts becomes increasingly important.
Furthermore, the Earth’s magnetic field acts as a protective barrier against dangerous cosmic and solar radiation. During geomagnetic excursions, this protective barrier degrades, potentially increasing radiation exposure on Earth and affecting both technical systems and biological species.

Орнитологи из десяти стран, включая Россию, проследили с помощью GPS миграционные пути четырех видов журавлей в Азии, Африке и Европе. Данные показали, что некоторые птичьи маршруты туда и обратно имеют протяженность почти 6500 км. Кроме того, исследователи разработали статистическую базу, показывающую, как перемещения журавлей зависят от условий окружающей среды, например, таких аспектов, как наличие поблизости сельскохозяйственных культур, водоемов, растительного покрова на земле, изменения температуры и т. д.

How do scientists follow an impressively long bird migration? They give a crane a GPS. A team of scientists used small GPS leg bands to follow 104 of these wading birds as they traveled across parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The tracking data revealed that some of their routes are more than 3,976 miles round trip, navigating several natural barriers along the way. They also saw that the cranes face several make-or-break decisions about where and when they stop. The findings are described in a study published September 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"Animals have to satisfy their own needs with what they can get from their environment, but both of these are changing constantly," study co-author and University of Michigan postdoctoral researcher Scott Yanco said in a statement. "This creates an intriguing optimization problem that we wanted to know if cranes were solving through long-distance migration."
The team studied four crane species - the common crane (Grus grus), demoiselle crane (Anthropoides virgo), black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis), and white-naped crane (Grus vipio). They all had to cross various natural barriers including the Himalayas and the Alps, Arabian desserts, and the Mediterranean Sea and experienced wildly different environmental conditions over a year.
These time periods were also synchronized with some of their important biological needs. This alignment was particularly pronounced when comparing data on air temperatures or resource availability on their wintering and summer breeding grounds. The demoiselle cranes, for example, migrated across the Tibetan plateau, and during that time had to contend with large fluctuations in temperature.
"We suspect this all has to do with different biological needs during these different times of the year," said Yanco.
The common cranes clearly went to agricultural areas during the late summer. This aligns with the time of year when food is plentiful and when the birds are raising juveniles and preparing for fall migration. According to Yanco, this is what they would expect them to do to easily access food.
For some of the other species in the study, this access to food may come at a cost. The black-necked cranes had to decide between a safe roosting habitat and abundant resources.
"Amazingly, the balance between these competing needs changed over the year, depending on what the birds were doing," said Yanco.
While migrating, the birds generally opted for safer roosting conditions. During breeding, they moved towards places where food was abundant.
"This type of shifting emphasis depending on what cranes need at any given time is what we were expecting to see," Ivan Pokrovsky, a study co-author and postdoctoral scholar at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, said in a statement. "But we were blown away by how well the cranes used movement to resolve trade-offs among competing needs and to access certain environments during key periods of the year."
The team also used this data from the tracking study to develop a statistical framework that shows how the cranes’ movements relate to crops, nearby water bodies, temperature, and other aspects of the environment. Understanding how wild animals interact with their surroundings can give scientists a more nuanced view of how they survive.
According to the team, this kind of data is also crucial for developing better policies to address climate change and biodiversity loss. The statistical framework from this study can be applied to conservation and management efforts of wildlife.
"When we know how animals use certain environmental conditions, we can make better predictions about how species might respond to human-caused global change and develop more effective interventions that ensure we preserve the conditions species need to survive," said Pokrovsky.

Голый землекоп (Heterocephalus glaber) - небольшой грызун, ведущий подземный образ жизни и отличающийся необычайно большой для такого животного продолжительностью жизни - до 40 лет, а потому представляющий большой интерес для ученых, исследующих механизмы старения. Российские биологи обнаружили еще одну особенность землекопа - нетрадиционный способ работы иммунной системы. Оказывается, грызун утратил часть функциональных генов CD1, отвечающих у млекопитающих за синтез белков, участвующих в защите организма от инфекций. Судя по полученным данным, потерю успешно компенсируют другие, CD1-независимые иммунные клетки.

