Ноябрь 2025 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• 6-million-year-old mega-bear discovered: Alexey Lopatkin presents "Urakan Borysiaka"
• Scientists estimate methane emissions from an abandoned peatland
• Extensive dog diversity millennia before modern breeding practices
• Paleogenomics study shows humans and dogs spread across Eurasia together
• Mammoth mummies up to 50,000 years old yield oldest RNA yet found
• Chinese, Russian experts discuss cross-border conservation of endangered wildlife
• Sunken city discovered in Kyrgyzstan lake was a medieval hotspot on the Silk Road - until an earthquake wiped it out
• First of Russian test rigs delivered to ITER construction site
• Lost signal: How solar activity silenced Earth's radiation
• Cleveland’s famous sea monster gets a scientific update
• Lost medieval Swedish heraldic stone and rare dagger unearthed in Vyborg’s sewer system
• Shell beads in 5,000-year-old finds suggest wide mobility in ancient Siberia
• Meaning of head-only bull images in Okunev Bronze Age rock art revealed
• Russian scientists develop software using solar panel waste heat for desalination

В Палеонтологическом институте им. А.А.Борисяка РАН установили и описали новый вид вымершего гигантского медведя. Получивший название в честь первого директора института - уракан Борисяка (Huracan borissiaki), - медведь обитал на территории Предкавказья в конце миоцена, около 6 млн лет назад.

On Monday, Alexey Lopatkin, director of the Borisyak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, announced the discovery of a new giant bear species known from a single specimen.
"I have described a new species from the extinct group of giant bears, related to modern giant pandas," said Lopatkin, according to RBC.
He named the animal Urakan Borysiaka to honor Alexey Borysiak (1872-1944), the institute’s first director and an early researcher of fossil bears.
The 5.5 - to 6-million-year-old remains were recovered during fieldwork in Stavropol Krai, Lopatkin told Izvestia. Size estimates put the bear in the range of the largest modern brown bears, exceeding 700 kg. "It was an active predator capable of running quickly," he told Gazeta.ru.
Only one skeleton has been found, leaving many biological details uncertain. Lopatkin said additional ancient bears would likely surface in Russia and elsewhere, according to RBC.
Recent Russian discoveries, including genetic work on the extinct Tokto sea lion and the study of a Pleistocene wolf. Gazeta.ru also reported that scientists captured 53 polar bears to investigate Arctic pollution, underlining the challenges faced by living ursids even as their prehistoric relatives come to light.
Reddit users who created an artistic reconstruction dubbed the fossil "the panda from hell," Gazeta.ru added.

Ученые Балтийского федерального университета имени Иммануила Канта обнаружили, что торфяники, аккумулирующие около 30% всего углерода, содержащегося в почве по всему миру, после прекращения добычи торфа и осушения сами становятся источниками парниковых газов. Уровень выбросов варьируется в зависимости от уровня грунтовых вод и типа растительности конкретного участка местности.

Scientists at BFU named after Kant Immanuel found out that drained peatlands remain a significant source of greenhouse gas methane after terminating peat mining activity. Therefore, the emissions turn out to be heterogeneous and depend on the groundwater level and vegetation type of that specific piece of terrain. The researchers arrived at this conclusion after having been measuring methane emissions for three years at an abandoned peatland within Rossyanka Carbon Supersite in the Kaliningrad region. The findings will help calculate more accurately the contribution of such ecosystems to climate change, as well as be useful in developing strategies of their restoration. The results of the study are published in Land journal.
Peat bogs and places with turf deposits, commonly called peatland, occupy a mere 3% of total land. However, they accumulate about 30% of all carbon contained in all of the world's soil. Because the carbon there is in a carbon state, - in the form of organic compounds, - peatlands play an important role in climate stabilization. When the peatlands are drained, they convert from carbon sink to its source. This is due to the fact that organic matter decomposes with the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - the main contributor to the greenhouse effect. Another greenhouse gas - methane - is normally constantly released from natural swamps, yet when drained, its emission in one of the areas decrease while increasing in other areas. This data differs in various regions, and for different territories, including Russia, the exact amount of greenhouse gases emitted by abandoned peatlands after draining and production remains unknown. This slows down the development of measures to restore these ecosystems and reduce the emissions.
Scientists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (Kaliningrad) together with colleagues from Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences IMCES SB RAS (Tomsk) had been measuring methane emissions from the surface of an abandoned peatland in the Kaliningrad Region between 2022 and 2024. Between the 1970-s and 1990-s, turf mining took place at the study area, and for this purpose the peatland was drained. The production site had subsequently never been reclaimed. In 2021 this peatland became part of a Rossyanka Carbon Supersite established under an eponymous federal program.
For the analysis, the authors selected ten areas with different vegetation cover and moisture levels: open sites with bare peat; parts with green moss fragments; birch coppice sites; reed beds and stretches with recurrent floods.
Every month within a period of three years the scientists installed plastic cameras on these selected areas that allowed to isolate a small area from the external environment. Researchers then took air samples from these chambers and measured the methane concentration. In addition, the authors assessed the air and soil temperature, the level of water tables and rainfall.
It turned out that methane emissions vary considerably at different sites. Most intensively - up to 213 kilograms of gas per hectare a year - the gas was emitted by drainage ditches overgrown with mosses. The drier patches, overgrown with rare birches and small bushes, had minimal amounts of methane flux - less than 10 kilograms per hectare a year. Moreover, the authors discovered that open sites with bare peat do not emit methane at all during warm seasons. On the contrary, they absorbed the gas in small amounts.
Scientists came to the conclusion that emissions depend on the level of groundwaters. Thus, the closer the water is to the surface, the thinner is the turf layer where methane oxidation happens. In that case, the methane flux into the atmosphere appear significant. This is supported by the fact that hot July in the summer of 2024 with heavy rainfall in the study area led to a sharp rise in water and, as a result, to highest levels of methane emissions in three years of observations.
"Our study showed that abandoned peatlands can't be regarded as something homogenous from the greenhouse emissions point of view. The acquired data will be helpful for developing more accurate climate change forecasting models. In the future, we plan to summarize such data and assess the intensity of the carbon footprint as well as study in more detail the dependence of both greenhouse gases on peatland environmental factors. Using the required calculations, it will be possible to scale the results of the study and to assess peatland emissions in other regions", - says Maxim Napreenko, a candidate of biological sciences, senior researcher of the "Geoecology and Marine Environmental Management" Research Centre at BFU named after Kant Immanuel.

