Июль 2026 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• HSE researchers determine which internet users are more likely to fact-check
• Early Abbasid silver coin hoard found on Baltic coast traces early trade between the Baltic and the Islamic world
• Archaeologists find a 1,000-year-old amulet depicting a fantastical beast
• Will Russia’s answer to the Falcon 9 rocket ever take flight?
• New wasp species honors Hemingway in pest control effort
• Scientists reveal maximum age humans could live to if we can cure ageing
• A tiny silver door to the afterlife? Muroma teenager's grave explored
• Supersized glassy shell of microalgae reveals optical effect valuable for medical imaging
• Boldly going in different directions? US and Russia diverge on joint space plans

Исследователи Института статистических исследований и экономики знаний ВШЭ изучили способы, используемые российскими интернет-пользователями для проверки потенциально недостоверной информации, и факторы, побуждающие их к этому. Исследование показало, что более половины пользователей, столкнувшиеся с сомнительным контентом, пытаются его проверять. Самые распространенные способы - поиск первоисточника, выяснение достоверности автора и отдельных деталей сообщения, сравнение нескольких источников. На вероятность проверки фактов влияют возраст, место жительства, социальный статус и уровень информационной грамотности, а вот пол, уровень образования и частота использования интернета роли практически не играют.

Researchers at HSE University examined the strategies employed by Russian internet users to verify unreliable information and the factors that motivate them to do so. The study found that more than half of users who encounter potentially false information online attempt to verify it by locating the original source. The likelihood of fact-checking is influenced by several factors, including age, place of residence, social status, information literacy skills, and the use of AI. The findings have been published in Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes.
The digital environment is becoming increasingly saturated with content. According to experts, the amount of data generated and consumed daily exceeds 220 zettabytes in 2026 (one zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes). At the same time, the volume of unreliable content continues to grow. This issue has become particularly pronounced in recent years due to the rapid expansion of social media and the widespread adoption of AI technologies capable of generating plausible texts, images, and videos. As a result, users increasingly need to determine for themselves whether the information they encounter can be trusted.
Researchers at the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) investigated how often Russians encounter unreliable information online, the tactics they use to verify it, and which groups of users are most likely to engage in fact-checking.
The study drew on data from two waves of the Monitoring of Digital Transformation of the Economy and Society, nationwide surveys conducted by HSE ISSEK in 2022 and 2024, each involving more than 10,000 Russians aged 14 and older. For the analysis, the researchers focused on respondents who reported encountering false information online, representing about half of the country’s internet users. The data was analysed using binary logistic regression, a statistical method that made it possible to assess the likelihood of respondents employing at least one fact-checking tactic.
The study found that about half of Russian internet users have encountered potentially false information online, and more than half of those users have attempted to verify it.
The most common verification tactic is searching for the primary source of information, which is employed by about one-third of users. Around a quarter check the credibility of the original poster. Other methods include verifying specific details such as dates and names, discussing the content with others, and comparing accounts of the same event across different online sources. Notably, only a small proportion of users - about 3% - rely on fact-checking services such as Snopes.
The results of the analysis indicate that younger users are more likely to verify information than older individuals. Fact-checking behaviour is also influenced by place of residence: users in Moscow and St Petersburg are significantly more likely to verify content than others, while no substantial differences were found between residents of other million-plus cities and those in smaller communities. Another factor affecting levels of trust in information is income: middle- and high-income users are more likely to question the accuracy of the content they encounter.
"These results indicate the existence of digital inequality: older people, residents of smaller towns and rural areas, and low-income users are more vulnerable to online manipulation," said study co-author Liliya Kuzina, Junior Research Fellow at HSE ISSEK.
Those with a high level of openness to technology who regularly work with information online are also better protected against unreliable content. However, gender, level of education, and frequency of internet use have little to no effect on the likelihood of fact-checking.
"It is important to understand that fact-checking is not an automatic consequence of online activity but a deliberate practice. Passive scrolling does not foster critical thinking. Moreover, spending excessive time online can further contribute to the spread of false information," explains study co-author Evgenii Popov, Research Fellow at the HSE ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation.
The role of AI is of particular interest. According to the authors, AI can become an important tool in countering misinformation, for example through built-in features for verifying sources and assessing the authenticity of content. However, this requires users to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to engage with information in a more conscious and deliberate way.