Scientists have found that the naked mole-rat - an underground rodent that lives up to 40 years - has lost a number of CD1 functional genes. The CD1 gene family in mammals is responsible for protein synthesis that protects the body against infectious diseases. The findings indicate that the naked mole-rat's immune system has significantly realigned and is using other - CD1-independent - molecular mechanisms. The results of the studies, supported by the Grants of Presidential program of the Russian Science Fund (RSF), were published in the Biology Direct magazine.
Some epithelial and immune system cells (macrophages, B-lymphocytes, dendritic cells) of mammals, birds and reptiles carry CD1 proteins on their surface that have structural similarities to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins that play an important role in the development of immunity. If a foreign object appears in a body, a bacteria for example, these molecules help alert a different type of immune cells called T-lymphocytes that contribute to the destruction of the infected cells and thus prevent the infection from spreading. This happens because, just like flags, the CD1 proteins expose cells, bacterial lipids and their derivatives above their surface, by which the pathogen can be easily identified.
The constitution and the number of CD1 genes differ greatly in various animals: for example, mice have 2, rats have 1 and guinea pigs have as many as 9. Since the majority of preclinical drug tests are carried out on these specific animals, the search and identification of their CD1 functional molecules are especially critical for the correct interpretation of fundamental and applied research results. However, there is no known mammalian species that entirely lost its CD1 proteins.
Scientists at the Baltic Federal University of Immanuel Kant (Kaliningrad), the Institute For Molecular Biology RAS named after V. A. Engelhardt (Moscow), Institute of Molecular Cell Biology SB RAS (Novosibirsk), Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov (Moscow) and Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and their colleagues have described the evolution of CD1 genes in rodents. For this purpose, the scientists have conducted a bioinformatics analysis of sequences responsible for CD1 proteins synthesis in the genomes of 18 different species of rodents and have reconstructed the related protein structures. The authors have found for the first time that the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) lost a part of its working (functional) CD1 genes. This animal belongs to hystricomorphs and is characterized by an unusually long lifespan for rodents - up to 40 years. Therefore, the naked mole-rats are important to research of aging mechanisms. The revealed absence of CD1 proteins by the authors points out to yet another unusual trait of this rodent - unconventional mechanisms of the immune system.
"Recent studies of the naked mole-rat's immune system have shown their absence of Natural Killer T cells that take part in the removal of the virus- and bacteria-infected cells, as well as tumor cells. Since the presence of the functionally active CD1 gene is necessary for the development of Natural Killer T cells, we have suggested that the naked mole-rat's immune response occurs differently, independent of Natural Killer T cells. These facts highlight the uniqueness of the naked mole-rat's immune system. It is probable that other immune cells compensate for the loss of some CD1 proteins and Natural Killer T cells in naked mole-rats - the myeloid cells of the immune system and other types of well-developed T lymphocytes of these animals" - explains Alexey Zamaraev, the participant of the project, supported by RSF, a candidate of biological sciences, research associate at the IMB named after V. A. Engelhardt and mechanisms of apoptosis research laboratory at Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov.
The analysis has also shown that the CD1 proteins that differ widely in structure is a characteristic of the suborder Myomorpha representatives. Their relatives from the Sciuromorpha, Castorimorpha and Hystricomorpha suborders have more conserved - less different - proteins. This emphasizes that these particular suborders are more evolutionary ancient.
"In the future, we are planning to examine another type of molecule with the same as the CD1 proteins function - MR1 proteins, which introduce (or show) riboflavin's metabolites or other bacterial antigens to specific T-lymphocytes. We hope that the data obtained will allow to understand not only the the fundamental features of the immune system of different animals, but to identify patterns for targeted activation of CD1-specific T-cells and for triggering of the immune response to different pathogens" - says Constantin Gunbin, a participant of the project, supported by RSF, a candidate of biological sciences, Senior Researcher at Centre for Genomic Research at of BFU named after Immanuel Kant.

Россия и Венгрия намерены развивать сотрудничество в области инновационного лечения онкологических заболеваний.