Группа ученых из 12 стран, включая Россию, опубликовала результаты десятилетнего исследования, согласно которым собаки перестали походить на волков гораздо раньше, чем считалось. Создав 643 трехмерные модели ископаемых черепов псовых за период около 50 тысяч лет, ученые пришли к выводу, что 11 тысяч лет назад собаки уже заметно различались морфологически, а в неолите существовала половина всех современных пород.

A groundbreaking archaeological study has revealed when domestic dogs first began to show the remarkable diversity that characterises them today.
By applying cutting-edge shape analysis to hundreds of archaeological specimens spanning tens of thousands of years, researchers have traced the emergence of distinct dog forms deep into prehistory, pinpointing the moment dogs began to diversify in size and shape - at least 11,000 years ago.
These findings challenge long-standing assumptions that canine diversity is largely a recent phenomenon shaped by selective breeding, which started with the Victorian Kennel Clubs. Instead, the study demonstrates that significant variation in skull shape and size among domestic dogs was already present thousands of years ago, soon after their divergence from wolves.
Published today in Science and led by the University of Exeter and the French CNRS, the study is the most comprehensive of its kind in terms of both geographic reach and timespan, with specimens ranging from the Pleistocene to the present day. The research, which began in 2014, analysed 643 modern and archaeological canid skulls - including recognised breeds, street dogs, and wolves - spanning the last 50,000 years.
The international team of archaeologists, curators and biologists from more than 40 institutions collaborated to create 3D models of the skulls to study their size and shape using a method known as geometric morphometrics. Results show that by the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, dogs already exhibited a wide range of shapes and sizes. This variation likely reflected their diverse roles in early human societies, from hunting and herding to companionship.
"These results highlight the deep history of our relationship with dogs," said co-lead author Dr Carly Ameen of Exeter's Department of Archaeology and History. "Diversity among dogs isn’t just a product of Victorian breeders, but instead a legacy of thousands of years of coevolution with human societies."
The earliest specimen identified as a domestic dog came from the Russian Mesolithic site of Veretye (dating to ~11,000 years ago). The team also identified early dogs from America (~8,500 years ago) and Asia (~7,500 years ago) with domestic skull shapes. After that, the study shows a lot of variation emerging relatively quickly.
Dr Allowen Evin, co-lead author from the CNRS based at the Institut of Evolutionary Science-Montpellier, France, explained: "A reduction in skull size for dogs is first detectable between 9,700-8,700 years ago, while an increase in size variance appears from 7,700 years ago. Greater variability in skull shape begins to emerge from around 8,200 years ago onwards.
"Modern dogs exhibit more extreme morphologies, such as short-faced bulldogs and long-faced borzois, which are absent in early archaeological specimens. However, there is a large amount of diversity among dogs even as early as the Neolithic; it was double that of Pleistocene specimens and already half the range seen in dogs today."
The study also underscores the challenges of tracing the earliest dogs. None of the Late Pleistocene specimens - some previously proposed as "proto-dogs" - had skull shapes consistent with domestication, suggesting that the very first stages of the process remain difficult to capture in the archaeological record.
Professor Greger Larson, senior author of the study from the University of Oxford, said: "The earliest phases of dog domestication are still hidden from view, and the first dogs continue to elude us. But what we can now show with confidence is that once dogs emerged, they diversified rapidly. Their early variation reflects both natural ecological pressures and the profound impact of living alongside humans."
By demonstrating that dog diversity emerged millennia earlier than assumed, the study opens new avenues for exploring how human cultural and ecological shifts shaped the evolutionary history of our closest animal companions.
The article, The emergence and diversification of dog morphology, is published today (Thursday) in Science. The research was supported by funding from national and international agencies, including the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the European Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Fyssen Foundation.

Проанализировав более 200 геномов древних и современных собак из Сибири, а также Центральной и Восточной Азии, включая (впервые) образцы из Китая, палеогенетики из 9 стран, в том числе российские, пришли к выводу, что распространение определенных популяций собак по этим регионам часто совпадало с путями миграции людей. Это говорит о том, что на протяжении как минимум последних 11 тысяч лет собаки были неотъемлемой частью человеческих сообществ.

Dogs have been part of human societies across Eurasia for at least 20,000 years, accompanying us through many social and cultural upheavals.
A new study by an international team, published in the journal Science, and led by Laurent Frantz, paleogeneticist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), shows that the spread of new cultures across Eurasia, with different lifeways, was often associated with the spread of specific dog populations.
Scientists from LMU, QMUL, the Kunming Institute of Zoology and Lanzhou University in China, and the University of Oxford, sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 17 ancient dogs from Siberia, East Asia, and the Central Asian Steppe - including, for the first time, specimens from China.
Important cultural changes occurred in these regions over the past 10,000 years, driven by the dispersal of hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists. The specimens came from archaeological sites between 9,700 and 870 years old. In addition, the researchers included publicly available genomes from 57 ancient and 160 modern dogs in their analyses.
Dogs followed metalworkers across the Eurasian steppe over 4,000 years ago
A comparison of ancient dog and human genomes reveals a striking concordance between genetic shifts in both species across time and space, most notably during periods of population turnover. This link is especially evident during China's transformative Early Bronze Age (~4,000 years ago), which saw the introduction of metalworking.
The research shows that the expansion of people from the Eurasian Steppe, who first introduced this transformative technology to Western China, also brought their dogs with them.
This pattern of human-dog co-movement extends back far beyond the Bronze Age. The research traces signals of co-dispersal back at least 11,000 years, when hunter-gatherers in northern Eurasia were exchanging dogs closely related to today's Siberian Huskies.
"Traces of these major cultural shifts can be teased out of the genomes of ancient dogs," says Dr. Lachie Scarsbrook (LMU/Oxford), one of the lead authors of the study.
"Our results highlight the deeply rooted cultural importance of dogs. Instead of just adopting local populations, people have maintained a distinct sense of ownership towards their own dogs for at least the past 11,000 years."
"This tight link between human and dog genetics shows that dogs were an integral part of society, whether you were a hunter-gatherer in the Arctic Circle 10,000 years ago or a metalworker in an early Chinese city," says Prof. Laurent Frantz.
"It's an amazing, enduring partnership and shows the sheer flexibility of the role dogs can play in our societies, far more than with any other domestic species."