При раскопках древнего поселения недалеко от Калининградского залива сотрудники Института археологии РАН обнаружили клад из 59 серебряных монет Багдадского халифата, выпущенных между 746 и 815 гг. Судя по возрасту, состоянию и месту чеканки монет, в Балтийский регион они попали в разное время и разными путями, прежде чем оказаться закопанными в одном месте. Находка свидетельствует о том, что в IX в. жители этих мест активно участвовали в торговле с мусульманским Востоком.

Archaeologists have uncovered a hoard of 59 Islamic silver coins near the Kaliningrad Lagoon, offering new evidence of trade between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Baltic region during the early Middle Ages. The coins date from CE 746 to 815, placing them among the earliest known Islamic silver finds in Eastern Europe.
The hoard was found during excavations by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The team worked at an ancient settlement about 1.2 kilometers from the Kaliningrad Lagoon. People first settled there in the 8th century, and the site stayed occupied until the 12th century.
Researchers identified one coin from the reign of Marwan II, the last Umayyad caliph. The other 58 coins were issued under the Abbasid Caliphate after CE 750. Most were minted during the rule of Harun al-Rashid, who led the Abbasid state from CE 786 to 809.
The hoard includes 29 complete dirhams and 30 coin fragments. Many fragments are cut halves, a common form of silver used in trade. Several coins have small holes, showing they were worn as jewelry. Others carry small cuts along the edges, marks made to test whether the silver was genuine.
Researchers found clear differences between the complete coins and the fragments. They vary in age, condition, and place of origin. This pattern suggests the silver reached the Baltic through more than one trade route before people buried the collection. Most complete coins came from Madinat al-Salam, today’s Baghdad, where 25 dirhams were struck. Other coins came from al-Kufa, Nishapur, and al-Muhammadiyah, showing the wide reach of the Abbasid minting system. The fragments came from an even larger area. Some were produced in al-Basra and al-Kufa. The easternmost coin came from Madinat Zarang in present-day Afghanistan. The oldest coin in the hoard was minted in Wasit, in modern Iraq, during the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate.
Islamic silver coins began reaching Northern and Eastern Europe in the late 8th century. During the 9th and 10th centuries, merchants carried large amounts of silver across routes linking the Islamic world with the Baltic. Viking traders and other merchant groups took part in these networks. People across northern Europe used dirhams as money. They also cut many of them into pieces and melted them for making jewelry and other silver objects. The coins became part of daily trade far from the places where they were minted.
Only about twenty coin hoards buried between the 780s and 830s are known from Sweden, northern Poland, Estonia, Russia, and the Kaliningrad region. Many were found years ago and survive only in part, leaving gaps in the record.
The Kaliningrad region has produced single Islamic coins before, though most date from the 10th century. Two earlier hoards were known, yet one was incomplete and the other lacked enough archaeological records to determine when people buried the coins.
This newly recovered hoard stands apart because archaeologists recorded the find carefully during excavation. The well-preserved archaeological setting gives a clearer picture of how silver moved through the Sambia region during the 9th century. The find adds fresh evidence for long-distance trade linking the Islamic world with communities along the Baltic coast.

При раскопках в историческом районе Пскова Завеличье археологи обнаружили обломки женской подвески, изображающей фантастическое животное. Такие украшения, игравшие роль оберегов, были распространены в XI-XII веках в центре и на севере Древней Руси, а также в Прибалтике. Археологи обычно называют их «смоленскими коньками», однако какое животное в действительности изображает амулет, до сих пор неясно - анатомические особенности не позволяют однозначно идентифицировать прототип.