At the National Institute of Oncology, a delegation led by Russian Health Minister Prof. Dr. Mikhail Murashko met with Hungarian officials, including Dr. Péter Takács, Secretary of State, and Prof. Dr. Csaba Polgár, Director General of the Institute of Oncology.
According to the statement published on the website of the Institute of Oncology, the meeting aimed to enhance Hungarian-Russian cooperation in oncology, focusing on research, development, and technological innovation. Key topics included new treatment options, joint research plans, remote diagnostic care, artificial intelligence advancements, and improvements in isotope and radiotherapy.
Minister Murashko highlighted Russia’s expertise in AI-based tumor diagnosis and their new software. Péter Takács noted that Hungary could contribute to collaboration by sharing digital data and training AI, with an emphasis on innovative drug research.
Prof. Dr. Polgár showcased recent advancements at the National Institute of Oncology, including the significance of their robotic surgery training center and plans for an eleven-thousand-square-meter oncological diagnostic facility. Both countries are exploring the potential for producing diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals in Hungary, which could significantly benefit patient care. Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive compounds used in medical imaging and therapy. They consist of a radionuclide linked to a pharmaceutical agent that targets specific organs, tissues, or cells. In imaging, radiopharmaceuticals help visualize physiological functions through techniques like PET and SPECT scans. In therapy, they deliver targeted radiation to treat conditions such as cancer, allowing for precise treatment while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
The Russian Health Minister also offered access to Russian proton therapy centers for Hungarian patients, particularly children with cancer. Both sides emphasized that their collaboration in health and research is humanitarian and aims to provide optimal patient care despite current political and economic challenges.

Российские ученые разработали двухэтапный алгоритм для автоматизированного выявления эпилепсии по записям электроэнцефалографии (ЭЭГ). Исследователи объединили два подхода к анализу сигналов мозговой активности: классификатор - простой алгоритм, не требующий обучения, и обучаемую нейронную сеть. Классификатор обнаруживает на записях ЭЭГ сигналы, интенсивность которых превышает норму, а нейросеть анализирует их, определяя закономерности и отделяя эпилептические припадки от других видов аномальной активности мозга.

Scientists elaborated algorithm that much better detects epilepsy on EEG recordings, than other automated methods. To achieve this, authors combined two approaches to analysis of signals of brain activity - classifier, that doesn’t require education, and trainable neural network. The project will enable to automate analysis of EEG and so simplify the process of detecting of epilepsy. Results of the research, supported by the grant of Presidential program of Russian Scientific Foundation, are published in the magazine IEEE Access.
Epilepsy is considered to be one of the most widespread neurological diseases: 50 million people all over the world suffer from it. Epileptic seizures occur due to abnormal activity of different areas of brain and can be followed by loss of consciousness, uncontrolled movements, visual and cognitive disorders. Nowadays doctors struggle with epilepsy rather successfully - about 70% patients with such diagnosis after medical therapy or surgical interference experience stop of seizures. In order to make diagnosis precisely and to assign a correct therapy, doctors search signs of epilepsy on EEG recordings. This process is rather laborious: data record for one patient can take from ten to several tens hours of recording. Besides this a doctor needs to distinguish signs that are characteristic for epilepsy, from other kinds of brain activity, that requires strong background and long clinical practice.
Scientists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (Kaliningrad), Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University (Moscow) and Limited Society "Immersmed" (Moscow) developed an automated method for detection of brain activity, corresponding to epileptic seizures, in EEG recordings. As a base authors took two approaches to detection of seizures and combined them, thus creating a two-stage system.
In frames of the first stage a simple algorithm called classifier which doesn’t require training, detected on EEG recordings "emissions" - signals, the intensity of which surpass normal brain activity. Emissions can be both seizures of epilepsy, and also various external noises, some episodes of atypical activity of brain, for example, sleep spindles during patient’s sleep. Thus, on the exit of classifier you get a marking, that contains both true epileptic seizures and various false components.
That’s why further - on the second stage - neural net (more complicated algorithm on the base of machine learning) studied in more detail those EEG recordings, that were marked by the first algorithm as "suspicious", and made conclusion whether there was really epilepsy on EEG or not.
Authors used neural net of convolutional type, that is often used for analysis of images. It treated EEG recordings not as a set of signals but as entire image, on that it found demanded signals. In that context neural network imitated doctor’s work, that in the search of epileptic seizure also analyzes signals and spectra for existence of certain patterns.
Researchers tested the suggested two-stage system and also two its elements separately. For this aim they used EEG recordings from 83 people, suffering from epilepsy, during seizures and calm state (with normal brain activity).
It turned out that sensibility - the ability to detect abnormal signals on EEG - of classifier and neural network separately achieves 90 and 96% correspondingly. However, the proximity of these approaches turned out to be rather low - 12 and 13%, and it points to the fact that algorithms confuse epilepsy with other types of abnormal brain activity. Two-stage approach showed sensibility 84%, but much higher - 57% - proximity due to the reduction of false positive results. That is why it much more suitable for potential use in clinical practice, than separate approaches that it includes.
"The obtained result promises creation of automated system of marking of epileptic EEG, that enables to reduce routine duties of doctors epileptologists, connected with marking of long recordings, significantly. The proposed system of marking now is realized in the form of program product - online medical service - by colleagues from Limited Society "Immersmed" and can be applied in many medical centers of Russian Federation", - tells the head of the project, supported by the grant of RSF, Alexander Hramov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, leading Researcher at the Center for Neurotechnology and Machine Learning, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Графен обладает уникальными свойствами и широко используется в самых разных областях. Создание его в больших количествах сложно и дорого, поэтому чаще используют производные - например, оксид графена. Однако и у него есть свои недостатки: химическая неоднородность, нестабильность, быстрое изменение свойств. Исследовательская группа из Сколтеха и других научных организаций определила оптимальные условия для хранения оксида графена, позволяющие избежать структурных изменений - низкие температуры и отсутствие света.