Из найденных в 2010 году в Якутии мумифицированных останков мамонтенка Юки возрастом 39 тысяч лет удалось выделить молекулы рибонуклеиновой кислоты (РНК). Она разрушается гораздо быстрее, чем ДНК, поэтому случаев, когда ее удалось секвенировать, пока немного. Самым древним образцом до недавнего времени была РНК из останков волка возрастом 14 тысяч лет.
Анализ полученных последовательностей РНК Юки, проведенный международной исследовательской командой (Швеция, Дания, Норвегия, Австрия, Великобритания, Россия, США), указал на сильный метаболический стресс перед смертью, что подтверждает версию о гибели животного при нападении крупных хищников. Кроме того, мамонтенок, до этого считавшийся самкой, оказался мужского пола.

Over the past few decades, an explosion of research into ancient DNA has illuminated how long-gone creatures evolved and lived their lives. But genes alone can only tell a partial story. When and where a gene is active in a living creature can make all the difference to its biology - and that activity is recorded in DNA’s counterpart, RNA, which degrades much faster than DNA. Now, researchers say they have found these fragile molecules within woolly mammoths mummified for millennia in Siberian permafrost.
Published today in Cell, the results confirm that under the right conditions, RNA can be recovered from animals upward of 50,000 years old, potentially opening a new window on their biology. "It definitely is impressive," says Audrey Lin, an evolutionary biologist at the American Museum of Natural History who has studied RNA preserved in museum specimens but who wasn’t involved in the new work. Ancient RNA and DNA combined might explain, for example, why mammoths’ hair was so woolly or how they responded to stress. Lin notes it could also provide clues to the origin of RNA viruses such as influenza.
With few exceptions, all cells in the body have the same DNA, which contains a full set of molecular instructions for the organism. Copied from the DNA, RNA turns those instructions into specific orders to, say, build a protein or turn up or down the expression of another gene. If DNA is analogous to the blueprints of a building, RNA molecules are like the instructions given to a crew working on a particular room.
Whereas DNA can persist for hundreds of thousands of years, researchers thought RNA, because of its delicate structure and the many enzymes that attack it, was unlikely to persist even a fraction of that span. "If you look at molecular biology textbooks, they literally say that the RNA degrades within minutes or hours after death," says Stockholm University paleogeneticist Love Dalén, one of the new study’s senior authors. And as a result, he notes, few bothered to look for it.
Over the past few years, scientists have begun to chip away at that myth, finding scraps of RNA in ancient maize and barley seeds and in the tissue of a wolf frozen in permafrost. In 2023, Dalén and fellow Stockholm paleogeneticist Marc Friedländer announced they had sequenced RNA from a 132-year-old, museum-preserved body of a thylacine, a catlike marsupial also known as the Tasmanian tiger that went extinct in the early 20th century. Encouraged by these results, the scientists decided to see whether they could locate the elusive molecule even further back in time.
They partnered with colleagues at Russia’s Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha, who sent them tissue samples from 10 woolly mammoths found scattered around that country’s frigid northlands. These samples were minuscule, about the size of a fingernail, "so we knew we really only had one shot at looking for RNA," says lead author Emilio Mármol-Sánchez, who was then a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm but is now at the University of Copenhagen.
He and his colleagues used enzymes to convert any existing RNA molecules within the sample into short strands of DNA, then sequenced them and reverse-engineered what the corresponding RNA sequence must have been. After screening out contaminating material from environmental sources or modern handling, they succeeded in identifying ancient RNA from three of the 10 mammoths, each dated to between 39,000 and 52,000 years old. The Siberian deep freeze likely halted the molecules’ degradation very shortly after the animals died.
Although most of that RNA was chopped up and fragmentary, one mammoth in particular, nicknamed Yuka, preserved extraordinary detail. For one, the team spotted a few RNA sequences from genes only found on the Y chromosome. That came as a surprise: Scientists had thought Yuka was female.
Other RNA sequences recovered from Yuka contain instructions for building and maintaining muscle tissue. In one sense, Dalén says, that observation is "a bit boring," as those same genes are active in many other mammals. "But there might be in the future avenues where we find, for example, RNA from hair follicles," he adds, "and learn which genes made woolly mammoths woolly."
It's a hairy question - one that Dalén has tackled before. Earlier this year, a team including Dalén and evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro announced it had produced fuzzy mice, engineered to express hair-related genes that mimic the ones found in woolly mammoth DNA. That research was funded by the biotech firm Colossal Biosciences, which aims to recreate extinct species including woolly mammoths by genetically engineering related animals to have similar traits. (Dalén is a member of Colossal’s scientific advisory board; the company did not fund the new work.)
Overall, the results represent "an exciting step for paleogenomics," says Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer. "In the future, we might be able to use this approach to explore how gene expression differs between extinct and living species, or even between individual of the same extinct species."
Dalén hopes the methods outlined in the new work will inspire other teams to hunt for ancient RNA from other extinct creatures. "Here is a proof of concept that we can go far back into the last ice age, and probably even further back," he says. "That opens up all sorts of things."