Archaeologists excavating the historic Zavelychye district of Pskov in northwestern Russia have uncovered the broken head of a medieval pendant depicting a mysterious animal. Although most of the object is missing, specialists identified it as part of a well-known class of women’s amulets generally dated to the 11th and early 12th centuries.
The fragment was discovered at the Olginsky-10 excavation on Paromenskaya Street during the 2026 field season. According to the Pskov Region Archaeological Center, its original appearance can be reconstructed from complete examples found in Pskov, the Smolensk region, other parts of medieval Rus’ and the eastern Baltic.
A Medieval Ornament Worn for Protection
Complete pendants of this type show a compact four-legged creature with an elongated head and a tail curved upward to form a suspension loop. Surviving examples were often cast from non-ferrous metal and sometimes decorated with simple geometric patterns.
Archaeologists commonly call them "Smolensk-type horse pendants" because large numbers have been recovered in the Smolensk region. Another major concentration is known from the lower Daugava River, particularly in territories associated with the medieval Livs. Research from Latvia has documented dozens of examples, including pendants that appear to have been produced locally.
The ornaments were usually worn by women on the chest or suspended from a belt, often alongside other pendants. Their archaeological context and design suggest that they functioned as both jewellery and protective amulets.
Most date from the 11th to the first half of the 12th century, although related pieces have also been recorded in archaeological deposits from the 13th and 14th centuries.
Horse, Predator or Mythical Leucrota?
The identity of the animal has long been debated. Scholars have interpreted it as a horse, dog, leopard or lynx. The conventional horse label remains widely used, but the creature’s oversized head, unusual mouth and mixed anatomical features differ from more recognizable medieval horse images.
Latvian archaeologist Roberts Spirģis proposed that the pendants may instead represent the leucrota, a fabulous animal described in ancient literature and later medieval bestiaries.
Pliny the Elder portrayed the leucrota as a creature from India combining characteristics of a lion, stag and donkey. It supposedly possessed an exceptionally wide mouth and a continuous bone ridge instead of separate teeth. Ancient accounts also claimed that it could run at extraordinary speed and imitate the human voice.
Spirģis argued that the medieval bestiary tradition offers a closer visual parallel for the pendants than an ordinary horse. He also connected the image with the spread of Christianity, challenging earlier interpretations that treated the ornament solely as a survival of pagan horse symbolism.
The identification remains a hypothesis. However, it may explain how the same unusual creature appeared among communities connected through trade and cultural exchange across the eastern Baltic.
A complete version of the pendant has served as the emblem of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2004.
New Evidence from Pskov’s Zavelychye District
The discovery also contributes to a changing understanding of Zavelychye. Located on the western bank of the Velikaya River, opposite Pskov’s historic centre, the district was once considered a peripheral medieval suburb.
Excavations conducted since the early 21st century have instead revealed wealthy urban estates dating to the 11th and 12th centuries. Earlier investigations uncovered domestic compounds, a stone-paved road and objects associated with armed conflict.
Archaeologists believe parts of northern Zavelychye were destroyed during attacks in the first half of the 13th century. Excavations on Paromenskaya Street in 2026 have also produced handmade pottery fragments dating to the third quarter of the first millennium CE, indicating activity in the area centuries before the medieval neighbourhood reached its height.
Only the head of the newly discovered amulet survives. Yet its recognizable form connects one medieval Pskov resident with a wider world of personal adornment, protective belief and shared imagery stretching from Smolensk to the lower Daugava.

В 2020 г. Роскосмос представил планы по разработке многоразовой ракеты-носителя среднего класса «Амур-СПГ». Запуск планировался на 2026 г. Теперь запуск экспериментального образца перенесен на 2028 г., а летные испытания - на 2031 г.

