Май 2026 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• "Nouvelle étape de l’exploration spatiale" : La Russie réussit le premier lancement d’essai de sa nouvelle fusée Soyouz 5, au coeur du projet Baïterek
• Who are his people? The 4,000-year hunt for a warrior's kin
• Machine learning reveals hidden order within quantum systems
• Casimir forces in twisted anisotropic gratings: A path to self-tuning nanophotonic systems
• Le mystère des chevaux modernes résolu : la science identifie enfin le lieu et la date de leur domestication
• Satellite spies one of Russia's most active volcanoes melting snow from the inside out
• The first dentist: How a single tooth changes what we thought about Neanderthals
• Rare gold-and-silver harness plate from the Caucasus reveals secrets of the ancient Alans
• Ancient Ladoga may have owed its early rise to three-meter sturgeon
• This signal haunted astronomers for 160 years. Then a new clue appeared - and it may have solved the mystery
• Russia’s ISS experiment aims to build ultra-pure chips in space vacuum

Российская ракета-носитель «Союз-5» совершила первый испытательный полет. Запуск состоялся с космодрома Байконур, а сама ракета является частью совместного казахстанско-российского проекта «Байтерек».

La Russie vient de réussir le premier vol expérimental de sa nouvelle fusée Soyouz 5 le 30 avril 2026 depuis Baïkonour, au Kazakhstan, marquant une étape décisive pour son programme spatial et le projet de coopération Baïterek avec le voisin kazakh.
La Russie a mené avec succès le premier vol d’essai de sa nouvelle fusée Soyouz 5 le 30 avril 2026 depuis le cosmodrome de Baïkonour, au Kazakhstan, annonce l'agence spatiale russe Roscosmos sur Telegram, marquant une étape clé pour son programme spatial et le projet de coopération Baïterek avec le Kazakhstan.
Ce premier tir expérimental valide le fonctionnement du moteur à ergols liquides présenté comme le plus puissant de sa génération et confirme que Soyouz 5 est désormais opérationnel pour remplacer les anciens lanceurs Zenit et ouvrir une nouvelle ère de lancements à coût réduit.
Un vol d’essai suborbital réussi
Le lancement a eu lieu à 21h heure de Moscou (18h00 UTC) depuis le pas de tir 45/1 de Baïkonour, anciennement utilisé par les fusées Zenit et situé à l’est du cosmodrome. Le vol a duré environ 9 minutes 32 secondes et s’est déroulé en configuration suborbitale, le lanceur portant une maquette de masse et de taille simulant une charge utile réelle mais ne devant pas entrer en orbite.
Les deux étages de Soyouz 5 ont fonctionné normalement, permettant de qualifier à la fois la propulsion, la séparation des étages et la rentrée atmosphérique programmée dans une zone de l’océan Pacifique préalablement fermée à la navigation et à l’aviation. Cette étape de développement est décisive pour autoriser ensuite des vols orbitaux commerciaux et institutionnels.
Un lanceur de nouvelle génération
Soyouz 5, aussi appelé Sunkar dans le cadre du projet Baïterek, est un lanceur de classe moyenne à deux étages, alimenté au kérosène et oxygène liquide et conçu pour remplacer les anciens Zenit tout en restant compatible avec les infrastructures de Baïkonour. Il est présenté par Roscosmos comme la fusée équipée du moteur à ergols liquides le plus puissant au monde, avec une capacité de charge utile pouvant atteindre jusqu’à 17 tonnes métriques en orbite basse, soit environ le double de certains prédécesseurs, précise le site spécialisé Kosmosnews.
Roscosmos souligne que Soyouz 5 devrait permettre de réduire significativement les coûts de lancement tout en offrant une haute précision de mise en orbite, ce qui le destine à transporter satellites commerciaux, charges gouvernementales et, à terme, des vaisseaux spatiaux habités ou semi automatisés.
Baïkonour, un atout central pour la stratégie spatiale russe
Soyouz 5 s’inscrit dans le cadre du projet Baïterek, réalisé en coopération entre la Russie et le Kazakhstan, ce qui explique que le lanceur porte aussi le nom de Sunkar, en langue kazakh. Le Kazakhstan gère les infrastructures au sol, notamment le nouveau complexe de lancement reconverti des anciens Zenit, tandis que Roscosmos développe et construit le lanceur lui même, faisant ainsi de Baïkonour un atout central pour la stratégie spatiale russe.
Dmitri Bakanov, directeur de Roscosmos, a qualifié Soyouz 5 de "nouvelle étape de l’exploration spatiale" et a précisé auprès du président Vladimir Poutine que ce lanceur constitue le premier nouveau vecteur développé par la Russie depuis 2014, soulignant qu’il doit générer de nouveaux emplois tant en Russie qu’au Kazakhstan. Vladimir Poutine a pour sa part salué un regain de confiance pour l’industrie spatiale russe, alors que celle ci sort de plusieurs années de difficultés techniques et de paralysie partielle des infrastructures de Baïkonour.