Китайские и российские эксперты обменялись опытом в области трансграничного сохранения амурских тигров и леопардов.

Researchers from the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and the Land of Leopard National Park Russia Administration gathered on Friday in a core area of the shared border conservation zone for a study and exchange event.
The event for cross-border protection of Siberian tigers and Amur leopards took place in Hunchun City in northeast China's Jilin Province, home to a core area of the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park that shelters protected wildlife including Siberian tigers, leopards, sika deer and red-crowned cranes.
Covering a total area of 1.4 million hectares, the park established in October 2021 spans across mountainous areas in China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces and borders Russia's Primorsky Krai, with a 280-kilometer frontier between the two countries.
China and Russia have been committed to building cross-border wildlife corridors through the development of national parks, aiming to boost animal populations and reduce the risk of inbreeding.
The event attendees shared the latest research results and exchanged experiences in cross-border conservation of Siberian tigers and leopards.
Jishi Media Co., Ltd. has been tasked with developing an intelligent monitoring system for the national park.
"We have built 95 wireless communication base stations across the park to ensure signal coverage and deployed more than 28,000 infrared cameras," said Zhong Chengjun, a senior engineer of the company.
Cameras have frequently captured images of wildlife such as Siberian tigers, leopards and sika deer.
Zhong said the smart system can accurately monitor and identify individual tigers and leopards, allowing researchers to track their movement patterns.
Victor Bardyuk, director of the Land of the Leopard National Park Russia Administration, said that since the Russian national park was established in 2012, it has served the goal of saving the last surviving Amur leopard population in the world, and the number of Amur leopards has seen a significant increase.
"We look forward to carrying out fruitful ecological protection cooperation with China through this event, protecting the unique natural environment of Northeast Asia and deepening the friendship between the people of Russia and China," he said.

Совместная археологическая экспедиция Российского географического общества, Института археологии РАН и Института истории, археологии и этнологии Национальной академии наук Кыргызстана обследовала несколько участков затопленного археологического памятника Тору-Айгыр в прибрежной зоне озера Иссык-Куль. О подводных объектах на дне озера известно с XIX века, но активное их изучение началось сравнительно недавно. Найденные остатки средневекового могильника, обломки стен и фундаменты крупных построек указывают на то, что некогда здесь стоял город, ушедший под воду в начале XV века, вероятно, в результате сильного землетрясения. Людей в городе к этому времени уже не было, они покинули его раньше.

Archaeologists have discovered a drowned medieval city beneath the waters of a salt lake in northeast Kyrgyzstan.
The location was an important stop on one of the Silk Roads between China and the West during medieval times. But it's thought a city there was struck by a major earthquake in the 15th century, causing it to sink beneath the water. Now, researchers have found the remains of the drowned city while exploring submerged sites in Lake Issyk-Kul, high in the Tian Shan mountains near Kyrgyzstan's border with Kazakhstan, according to a statement from the Russian Geographical Society.
Sunken city
According to Kyrgyzstan's government, Issyk-Kul is one of the deepest lakes in the world, with parts reaching 2,300 feet (700 meters) below the surface. It has no river outlet and it is mildly salty. The researchers surveyed four submerged sites, between 3 feet and 13 feet (1 and 4 m) deep, near the northwest shore of the lake - the location in the Middle Ages of a mainly Muslim settlement called Toru-Aygyr.
"The monument under study is a city or a large commercial agglomeration on one of the important sections of the Silk Road," archaeologist Valerii Kolchenko, the head of the Kyrgyzstan contingent of researchers on the expedition, said in the statement. "At the beginning of the 15th century, as a result of a terrible earthquake, the city went under the waters of the lake … the tragedy can be compared to Pompeii."
The team discovered the remains of several now-submerged buildings made with kiln-fired bricks, including one that contained a millstone - evidence that it was once a mill for grain. They also found collapsed stone structures, wooden beams, and the remains of a public building with exterior decorations that may have been a mosque or Islamic school, known as a madrassa.
Medieval Muslim cemetery
One of the underwater sites revealed the remains of a Muslim cemetery that covered an area of roughly 14 acres (6 hectares) - about the size of 11 football fields. The team recovered the remains of two of the dead from the cemetery, and found that their faces had been turned toward the direction of Mecca, which is now in Saudi Arabia - a common practice in Muslim burials. Archaeologists think the cemetery dates to around the 13th century, when Islam was introduced to the region by the Golden Horde, a Mongol state that ruled much of central Asia from the 1240s until 1502. Before that, the region was ruled from the 10th century by the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty centered on Kyrgyzstan, the statement said.
Toru-Aygyr was a multicultural city when it was founded before the 13th century, expedition leader Maksim Menshikov, of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in the statement. "People here practiced various religions: pagan Tengrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity," he said. But the introduction of Islam changed the character of the city, he said, as people preferred to trade with other Muslims.
Another site in the sunken city yielded several pieces of medieval Muslim pottery, including a large and intact khum, or water jar, that the researchers plan to raise during a future expedition. Three burials were also found nearby, but these are thought to have been in an earlier, non-Islamic cemetery.
The researchers also discovered the remains of mud-brick buildings, and they carried out underwater drilling at the sites to take sediment cores that can be used to reconstruct the stages of the city's development, the statement said.

Первая из четырех российских испытательных установок доставлена на строительную площадку Международного термоядерного экспериментального реактора (ИТЭР) на юге Франции. Установка предназначена для вакуумных, тепловых и функциональных испытаний порт-плагов, ключевых диагностических элементов будущего реактора.