Last week, China joined the club of countries that have launched an orbital mission and brought its booster safely back to Earth, which is just the beginning of public and private ventures in that country aggressively pushing into rocket reuse. Also in Asia, Japan’s space agency has been conducting hop tests, and Honda recently performed vertical reuse tests.
In the United States, of course, SpaceX launches and lands reusable rockets every few days. Blue Origin, although its New Glenn booster is temporarily grounded, has also demonstrated the ability to both land and re-launch a large orbital booster. Other US companies, including Stoke Space, Rocket Lab, and Relativity Space, are all making credible progress toward partially or fully reusable rockets.
So what about Russia, which boasts a storied history of spaceflight and conducted the world’s first orbital launch nearly seven decades ago? There was some news this week from Russian space officials, but it does not exactly bolster confidence.
Waiting on Amur
Nearly six years have now passed since the state-backed Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, unveiled plans to develop a reusable rocket called "Amur-LNG." Clearly designed in response to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Amur was intended to have a reusable first stage, methane-powered engines, and be capable of delivering 10.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in reusable mode.
At the time, Russian space officials said they planned to debut the rocket in 2026, so basically right about now.
This week, in an interview with the RBC business publication, a senior Russian rocket official provided some new information about the developmental timeline for the Amur rocket. Dmitry Baranov, Roscosmos’ Deputy Director General for Rocket Programs, said the current focus is on developing a "demonstrator" for the first stage of the rocket.
This hopper vehicle, likely reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper test bed, is intended to undergo two tests beginning in 2028. During the first of these, the vehicle will rise to an altitude of less than 1 km, with its engine running the whole time, before returning to the location it launched from. The second test will be more ambitious, with the rocket launching to 10km, shutting off its engine, and then restarting to land on deployable legs.
Such a timeline seems plausible, as Russian officials have previously disclosed that the RD-0169A rocket engine intended to power the Amur rocket is in the preliminary stages of test firings.
Soyuz 2 is probably safe for now
The goal is for this vehicle to, in Baranov’s words, "definitely and fairly quickly" replace the Soyuz 2 rocket that is presently the workhorse of the Russian space program. This rocket is currently used for both Russian crew and cargo launches to the International Space Station.
When might that happen? Baranov did not offer a new target date in the interview. But earlier this year, we got an indication from the Roscosmos State Corporation’s booth at the International Security Forum in May. A placard about the Amur-LNG rocket indicated that it would begin flight tests in 2031.
To summarize, when the Amur rocket was announced in 2020, its flight date was scheduled for 2026. Some six years later, its projected launch date has moved five years into the future.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Russia’s answer to the Falcon 9 rocket will not arrive any time soon, and it is unlikely to do so until at least two decades after SpaceX first landed an orbital rocket.

Коллектив биологов из Китая, Франции и России впервые зарегистрировал на территории Китая вид ос-наездников семейства эвритомид - Eurytoma curculionum, а также открыл совершенно новый вид семейства птеромалид, получивший название Chlorocytus papahemii - в честь Эрнеста Хемингуэя. Оба вида являются естественными врагами жука-долгоносика (Lixus subtilis) - вредителя, наносящего ущерб сельскохозяйственным культурам, особенно сахарной свекле, в Центральной и Восточной Европе, на Кавказе, в Малой Азии и Китае.

"The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for." - Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940.
Earth remains full of undiscovered species and unexplored interactions that continue to fascinate us, including, in the most ordinary of places, the fields where our food is grown.
The weevil beetle Lixus subtilis is a highly destructive insect that frequently damages agricultural crops, particularly sugar beets, across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and China. Until now, scientific understanding of this beetle's natural parasitic complexes, specifically the complete food chains involving parasitoids and hyperparasitoids (parasites of parasites) has been very limited. "However, developing biological methods of controlling plant pests should be based on an understanding of real, comprehensive regulatory systems within complete food chains." the researchers emphasise in the article.
To investigate these relationships, researchers from Xinjiang University in China, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences joined forces on a collaborative study, now published in the open-access, peer-reviewed ZooKeys journal.
The team conducted field research in the sugar beet fields of Yining City and Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County in China's Xinjiang region, an area that has experienced repeated outbreaks of the weevil pest. By carefully collecting damaged sugar beet leaf petioles and rearing the infected larvae in laboratory climate chambers, the scientists made two significant discoveries about the local wasp populations.
First, they recorded Eurytoma curculionum, a wasp that is already known to parasitise weevil larvae, in China for the very first time. Second, and more strikingly, they discovered an entirely new species of pteromalid wasp.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
The research team officially named the newly discovered wasp Chlorocytus papahemii, in honor of Ernest Hemingway, one of the most prominent literary figures of the 20th century.
Beyond its striking iridescent coloring, what makes Chlorocytus papahemii especially interesting is its behaviour: rather than attacking the crop-destroying weevil directly, it is a hyperparasitoid, meaning that it is parasitising Eurytoma curculionum, the very wasp that preys on the weevil. This highly specialised behavior places hyperparasitoids at a complex fourth trophic level within ecosystems, one that can complicate biological control efforts, since hyperparasitoids often kill the beneficial primary parasitoids.
By meticulously documenting the morphology and biology of both wasp species, the study sheds new light on the hidden ecological dynamics at work in agricultural fields, particularly within economically important sugar beet crops. This work paves the way for more advanced, biologically informed strategies to manage weevil outbreaks and protect vital crop yields.