Российские и казахские ученые провели секвенирование Y-хромосомы представителя ымыяхтахской культуры, жившего на территории современной Якутии около 4200 лет назад, и сравнили полученные результаты с геномами современных сибирских народов, собрав полные геномные последовательности 256 мужчин, принадлежащих к 11 коренным народам. Оказалось, что носителями гаплогруппы N-L708, к которой отнесли древнего охотника, является 67 из 256 образцов, а наиболее генетически близкими - коренные народы Камчатки и Чукотки.

For 4,200 years, the Y chromosome of a Yakutian warrior has quietly echoed in Siberia's Arctic peoples. His extraordinary Stone Age grave was discovered in Russia's far northeast near Yakutsk in 2004 by scientists. The middle-aged hunter's skeleton was found on its back with arms at its side. Dozens of elk-bone plates were laid as a shield over the chest.
Analysis of the radiocarbon data hints that the person died nearly 4,000 years ago. The person is presumed to be from the Ymyyakhtakh cultural horizon. This cultural horizon contains the nomadic hunter-gatherers who used more sophisticated bone and antler weapons. This "Kyordyughen" warrior from Yakutia was richly equipped, but did any of his family line survive today?
Could a Stone Age warrior still have descendants?
To answer this question, the lead researcher of the new study, Dmitry Adamov, and his team performed a sequence analysis of the Y chromosome of this hunter, and then compared the findings with modern Siberian peoples' genomes.
The geneticists collected complete genome sequences from 256 men belonging to 11 native Russian groups hailing from the Far East region of Russia. Considering the Y chromosome lineage (transmitted only from father to son), researchers assigned the warrior to the haplogroup N-L708 lineage. The findings have been published in the Journal of Human Genetics.
Surprisingly, that exact branch survives in people living today. The researchers found the warrior's Y-DNA signature in multiple modern Siberian groups. For example, about 19% of sampled Chukchi men in Kamchatka carry this haplogroup (versus 0% in, say, neighboring Eskimos).
In practical terms, roughly three out of the 256 individuals studied shared the warrior's ancient Y-line branch. Overall, Adamov's team reports that some one-quarter of the modern samples (67 of 256) "are, to various extents, genetically related to the Neolithic Yakutian individuals" (the ancient Kyordyughen samples). In short, a large slice of today's Far-Eastern men trace patrilineal ancestry back to these Neolithic Yakut hunters.
Where do his modern kin live?
Tracing the branches of haplogroup N-L708 showed where the warrior's forebears migrated. Remarkably, the closest living relatives of this Yakutian warrior are not in his hometown but far to the east.
The study notes that "the most direct descendants of the famous Kyordyughen warrior (Kyordyughen I) are the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka and Chukotka" - specifically the Chukchi, Koryak and Even peoples of those regions. (These groups inhabit the tip of Siberia near the Bering Strait.) In other words, this Y chromosome lineage survived most strongly among Arctic populations on the Pacific coast, rather than in central Siberia.
The genetic divergence time also matches the archaeology. Based on mutation rates, the split between the warrior's lineage and the modern Chukchi men falls around 4,300 years before present - essentially the same as the grave's age. This means the Chukchi and their kin likely share a great-great- … -great-grandfather with that Yakutian hunter. (Other related lineages of N-L708 appear in Evenks, Itelmens and other Far Eastern groups as well, painting a broad map of ancient movements.)
The big picture: this Neolithic Y chromosome thread runs across North Asia. As Adamov and colleagues write, their Y-chromosome tree "allows us to reconstruct the routes of ancient migrations of men with haplogroup N-L708 from their ancestral homeland - the territory of Transbaikalia."
Beyond the bones: The warrior's story continues
This study thus provides some insights into the missing puzzle of Siberian prehistory. For instance, there is a clear connection between the prehistoric individual under discussion and the present-day population. Moreover, the data obtained during the study supplements the archaeological evidence.
In other words, it has become possible to trace the genetic roots of the Ymyyakhtakh culture (4th millennium BC, Yakutia) by means of which only the remnants (such as bone shields) had been known until now.
At the same time, the authors note limitations. They focused only on the paternal Y-chromosome line, so this is just one branch of ancestry. Many other ancient lineages probably died out or weren't detected. And some ancient samples remain too fragmentary to analyze. Nonetheless, the study makes a compelling case that a Stone Age Yakutian is not entirely lost to time.
For indigenous communities, this work is especially meaningful. It provides a tangible connection to deep ancestry and migrations. By tracing the warrior's Y chromosome, researchers have shown that the proud men of Kamchatka and Chukotka carry a piece of a 4,000-year-old story in their genes.
This "genetic bridge" links the present to the past, enriching our understanding of how Siberian peoples moved and mixed over millennia. As one geneticist put it, discovering these links "connects living people to a 4,200-year-old warrior, bridging ancient and modern worlds."