The test rig is designed for vacuum, thermal, and functional testing of port plugs, which are a key diagnostic element of the giant multinational fusion facility. It was manufactured in Bryansk in Russia by GKMP Research and Production Association, for the ITER Project Centre, which is part of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom.
Testing will now take place, with the aim being to try to replicate as closely as possible operational conditions.
Anatoly Krasilnikov, Director of the ITER Project Centre, said: "This test facility is one of the most complex and science-intensive systems in the scope of our responsibilities for the project. To develop and manufacture it, our key suppliers had to develop and implement cutting-edge innovative solutions."
ITER Project Manager Sergio Orlandi said the work demonstrated Russia's high industrial capabilities, "which ensured the project's completion on time, with the required quality, and within budget. I would like to express special gratitude to the Russian Federation specialists who provided expert supervision throughout all stages of the facility's design, procurement, and assembly. I also express my gratitude to Rosatom State Corporation for ensuring the creation of such a critical system".
ITER is a major international project to build a tokamak fusion device designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.
Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build ITER - the European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction began in 2010 and the original 2018 first plasma target date was put back to 2025 by the ITER council in 2016. However, in June last year, a revamped project plan was announced which aims for "a scientifically and technically robust initial phase of operations, including deuterium-deuterium fusion operation in 2035 followed by full magnetic energy and plasma current operation".

Исследователи из НИУ ВШЭ и Института космических исследований РАН проанализировали данные за семь лет с японского спутника ERG (Arase), запущенного в 2016 году для исследования магнитосферы Земли, и впервые представили детальное описание нового типа радиоизлучения. Излучение в диапазоне частот 600-1700 кГц было обнаружено в 2017 году, получило название гектометровый континуум и за прошедшие годы то исчезало, то снова появлялось. Ученые установили, что гектометровый континуум появлялся чаще всего летом и только ночью - через несколько часов после захода Солнца, исчезая через 1-3 часа после восхода. В середине 2022 года, когда возросла солнечная активность, излучение полностью исчезло и с тех пор не давало о себе знать.

Researchers from HSE University and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences analysed seven years of data from the ERG (Arase) satellite and, for the first time, provided a detailed description of a new type of radio emission from near-Earth space - the hectometric continuum, first discovered in 2017. The researchers found that this radiation appears a few hours after sunset and disappears one to three hours after sunrise. It was most frequently observed during the summer months and less often in spring and autumn. However, by mid-2022, when the Sun entered a phase of increased activity, the radiation had completely vanished - though the scientists believe the signal may reappear in the future. The study has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.
The Earth constantly emits radio waves - natural electromagnetic signals that occur in near-Earth space. Analysing these emissions helps scientists better understand how the Sun influences the magnetosphere, the region surrounding our planet where the magnetic field protects it from external forces.
Various types of radio emissions originate from within this region, one of which is the hectometric continuum (HMC), a narrowband natural radiation in the range of 600-1700 kHz - significantly lower than the broadcast frequencies of conventional radio stations. The sources of this radiation are located relatively close to Earth, at altitudes of about one to two Earth radii, where the magnetic field still governs the motion of charged particles. Such waves cannot be detected from the Earth's surface, as the dense layers of the ionosphere completely absorb them. Therefore, the HMC can only be observed with the help of spacecraft. For this reason, the hectometric continuum was discovered relatively recently - in 2017 - by the Japanese ERG (Arase) satellite. Since then, the signal has been recorded only sporadically, and a complete picture of its behaviour has yet to be established.
To characterise the properties of the HMC and uncover the mechanism behind its occurrence, researchers from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the HSE Faculty of Physics compiled all available satellite data to examine how this radiation evolved over time. To accomplish this, the scientists analysed about a thousand HMC observations collected between 2017 and 2023.
The results showed that the appearance of the signal is linked to processes occurring in the near-Earth plasma - a region filled with charged particles that move under the influence of Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind. According to the authors, the hectometric continuum arises from a phenomenon known as double plasma resonance, in which two types of oscillations in the plasma coincide: the plasma’s natural oscillations and the rotation of electrons around Earth’s magnetic field lines. This resonance creates an instability that causes the plasma to emit radio waves. Such emission requires specific conditions - a certain plasma density and the presence of high-energy, or "hot," electrons.
The researchers found that the radiation occurs only at night and disappears one to three hours after sunrise. They explain this by noting that morning solar radiation increases the plasma density, disrupting the conditions necessary for radio wave generation. Similarly, the signal does not appear immediately after sunset but only a few hours later, once the ionosphere has cooled and restored the conditions required to excite the HMC.
In addition to the daily cycle, the radiation exhibits seasonal variations: it was observed more frequently in summer and less often in spring and autumn. Since mid-2022, the signal has disappeared. The scientists attribute this to the Sun entering a more active phase, during which its surface showed more sunspots, radio emissions at a wavelength of 10.7 cm increased, and ultraviolet radiation levels rose. These changes altered the structure of the plasma, eliminating the conditions necessary for HMC generation.
"Interestingly, unlike other radio signals that are amplified during bursts of solar activity - such as auroral kilometric radiation associated with auroras - the hectometric continuum, in contrast, diminishes. Therefore, we expect that it may reappear in a few years, when solar activity declines," comments Alexander Chernyshov, Associate Professor at the Joint Department of Space Physics with the Space Research Institute (RAS).
The study not only contributes to a better understanding of Earth’s magnetosphere but also opens the possibility of testing whether similar radio emissions occur on exoplanets. Such emissions could indicate the presence of a planetary magnetic field, an important factor for preserving an atmosphere and, potentially, supporting the existence of life.

Морской хищник дунклеостей (Dunkleosteus terrelli), представитель пластинокожих рыб плакодерм, обитавший в морях девонского периода, насчитывал в длину более 4 метров, имел бронированную шкуру и один из самых внушительных ротовых аппаратов в животном мире с очень острыми костяными пластинами, заменявшими ему зубы. Однако последняя крупная работа, посвященная анатомии челюстей дунклеостея, относится к 1932 году. Опубликованная научным коллективом палеонтологов из США, Австралии, Великобритании и России новая статья содержит исследование биомеханики и подробную реконструкцию челюстного аппарата D. terrelli, позволившее сделать несколько неожиданных выводов.