Коллектив ученых из Сколковского института науки и технологий создал математическую модель, позволяющую количественно оценить, насколько те или иные механизмы старения могут сократить жизнь человека. Главным ограничивающим фактором оказались соматические мутации - случайные изменения ДНК, накапливающиеся в клетках с возрастом. Даже если устранить все остальные процессы старения, соматические мутации не позволят прожить больше 146-194 лет.

Human lifespan may ultimately be capped at about 200 years even if advanced anti-ageing treatments come to fruition in the future, according to a new study.
Russian scientists attempted to understand if there was a hard limit on how long humans could live if every major cause of ageing was eliminated except for DNA changes in cells called somatic mutations. DNA mutations tend to accumulate over a lifetime as cells divide or as they suffer damage from metabolism or environmental exposures and this important factor of ageing is hard to eliminate. In the latest study, scientists describe a mathematical model for simulating how different organs deteriorate as somatic mutations accumulate over time.
Researchers simulated an ideal scenario in which other key contributing factors of ageing, such as chronic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and the build-up of aged cells, could be reversed.
"We developed an incremental modelling framework that progressively incorporates factors contributing to ageing into a model of population survival dynamics, which we used to estimate lifespan limits if all ageing hallmarks were eliminated except somatic mutations," they said in the study published in the journal NPJ Ageing.
The study shows that different organs tend to respond very differently to DNA mutation damage. The brain and the heart are particularly vulnerable as some of their critical cells are irreplaceable and rarely divide or get replaced after birth. The liver, in contrast, constantly replaces senescent, worn-out cells.
When researchers combined the simulations of various organs into a single model, they found that humans experiencing only mutation-driven ageing could attain a median lifespan of 146-194 years.
"Our results suggest that even if all hallmarks of ageing were eliminated except for somatic mutations, median human lifespan would reach 146 to 194 years, roughly twice the current 79 years," they wrote in the study.
"This approximate two-fold gap in median survival indicates that other hallmarks of ageing likely contribute at least as much to limiting human lifespan as somatic mutations do."
Researchers, however, caution that their findings depend strongly on assumptions about how organs interact and fail. They warn that the findings must be interpreted as theoretical as the study is not an experimental demonstration.
The findings mainly try to establish that DNA mutations will remain the biggest obstacle if future medicine is able to eliminate every reversible aspect of ageing. The study further shows how much individual ageing mechanisms tend to contribute to overall lifespan.
"Our work provides a critical first step towards dissecting ageing into quantifiable mechanistic components," scientists wrote.
"Ultimately, incorporating other major ageing factors could pave the way to a comprehensive, mechanistic theory of ageing."

В средневековом захоронении финно-угорского народа мурома, обнаруженном в Нижегородской области и предварительно датированным концом VII - началом VIII вв., археологи обнаружили необычный предмет. Девочка-подросток или молодая девушка была похоронена с крупным серебряным диском на груди. В центре диска имелось отверстие с откидной крышкой. По одной из версий, диск мог играть роль «двери» в загробный мир - во время погребальной церемонии крышку открывали, чтобы душа могла покинуть тело.