Ученые Математического института им. В.А.Стеклова РАН разработали новую систему машинного обучения для выявления скрытых структур, управляющих открытой квантовой динамикой, даже при ограниченном доступе к экспериментальным данным.

Scientists at Steklov Mathematical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a new machine-learning framework for uncovering the hidden structures governing open quantum dynamics, even when experimental access is restricted. Alexander Teretenkov and colleagues present a method that infers the underlying algebraic structures responsible for effective Markovian evolution, differing from most existing data-driven approaches which focus on the detection or prediction of dynamical behaviour. By incorporating measurement limitations, symmetries, and superselection rules into a $*$-algebraic description of accessible observables, the team formulates the learning process as a maximum-likelihood estimation derived from measurement sequences. This approach successfully identifies nontrivial algebraic structures in both synthetic models and a waveguide quantum electrodynamics system, representing a key step towards characterising quantum systems directly from experimental data.
Machine learning reveals hidden quantum symmetries with unprecedented accuracy
Invariant algebraic structures were identified with a 65% increase in accuracy compared to previous methods. These earlier methods largely concentrated on predicting system behaviour, offering limited insight into the fundamental rules governing the quantum system. This substantial leap in precision surpasses a vital threshold, enabling the characterisation of complex quantum systems directly from limited measurement data, a capability previously unattainable. The machine-learning framework successfully discerned these hidden structures in both simulated scenarios and a physical waveguide quantum electrodynamics system, demonstrating its practical applicability and robustness. The improvement in accuracy is particularly significant given the inherent challenges in extracting information from open quantum systems, where interactions with the environment introduce noise and complexity.
Incorporating measurement constraints, symmetries, and superselection rules via a $$-algebraic description provides a more thorough and physically informed picture of quantum evolution. This approach moves beyond tracking what happens to understanding why, offering a deeper level of insight into the system’s dynamics. The method successfully analysed the finite-dimensional matrix ∗-algebras important for describing accessible and invariant quantum observables, effectively defining the parameters of the system and reducing the dimensionality of the problem. Algebraic structures were accurately identified in 65% more instances than prior prediction-based methods, offering a significant improvement in analytical power. The use of a $$-algebraic framework is crucial, as it naturally incorporates the Hermitian nature of quantum observables and ensures that the inferred structures respect the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. This formalism allows for a rigorous mathematical treatment of symmetries and conservation laws, which are often hidden in raw measurement data.
This success extended beyond simulations, with the approach applied to a physical waveguide quantum electrodynamics system, validating its real-world potential and demonstrating its ability to handle experimental noise and imperfections. The framework discerned previously hidden, non-trivial algebraic structures within the quantum system’s behaviour, revealing details of its internal organisation and the interplay between different quantum components. The technique is capable of discerning the hidden algebraic structures governing open quantum systems, moving beyond simply tracking observable changes and providing a pathway to understanding the underlying mechanisms driving the system’s evolution. Waveguide quantum electrodynamics was chosen as a testbed due to its well-defined structure and the ability to precisely control the interactions between photons and matter, allowing for rigorous validation of the machine-learning framework.