About 360 million years ago, the shallow sea above present-day Cleveland was home to a fearsome apex predator: Dunkleosteus terrelli. This 14-foot armored fish ruled the Late Devonian seas with razor-sharp bone blades instead of teeth, making it among the largest and most ferocious arthrodires - an extinct group of shark-like fishes covered in bony armor across their head and torso.
Since its discovery in the 1860s, Dunkleosteus has captivated scientists and the public alike, becoming one of the most recognizable prehistoric animals. Casts of its bony-plated skull and imposing mouthparts can be seen on display in museums around the world. Despite its fame, this ancient predator has remained scientifically neglected for nearly a century.
Now an international team of researchers led by Case Western Reserve University has published a detailed study of Dunkleosteus in The Anatomical Record, revealing a new understanding of the ancient armored predator.
Despite being the literal "poster child" for the arthrodire group, Dunkleosteus actually was not like most of its kin, and was in fact, a bit of an oddball.
Filling a 90-year knowledge gap
"The last major work examining the jaw anatomy of Dunkleosteus in detail was published in 1932, when arthrodire anatomy was still poorly understood," said Russell Engelman, a graduate student in biology at Case Western Reserve and lead author. "Most of the work at that time focused on just figuring out how the bones fit back together."
Arthrodire fossils can be difficult to work with. Their remains are often crushed and flattened and had bodies mostly made of cartilage; only their bony head and torso armor are regularly preserved.
"Since the 1930s, there have been significant advances in our understanding of arthrodire anatomy, particularly from well-preserved fossils from Australia," Engelman said. "More recent studies have tried biomechanical modeling of Dunkleosteus, but no one has really gone back and looked at what the bones themselves say about muscle attachments and function."
The team, including researchers from Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Cleveland, has brought Dunkleosteus into the modern era of paleontology by analyzing specimens from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History - home to the world's largest and best-preserved collection of Dunkleosteus fossils.
Dunkleosteus likely lived around the world during the Devonian period, but conditions in Cleveland allowed for a bonanza of skeletal remains to be preserved in the ancient seafloor, now a layer of black shale rock exposed by area rivers and road construction projects.
Surprising discoveries
The researchers’ detailed anatomical analysis revealed several unexpected findings:
• A cartilage-heavy skull: Nearly half of Dunkleosteus’ skull was composed of cartilage, including most major jaw connections and muscle attachment sites - far more than previously assumed.
• Shark-like jaw muscles: The team identified a large bony channel housing a facial jaw muscle similar to those in modern sharks and rays, providing some of the best evidence for this feature in ancient fishes.
• An evolutionary oddball: Despite being the poster child for arthrodires, Dunkleosteus was unusual among its relatives. Most arthrodires had actual teeth, which Dunkleosteus and its close relatives lost in favor of their iconic bone blades.
Rewriting arthrodire evolution
Perhaps most importantly, the study places Dunkleosteus in proper evolutionary context. The bone-blade specializations of Dunkleosteus and its relatives reflect increasing adaptation for hunting other large fishes - features that evolved independently in other arthrodire groups as well. The blades allowed these predators to bite chunks out of large prey, Engelman explained.
"These discoveries highlight that arthrodires cannot be thought of as primitive, homogenous animals, but instead a highly diverse group of fishes that flourished and occupied many different ecological roles during their history," Engelman said.
The findings transform our understanding of both Dunkleosteus specifically and arthrodire diversity more broadly, showing that even the most famous fossils can still yield new insights.

Две примечательные археологические находки в Выборге внесли в историю города новые штрихи. Первая находка - пропавший в конце 19 века геральдический камень XV века, принадлежавший семье наместников шведского короля и вмонтированный некогда в одну из стен Выборгского замка. Камень обнаружился в несколько неожиданном месте: он использовался как крышка запечатанного канализационного коллектора рядом с замком. Вторая находка - обнаруженное на Северном валу Выборгского замка оружие XIX века, похожее на традиционный кавказский кинжал каму.

Archaeologists in Vyborg, Russia have uncovered two remarkable artifacts that reshape the city’s connection to its medieval and post-medieval past. A long-lost 15th-century Swedish heraldic stone - once belonging to the influential Tott family, governors representing the Swedish crown - was rediscovered in the most unexpected place: a sewer collector near Vyborg Castle.
Shortly afterward, workers strengthening an embankment in the city center stumbled upon a 19th-century dagger resembling the traditional Caucasian kama. Together, these chance discoveries highlight how layers of history continue to emerge from beneath Vyborg’s streets, offering fresh insight into the region’s political and cultural legacy.
According to Alexander Smirnov, director of the Monrepos Park Museum and research fellow at the Center for Rescue Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), some of the most significant finds related to Vyborg Castle were uncovered far beyond the castle walls - and purely by chance. His interview was published on November 19 by the Center’s public page "ArcheoCode."
A 15th-Century Heraldic Stone Rediscovered After a Century
The story begins in the late 19th century, when young researcher Alfred Hackman conducted the first systematic archaeological assessment of Vyborg Castle. During his work, he sketched a mysterious stone slab embedded in one of the castle’s walls. Though his drawing survived, the stone itself was believed lost for more than 100 years.
That changed when archaeologists examined a one-story building from the 1770s located across the water from the castle. During routine excavation, they uncovered a sealed sewer collector. When the heavy stone lid was turned over and cleaned, the team made a stunning realization: the slab was in fact the long-lost heraldic stone of the Tott family, governors of the Swedish king in Vyborg. The stone originally adorned the royal chambers in the 1450s.
This knightly coat of arms, with its helmet and feathers, likely reflects a 15th-century regional style that may differ from the more commonly depicted Tott family emblems.
"A real knightly coat of arms, complete with a helmet and feathers," Smirnov explains. "Hackman didn’t fully understand what he had found, but his pencil drawing matches the rediscovered slab perfectly. A 15th-century knightly emblem - this is genuine, high-quality Medieval heritage that deserves a central place in the museum.
New Theories About Vyborg’s Early Development
Smirnov also discussed broader archaeological research that has challenged long-held assumptions about Vyborg’s emergence as a city. Years of excavations have led archaeologists to a surprising hypothesis: at the moment Vyborg officially received city status, it may not have been a true city at all. Instead, findings suggest the presence of only the fortified castle and several impoverished fishing settlements around it.
This reinterpretation of Vyborg’s early development could redefine how historians understand the region’s political and social structure during the Middle Ages.
Conservation Efforts and Another Accidental Find
Archaeological activity continues across Vyborg. Conservation work is currently underway at the Old Cathedral, where specialists are stabilizing the ancient masonry. Meanwhile, another remarkable discovery occurred during slope reinforcement on Severnij Val Street in the city center.
Workers uncovered an antique dagger at a depth of about one meter, prompting immediate interest from regional authorities. The Government of Leningrad Region confirmed the find on November 2.
"The dagger is now undergoing restoration and examination by specialists at Vyborg Castle," said Vladimir Tsoy, Deputy Chairman of the regional government. "If its historical value is confirmed, it will become part of the museum’s collection and reveal yet another chapter of Vyborg’s past."
Preliminary assessments indicate that the dagger dates back to the 19th century. Its shape resembles the Caucasian "kama," a double-edged dagger whose name - borrowed from the Ottoman language - refers to this traditional weapon type.
A City Where History Surfaces in Unexpected Places
The rediscovery of the Tott family’s heraldic stone and the recent unearthing of a 19th-century kama-style dagger highlight the archaeological richness of Vyborg. These finds demonstrate how traces of the city’s medieval and post-medieval life continue to surface in unexpected locations - from castle fortifications to ordinary sewer structures and urban construction sites.
As research progresses, archaeologists believe even more revelations await, promising to deepen public understanding of a city whose layered history spans Swedish knights, medieval fortresses, and multicultural influence.