An early medieval Muroma burial ground in western Russia has yielded the discovery of an exquisitely outfitted grave of a young female, which includes an exceptionally stunning silver decoration that was presumably meant to symbolize her transition through the gate for her soul as a part of her burial.
The unique artifact, discovered at the Zvyagino burial site located in the Vachsky District in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia, is a sizable disc-shaped silver plate consisting of a smaller circular lid affixed centrally to its body. It is speculated that the lid may have been opened to a certain extent during the burial rites, thus serving to convert the decoration into a door through which departed souls pass.
The burial can be tentatively dated to the late seventh or early eighth century, which makes it one of the earliest graves currently studied at the cemetery. It seems the deceased was a young female who was buried with an ornate ceremonial dress that featured many decorations.
A Young Woman Buried in Ceremonial Dress
Archaeologists recovered elements of a complex headdress, temple rings, a forehead band, leather strips decorated with metal fittings, and two rigid neck rings. Greenish traces of oxidized metal preserved in the soil also revealed the outline of a garment once covered with tiny beads.
According to Anastasia Shvetsova, head of the archaeology sector at the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve, the headdress may have included decorated cords that crossed above the head. These could have supported a tall textile covering or formed part of an elaborate hairstyle in which strands of hair were wrapped in leather and bronze spirals. When worn, the ornaments may have created a halo-like frame around the woman’s head.
Her shoulder accessories were just as elaborate. Leather straps held clusters of metal ornaments that jingled as she moved. "Rattling" jewelry typifies some Ural-speaking groups in medieval times in the Volga area, but it also could have served visual and spiritual functions.
One of the accessories was a small animal figure of a horse. The exact interpretation is unclear, however, there is no doubt that in Murom tradition, horses were essential elements in burial practices.
Was the Silver Lid Designed for the Escape of the Soul?
The silver lid found near her chest area looks like a brooch but it has an opening in the middle that functions like a door. Shvetsova said archaeologists are considering the object as part of a ritual costume. One interpretation is that the lid represented an opening through which the soul could leave the body and begin its journey into another world.
Recent accounts of the excavation suggest that the small cover may have been left slightly open during the funeral ceremony. This reconstruction is plausible, but researchers have not yet presented direct evidence proving exactly how the object was manipulated during the funeral. The "door to the afterlife" should therefore be understood as a working interpretation based on the object’s form and funerary context, not as a fully established fact.
Even so, the plaque provides a rare glimpse into a belief system that survives almost entirely through archaeology. The Muroma left no known written accounts explaining their rituals. Objects placed on the body, the positioning of the dead and the structure of the graves are therefore essential for reconstructing how they understood death.
An Organized Cemetery with Human and Horse Burials
The Zvyagino cemetery was identified in 2022 after local residents reported illegal digging at the site. Systematic excavations began the following year and are being conducted jointly by the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve and the Volga Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The 2026 campaign is concentrating on the northern section of the cemetery, where researchers believe the earliest graves are located. The excavation area contains 42 burials selected for investigation. By mid-July, at least 15 had been examined, while another 11 were being excavated.
The graves were arranged in orderly rows without later burials cutting through earlier ones. Most of the deceased were placed with their heads facing north or northwest, suggesting that the cemetery followed a carefully maintained spatial plan rather than developing randomly. Four of the graves under investigation contained horses. The animals were smaller than most modern horses and appear to have held considerable ritual importance. Horse burials became less common after the tenth and eleventh centuries, making them an important chronological indicator for the cemetery’s earlier phases.
Who Were the Muroma?
The Muroma were a medieval Volga-Finnic people belonging to the wider Uralic-speaking cultural world. They lived mainly around the lower reaches of the Oka River, east of present-day Moscow. They appear briefly in the Primary Chronicle, which lists them among the peoples living along the Oka and notes that they possessed their own language. The modern Russian city of Murom still preserves their name.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Muroma culture flourished between approximately the eighth and tenth centuries, although the latest discoveries at Zvyagino may push the cemetery’s origins back into the seventh century, or potentially even earlier. A type of dress fastener found during the current excavations has parallels dating to the sixth century, but archaeologists caution that such objects could have been inherited before being placed in a later grave.
The Muroma were not an isolated forest community. Finds from their cemeteries include Baltic amber, cowrie shells originating near the Indian Ocean, beads linked to Central Asia and Byzantium, Arab silver dirhams and Western European coins. These objects reveal participation in far-reaching trade networks connecting the Oka River with northern Europe, the Islamic world and routes extending deep into Asia.
By the eleventh century, the material culture of the cemetery began to change. Traditional Muroma ornaments appeared alongside objects associated with the expanding Rus’ world. Researchers interpret this as evidence of prolonged contact and gradual cultural integration rather than sudden conquest or disappearance. By the twelfth century, the Muroma were no longer recorded as a separate people. They were gradually absorbed into the East Slavic population, although elements of their culture may have survived among communities of the Oka region.
The Zvyagino cemetery preserves that transformation across several centuries. Earlier graves contain distinctive Muroma costumes, weapons, horse burials and ritual objects. Later burials display an increasingly mixed cultural identity, making the site one of the most important archaeological records of interaction between medieval Uralic-speaking communities and the emerging Rus’ state.