Uncovering quantum system dynamics through algebraic structure identification
This machine-learning framework offers a powerful new way to dissect open quantum systems, but its current form relies heavily on identifying algebraic structures, mathematical descriptions of the system’s underlying rules and symmetries. Other data-driven approaches prioritise detecting or predicting quantum behaviour, bypassing the need to understand these fundamental constraints and often treating the system as a ‘black box’. Despite acknowledging that identifying algebraic structures requires pre-existing mathematical knowledge, a potential limitation in a data-driven field, this work nonetheless offers valuable insight by bridging the gap between theoretical formalism and experimental observation. The framework’s ability to infer these structures from limited data represents a significant advancement in our ability to characterise complex quantum systems.
Instead of merely observing what happens in complex quantum systems, it attempts to uncover why through a novel application of machine learning and algebraic quantum theory. This approach could refine our understanding of decoherence, the process by which quantum information is lost due to interactions with the environment, and ultimately improve the design of more stable quantum technologies. By framing the problem as one of inferring these underlying structures, particularly decoherence-free subalgebras which protect quantum information from environmental noise, scientists can now analyse systems with limited experimental access. This represents a shift from predicting quantum behaviour to understanding the fundamental rules dictating it, potentially accelerating advances in quantum technologies such as quantum computing and quantum communication. The framework’s success with both simulated and physical systems opens questions regarding its application to increasingly complex, real-world quantum scenarios, such as many-body systems or biological quantum phenomena, and the limits of its scalability as the dimensionality of the system increases. Further research will focus on optimising the algorithm for larger systems and exploring its potential for automating the discovery of new quantum phenomena. The maximum-likelihood estimation process employed is computationally intensive, and improvements in computational efficiency will be crucial for tackling more complex problems.
The research successfully identified hidden algebraic structures within open quantum systems using a machine-learning approach. This is important because it allows scientists to understand the underlying reasons for observed quantum behaviour, rather than simply predicting what will happen. By analysing multi-time measurement sequences, the framework infers invariant algebraic structures, such as decoherence-free subalgebras, even with limited experimental access. The authors intend to optimise the algorithm for larger systems and explore its application to more complex quantum scenarios.

В 1948 году нидерландский физик Хендрик Казимир предсказал, что два электрически нейтральных проводника, помещенных в вакуум, должны притягиваться друг к другу под действием квантовых флуктуаций. Группа ученых из Сколтеха и МФТИ исследовала, как эффект Казимира проявляется в системе из двух фотонных нанорешеток из анизотропного диэлектрика, повернутых относительно друг друга. Оказалось, что в сложных наноструктурах этот эффект может не только способствовать притяжению, но и создавать вращающий момент, в результате чего между решетками возникает устойчивый угол поворота.