Исследователи Института археологии и этнографии СО РАН впервые применили неинвазивный метод компьютерной микротомографии для изучения игольников из трубчатых птичьих костей возрастом 5 тысяч лет. Такие игольники были широко распространены среди коренных народов Сибири и использовались вплоть до начала XX века. Внутри экземпляров, найденных в неолитических погребениях, ученые обнаружили не только сами иглы (тоже костяные), но и бусины из раковин моллюсков, что указывает на высокую мобильность древних сообществ.

Russian archaeologists in Siberia have used computer microtomography (CT) for the first time to study the contents of 5,000-year-old bird-bone needle cases and have found shell beads inside, according to recent research.
The discovery offers new insights into the material culture of Siberia's Neolithic population, suggesting that ancient communities were highly mobile, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences said Monday.
Similar needle cases were well known in the region among indigenous peoples in the 19th and early 20th centuries, demonstrating a continuity of technology from the Neolithic to modern times, the institute noted.
The needle cases, made from bird bones, were initially unearthed in the Baikal region in the early 1950s and are now kept in the institute's museum. Researchers used the non-invasive CT method to examine the sealed contents and reconstruct how the cases were worn.
Two of the cases were filled with soil, preserving their contents in their original position. The scans also revealed beads made from mollusk shells, the institute said.
The results of the study, supported by the Russian Science Foundation, were published in the international journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, it added.

Более 4 тысяч лет назад представители окуневской культуры, жившие на юге Сибири, приносили в жертву крупный рогатый скот и закапывали головы животных рядом с человеческими погребениями, а также изображали эти головы на каменных стелах и плитах. Археологи из России и Германии пришли к выводу, что эти действия являются проявлениями одного и того же ритуала, имеющего целью помочь умершему попасть в загробный мир. Ученые также реконструировали этапы этого сложного ритуала.