Оболочку одноклеточной диатомовой водоросли можно рассматривать как природную фотонную структуру - ее трехмерная архитектура со сложным рисунком работает как дифракционная решетка. Это позволяет водоросли фокусировать солнечный свет, распределяя излучение внутри панциря определенным образом. Если у живых водорослей это наблюдается при воздействии видимого света, то в панцире, воссозданном российскими физиками с увеличением в 2000 раз, эффект сместился в терагерцовый диапазон. Это подтверждает предсказанный год назад оптический эффект, который может оказаться очень полезным для медицинской визуализации.

Researchers from Skoltech - a VEB.RF group institution - and their colleagues at the Kurchatov Institute, the Prokhorov General Physics Institute and the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences have recreated the patterned shell of a single-celled diatom alga, scaled it up by a factor of 2,000 and used it to confirm a previously predicted optical effect in an experiment with terahertz waves. The findings hold promise for imaging systems in biology and medicine and for nondestructive material quality testing in industry. The supersized shell's structure suggests new approaches for building compact components that focus and shape wavefronts in terahertz devices. The study was published in Light: Advanced Manufacturing.
The shell of a diatom alga can be thought of as a natural photonic structure. Its intricate three-dimensional architecture functions as a diffraction grating, redistributing the radiation that passes through it. Shaped by millions of years of evolution, the shell's structure enables its microscopic dweller to focus the scarce sunlight filtering through the water into a particular radiation pattern inside the shell via what's known as the Talbot effect.
In living algae, this effect occurs with visible light. However, when the researchers enlarged the structure 2,000-fold to simplify the experiment, the effect shifted into the terahertz range. That's because the wavelength of light or other electromagnetic radiation - infrared, terahertz, etc. - that interacts with a grating scales with its size.
While observing the effect on a magnified scale proved easier, it introduced a new challenge: fabricating a highly intricate 3D structure. To reproduce the shell's multilayered network of pores, the team repeatedly captured images of its complex three-dimensional architecture from many angles using scanning electron and atomic force microscopes. The collected imagery enabled the shell's geometry to be reconstructed in great detail and recreated via an additive manufacturing technique called LCD 3D printing, whose parameters had to be meticulously optimized.
Previously, the Talbot effect in the terahertz range had mainly been studied using simpler, flat gratings. For structures with a diatom-shell geometry, the effect had only been predicted - in an earlier study by the same research group - and awaited experimental confirmation.
Terahertz waves hold promise for biomedical visualization and nondestructive material testing devices. Sensitive to water molecules in biological tissue, medical scans using T-waves are much safer for the body than X-rays and gamma rays. This suggests applications in diagnosing skin cancer, among other conditions. Material quality tests would benefit from the capacity of T-waves to penetrate dielectric materials, exposing internal defects.
The problem is that mirrors, lenses, diffractive elements and other optical components adapted for use in terahertz devices are scarce and expensive. Without them, no widespread adoption of the technology can reasonably be expected, whether in medicine, science or industry. This is where the magnified copy of the diatom shell comes in as a model for such components.
"The next step could be moving from a scaled-up demonstration model toward the purposeful design of structures that replicate a diatom shell's architecture: selecting materials with low optical losses and fine-tuning the geometry for particular tasks. Here, the reliance on a design optimized by nature will considerably simplify calculations compared with creating components from scratch, and 3D printing will make manufacturing less expensive than lithography," said study co-author and grant project lead Julijana Cvjetinovic, an assistant professor at Skoltech Photonics.
"This project is a good example of collaboration between universities and major research centers both in the Academy of Sciences and beyond," noted the study's principal investigator, Professor Dmitry Gorin, head of the Biophotonics Laboratory at Skoltech Photonics. "It is also worth noting that sometimes - and this case is a prime example - scaling up an object can simplify the experiment without sacrificing the quality of the resulting physical picture of the phenomenon."