A team of scientists from Skoltech and MIPT has investigated how the Casimir effect can be used to precisely control the angular orientation of nanostructures. The results of the study have been published in the journal Physical Review A.
In 1948, Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir predicted something that seemed impossible at first glance: two electrically neutral ideal conductors placed in a perfect vacuum should attract each other. It turned out that the exact value of this attractive force can be calculated by analyzing vacuum fluctuations.
The Russian researchers focused on one-dimensional photonic gratings made of an anisotropic dielectric: parallel strips of a material in which the speed of light varies depending on direction and polarization. Such photonic crystal layers are well studied.
However, the scientists examined a system of two gratings rotated relative to each other, where in each grating the anisotropy axis is additionally rotated relative to the strip direction. This rotation breaks one of the mirror symmetries, making the sublattices in-plane chiral and leading to a nontrivial Casimir interaction between them.
To calculate the interaction between two such gratings, the authors employed the scattering matrix method within the Casimir-Lifshitz formalism - an approach that accounts for the real optical properties of the material, its losses, dispersion, and complex geometry.
The results revealed intriguing behavior. In the symmetric case (anisotropy axis parallel or perpendicular to the strips), the energy is proportional to the cosine of the angle: the system tends toward either parallel or perpendicular orientation - a classical result already known.
However, as soon as the anisotropy axis deviates by some angle, the symmetry is broken, and the energy minimum occurs at a nonzero relative rotation angle of the gratings.
Remarkably, this equilibrium angle is such that the anisotropy axes of both gratings become nearly parallel regardless of the distance between them. This last point is fundamentally important: the equilibrium angle does not depend on the gap between the gratings. This means that once two chiral gratings are brought sufficiently close together, they "know" which orientation to adopt and do so autonomously under the action of the Casimir torque. This property makes them promising candidates for self-assembly elements in nanophotonics.
Natalia Salakhova, a junior research scientist at the Skoltech Engineering Physics Center and an MIPT graduate, commented, "The key finding is that the equilibrium angle is determined by the intrinsic parameters of the material. This provides a new degree of freedom for designing photonic nanostructures with predetermined behavior."
Ilya Fradkin, a research scientist at the Skoltech Engineering Physics Center and at the MIPT Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics, described the significance of the work, saying, "Until now, the Casimir torque has been viewed as a curious physical phenomenon that is difficult to use practically - its magnitude is small, and its angular dependence is too simple.
"The introduction of chirality fundamentally changes the picture: a nonzero equilibrium angle emerges, dictated by the material's properties. This makes it possible to design nanostructures that autonomously find the correct orientation without any external control."
According to co-author Sergey Dyakov, an associate professor and the head of a research group at the Skoltech Engineering Physics Center, the practical application of this discovery lies in the field of reconfigurable nanophotonics.
Optical components capable of autonomously assuming a specified angular position without mechanical actuators could be used in ultra-miniature sensors, optical switches, and quantum optical circuits where external mechanical intervention is either impossible or undesirable.
As stated by Nikolay Gippius, the head of the Theoretical Nanophotonics Group and Professor at the Skoltech Engineering Physics Center, the research team's next step is to search for materials with optimal anisotropy to maximize the Casimir torque.

На основе анализа 273 древних геномов лошадей исследовательский коллектив палеогенетиков из нескольких десятков стран, включая Россию, пришел к выводу, что современные лошади впервые были одомашнены 4200 лет в степях Западной Евразии, прежде всего в нижнем Волго-Донском регионе. Ученые также обнаружили, что эта популяция имела два существенных генетических отличия от других древних линий одомашненных лошадей: ген, связанный с покладистостью характера и стрессоустойчивостью, и ген, отвечающий за более крепкий позвоночник.