A research team from Skoltech, MIPT, Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences, and other scientific organizations recently conducted a study to determine which conditions are the most suitable for storing graphene oxide.
The results showed that the most optimal conditions for graphene oxide, when its properties will not change, are low temperatures and a lack of light.
"The structure of graphene oxide manufactured chemically is very difficult to reproduce - it will always be different. And after a while, it begins to degrade, and the properties of the oxide itself change. If, after manufacturing, the material is sent to another place - another institute or country, it will come in a completely different state. And even when the test tubes are just there in the laboratory, the properties of the material also change. We decided to conduct a comprehensive study of the best conditions to store samples in," said Dmitry Kvashnin, a study co-author, Doctor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, docent, Leading Research Scientist at the Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences.
The team produced several samples of graphene oxide, identical in the chemical composition and production method, and placed them in different conditions: at room temperature and in the fridge, as well as in the light and without it.
"For 150 days, we observed changes in the properties of the samples: We looked at how the absorption spectra, X-ray photoelectron radiation spectra, hydrogen index, and viscosity of suspensions change. The comprehensive analysis of these characteristics allowed us to expand our understanding of the processes occurring on the surface of graphene oxide, leading to structural changes. We found out that graphene oxide is best stored in the cold and without exposure to light. In this case, there is no reduction, that is, oxygen-containing groups are not removed from the surface of graphene oxide, and it doesn’t turn back into graphene. And at room temperature and in the light, it recovers faster. We can observe that even by the changing color of the solution - it goes darker," said the first author of the study, Julia Bondareva, a research scientist at the Materials Center of Skoltech.
"To find out what changes can occur in the structure of graphene oxide and why it precipitates over time, we used supercomputer atomistic modeling. Using quantum chemical calculations, we showed that in their most stable state, oxygen groups on the surface of graphene oxide tend to cluster. This differs from the bulk of the models used in the literature, which assume an even random distribution of oxygen. The clustering of oxygen groups that we showed, on the one hand, should lead to a change in optical spectra, and on the other, to the formation of pure graphene regions in those areas where oxygen ‘migrated’ from. Since graphene is an extremely hydrophobic material, such areas will tend to stick together to minimize contact with water. This is exactly what leads to precipitation observed in the experiment. Read more about other collaborative research in the joint Telegram channel of the laboratories," explained Nikita Orekhov, a co-author of the work, Deputy Head at the Laboratory of Computer Design of Materials at MIPT, PhD in Physics and Mathematics.
The results show that special attention should be paid to the storage conditions of materials and to their properties at each stage of synthesis, the authors noted.

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