По мере приближения к завершению работы Международной космической станции и формированию новых задач по исследованию Луны, Марса и дальнего космоса, США и Россия все больше расходятся во мнениях относительно дальнейших совместных космических планов. При этом ни одна страна не может в одиночку исследовать дальний космос, ни технологически, ни финансово.

It was a simple handshake, but it came to symbolize much more. In 1975, as Cold War tensions thawed, an American commander and his Soviet counterpart clasped hands in space after their spacecraft docked. The Apollo-Soyuz mission became a defining symbol of detente and a rare moment of cooperation between two nuclear rivals. The crews remained together in orbit for more than 40 hours.
This month, two Russians and an American blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz spaceship, heading for the International Space Station in the presence of space officials from both countries.
But, in many ways, they were flying against the prevailing geopolitical currents. For half a century, space has remained one of the few arenas in which Washington and Moscow continued working together despite crises on the ground. But as the International Space Station nears retirement and a new era of lunar exploration begins, that model of cooperation is being tested. Future partnerships are increasingly likely to reflect geopolitical rivalries rather than transcend them, raising questions about whether space will remain a place where diplomacy can succeed when politics fails.
If U.S.-Russian cooperation is to continue, it will require new models of agreement on Earth about how to continue working together in space, says Andrei Ionin, a Russian space expert, as the levels of mistrust have grown too high. "We need to realize that no country can manage, technologically or financially, to explore deep space on its own," he says. "No single country has national tasks on the moon or Mars that can justify the costs involved. The only way … is to unite the efforts of leading countries to realize common purposes. It should be easier to reach agreement in space than on Earth."
A NASA-led international program called Artemis aims to set up a base on the moon and prepare for future manned missions to Mars. But Russia has refused to sign the Artemis Accords, which lays down a set of principles for moon exploration, on the grounds that they are too "U.S.-centric" and open the door for a "colonial-style" commercialization of space. Since 2020, some 60 countries, mostly Western ones, have signed the accords while many others, notably China, have declined. Russia’s answer to the Artemis program is to develop its own Russian Orbital Station, using modules from the International Space Station after it has been discarded, which would act as a gateway for lunar exploration. Russia and China are jointly planning to build a lunar base in the next decade, according to local reports, to compete with the U.S.-led project.
Experts say it’s not clear what Russia can bring to the partnership, since China has already mastered most of the relevant technologies. But Russia’s lead in building miniature nuclear reactors, such as the power plant of the unlimited-range Burevestnik cruise missile, could give it a foot in the door. In April, the Russian Academy of Sciences approved plans for Russia’s role in the International Scientific Lunar Station, a joint project with China and 13 other countries, according to Denis Kravchenko, deputy chair of the State Duma’s committee on economic policy, in an emailed statement to the Monitor. "I have repeatedly met with leaders of the Chinese space industry, and I want to say that our cooperation definitely has a future," he wrote. "And here, nuclear technologies in space are of crucial importance, as they will become the basis for long-range missions and future space energy."
Moscow and Beijing have also agreed to integrate their navigation, creating a rival to the U.S.-owned GPS system. Russian experts won’t discuss details, but hint that Chinese-Russian military cooperation in space is well advanced.
India, which plans to launch its own manned space station in 2028, is said by Mr. Kravchenko to be deepening its space cooperation with Russia, including a recent deal to share rocket engine technology.
Natan Eismont, a researcher at the official Space Research Institute in Moscow, regrets that Russia has so far declined to join with the U.S. on Artemis, as it has the experience and capabilities to contribute, especially on economic development on the moon. He says the two could cooperate to reach Mars and explore deep space, if only Moscow and Washington can rediscover the spirit that animated Soyuz-Apollo half a century ago.
"Some might say that space science is outside the realm of politics, but that’s not so," he says. "In fact, making agreements in space can improve the political climate on Earth."

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