A study analyzes for the first time the representations of bull heads in rock art and the skulls buried in graves of the Okunev culture, revealing a complex sacrificial ritual with parallels in other cultures of the Eurasian steppe.
More than 4,000 years ago, in the steppes of southern Siberia, a pastoral people carried out a ritual that archaeologists are only now beginning to decipher: they sacrificed livestock, buried their heads in pits near human graves, and depicted those same heads on stones and stelae. They believed that the animal, symbolized by its head, would accompany the deceased on their journey to the other world.
This is the main conclusion of a study published in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia by archaeologists Yury N. Esin and Andrey V. Poliakov. The study analyzes for the first time, jointly, two types of evidence: cattle-head images carved into rocks and the actual skulls of these animals found in ritual pits.
"The comparison of the isolated animal-head images and the animal skulls in ritual pits, both attributed to the Okunev culture, allows us to explain the former and broaden the context for understanding the latter", the authors note. "This comparison shows that both groups of materials are different manifestations of the same circle of beliefs and ritual actions."
The Okunev Culture: An Enigma in the Siberian Steppe
The Okunev culture existed in the Minusinsk Basin, in southern Siberia, during the Bronze Age, approximately between 2600 and 1700 BCE. Its origin remains debated. Some experts believe they were local hunter-gatherers who adopted animal husbandry from the earlier Afanasiev culture. Others argue that they arrived in the region as new pastoral groups from the west.
What is clear is that they developed a rich artistic tradition and a complex cosmology. Their imposing stone stelae, often decorated with three-tiered deity faces, suggest a view of the universe structured into three parts: sky, earth, and the underworld.
In this context, livestock - especially bovids - was not only a food source but also a central element in their rituals and beliefs.
The research team meticulously documented representations of cattle heads on rock panels, stelae, and slabs. On Mount Ilinskaya, for example, two carved bull heads were found on a rock, oriented toward the mountain summit. On a stele near the village of Moskovskoye, two cattle heads were engraved at the bottom, one of them marked with a cross.
A particularly striking find was a bull head carved on a stele near the village of Iyus. The head, which looks directly at the viewer, features a circle engraved on the forehead, a detail that later proved key in linking the art to the ritual practice.
But they did not only depict isolated heads. Often, in full animal figures, the head appeared deliberately separated from the body by a transverse line across the neck. In other cases, only the head and front legs were represented. The researchers even identified a specific artistic style, the Razliv style, with figures of highly stylized, slender bodies sometimes decorated with what appear to be bird wings.
The Ritual Pits: The Burial of the Actual Heads
Parallel to these images, archaeological excavations have uncovered pits containing cattle skulls. The first was discovered in 1965, and since then 15 pits and two graves have been identified at seven different sites.
One of the most spectacular discoveries took place at the Baza Mintorga cemetery, where ten ritual pits were found next to five Okunev graves. One of them contained seven cattle skulls, six of them placed in pairs facing opposite directions, with their front hooves laid beside them. Another pit contained a horse skull and a ram skull.
At the Itkol II site, archaeologists discovered a pit with the skulls and hooves of eight bovids, stacked in several layers and covered with stone slabs. One of the skulls, found in a burial mound, displayed a circular red paint mark on the frontal bone - direct evidence that the animal was painted before the sacrifice.
"The circular red pigment mark on the frontal bone of the skull from Mound 1 at Itkol II corresponds to the circle engraved on the forehead of a front-facing bull depicted on a stele near the village of Iyus," Esin and Poliakov explain. This finding establishes a direct and incontrovertible link between the art and the ritual.
Reconstructing the Ritual: From Preparation to the Afterlife
The combination of this evidence allows archaeologists to reconstruct the stages of this complex sacrificial ritual.
1. Selection and preparation: Animals - often oxen (castrated males used as draft animals) - were chosen, suggesting that the sacrifice carried significant economic cost. The animals were decorated with paint, as evidenced by the skull with the red mark, and given adorned collars, as shown in artistic representations.
2. The sacrifice: The researchers propose that the probable method of death was asphyxiation using the same collar. This practice, documented in other pastoral cultures such as the Scythians, avoids damaging the skull and leaves few marks on the bones. The animal was tied to a wooden post for immobilization. Next to the post, a large pit filled with stones was dug, believed to have served to drain blood and fluids during butchering.
3. The butchering and the offering: The body of the animal was divided into three main parts, a division represented in the art and found in the remains of a bull at Ust-Kamyshta-1. The researchers suggest that these three parts may symbolically correspond to the three levels of the Okunev universe. The meat was likely consumed in a ritual feast, and parts of it were burned at nearby altars as offerings to the gods and ancestors.
4. The burial of the head and the journey to the afterlife: The head, considered the most important part as the receptacle of the animal’s soul, was buried in a pit near human graves, often oriented east or northeast, the direction of sunrise. The front hooves were deposited beside it. This act was not simply a food offering but symbolized the sacrifice of the entire animal. It was believed that the animal would accompany the deceased on their journey to the other world, a journey associated with the trajectory of the sun.
"The animal destined for sacrifice was undoubtedly prepared to participate in the ritual. Part of this preparation involved the application of paint, traces of which remain on the skull from Mound 1 at Itkol II," the study details.
Parallels in the Steppe: A Widely Diffused Ritual
This ritual was not exclusive to the Okunev. The authors of the study identify striking parallels in other cultures of the Eurasian steppe.
The oldest and closest parallels appear in the Catacomb culture, which developed in the northwestern Caspian region around the same period. There, cattle heads with hooves were also buried in pits near burial mounds. This similarity, together with other parallels in tomb types and cranial deformations, suggests cultural contact or even a possible migration of groups from the west to Siberia.
Later, in the Deer Stone culture of Mongolia (late second millennium BCE), the ritual reappears, but with a significant change: the horse replaces cattle as the main sacrificial animal. There, horse heads are buried east of the graves, oriented toward the rising sun, with the same purpose of accompanying the deceased.
The study also finds echoes of this ritual in ancient Indo-Aryan texts, where the sacrifice of an animal was an act of cosmic creation and its parts were identified with different parts of the universe.
The research shows that Okunev rock art and stelae were not merely decorative expressions but formed an integral part of their belief system and ritual practices. The images of cattle heads and stylized animals in the Razliv style did not represent real beasts but probably their souls, stripped of flesh and endowed with wings for their ascent to the sky.
"A special group of cattle engravings, distinguished by their bodies and heads lacking volume and flesh, and sometimes endowed with wings, can be interpreted as representations of their souls capable of moving through the sky and, presumably, helping the deceased reach the other world," the authors conclude.
The ritual sacrifice of livestock was therefore a profoundly symbolic act that ensured the passage of the deceased, reflected a complex cosmology, and reinforced the bond between the living, the dead, the animals they raised, and the cosmos they inhabited. A silent testimony, carved in stone and buried in the earth, that 4,000 years later is beginning to reveal its secrets.

В Южно-Уральском государственном университете создали и запатентовали компьютерную программу, позволяющую использовать лишнее тепло, выделяемое солнечными панелями, для опреснения морской и грунтовой воды.

Russian scientists have developed and patented a computer program that uses waste heat from solar panels to desalinate seawater and groundwater, TASS news agency reported on Friday.
According to Olga Kornyakova, a lecturer at South Ural State University's (SUSU) Department of Industrial Heat Power Engineering, the new software is expected to be in demand among industrial facilities involved in chemical water treatment.
She noted that the program addresses the long-standing problem of excess heat produced by solar panel installations, allowing this previously unused thermal energy to be fed into a desalination device.
Kornyakova explained that SUSU researchers had patented a device capable of purifying seawater and groundwater using electricity generated by solar panels. In the past, she said, solar panels would heat up during operations, releasing waste heat that went unused. With the new system, special heating elements are connected to the panels to absorb this thermal energy.
The software automatically collects digital data from these heating elements, calculates temperatures, and displays the water temperature. Researchers said this integration allows the panel-generated water heat to warm other heat-transfer media as well.
Kornyakova added that the program, written in Python, is user-friendly and does not require specialized training. The development is expected to benefit enterprises engaged in chemical water purification and facilities operations powered by renewable energy sources.

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