Un nouvel article publié dans la revue Nature, appuyé par l’analyse de 273 génomes de chevaux anciens, détermine la date et le lieu où les chevaux modernes ont été domestiqués pour la première fois. Rendez-vous dans les steppes d’Eurasie occidentale, il y a 4 200 ans.
Pendant des décennies, les scientifiques ont essayé de découvrir quand et où les chevaux modernes ont été domestiqués pour la première fois. Ils ont enfin résolu le mystère. Après avoir collecté et séquencé 273 génomes de chevaux anciens, une équipe de 162 auteurs dirigée par Ludovic Orlando, paléogénéticien et directeur de recherche du Centre d’anthropobiologie et de génomique de Toulouse, conclut que ces animaux ont été domestiqués il y a environ 4 200 ans dans les steppes du sud de la Russie, près de l’intersection des rivières Volga et Don.
Un véritable travail de détective
Initialement, les chercheurs avaient tourné leur attention vers les steppes kazakhes où les fouilles d’anciennes colonies de Botai suggéraient que ces éleveurs étaient parmi les premiers à domestiquer les chevaux, en témoignaient les quelques fragments d’os de chevaux et de pots en argile recouverts de ce qui semblait être du lait de jument retrouvés sur place.
En 2018, une équipe de chercheurs, dont le Dr Orlando, a toutefois séquencé les génomes de ces ossements de Botai. À leur grande surprise, il s’est avéré que ces chevaux n’avaient pas « donné naissance » aux chevaux modernes. En réalité, ils se présentaient comme les ancêtres directs des chevaux de Przewalski, une lignée trapue considérée aujourd’hui comme les derniers chevaux sauvages de la planète. Il en est finalement ressorti que les Przewalski étaient plutôt les descendants sauvages de domestiques.
Aussi, l’énigme des origines des chevaux modernes restait irrésolue, ce qui a mené les chercheurs jusqu’à présent concentrés sur les steppes kazakhes à étendre leurs travaux à toute l’Eurasie.
Dès 2016, le Dr Orlando et son équipe ont commencé à collecter tous les anciens os de cheval sur lesquels ils pouvaient mettre la main, ce qui permit de cartographier les génomes des chevaux dans le temps et dans l’espace. Au fur et à mesure, l’origine des chevaux s’est alors précisée. Il y a un peu plus d’un an, ils ont finalement pu localiser précisément l’emplacement : la région Volga-Don, dans l’actuelle Russie.
Un tournant pour l’humanité
En s’appuyant sur cet ensemble de données, les chercheurs ont également découvert que les chevaux modernes présentaient deux différences génétiques marquées par rapport aux autres lignées anciennes : un gène lié à la docilité et un autre à une colonne vertébrale plus solide. Véritables symptômes de la domestication, ces traits ont permis à ces animaux de fondamentalement transformer la mobilité à longue distance et la guerre dans les sociétés humaines.
Enfin, l’étude renverse également une théorie préexistante suggérant qu’un peuple de pasteurs appelé Yamnaya était capable de migrer à cheval en grand nombre vers l’Europe il y a environ 5 000 ans. Ces travaux ne soulignent en effet aucune preuve témoignant d’une telle domestication. Pour les auteurs, il est plus probable que les bœufs aient été le facteur moteur de leur expansion.

Спутниковые снимки зафиксировали необычную активность вулкана Шивелуч на Камчатке - он растапливает снег на склонах изнутри за счет тепла свежих вулканических отложений и лавового купола.

Fresh satellite images have captured one of Russia's most active volcanoes melting snow from the inside out as volcanic heat continues to seep through the frozen landscape of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Images captured by the Landsat 9 satellite on April 23 show dark channels of ash and volcanic debris cutting through the snowy slopes of Shivelyuch volcano in far eastern Russia.
Shivelyuch (also spelled Shiveluch) is the northernmost active volcano on Kamchatka and one of the most active volcanoes on Earth, according to NASA Earth Observatory. The volcano is known for near-constant activity, with satellites frequently detecting ash deposits, heat signatures and avalanches of hot rock flowing down its slopes.
At the center of the volcano sits a growing lava dome - a mound of thick, slow-moving lava that has been expanding in recent months inside Shivelyuch's horseshoe-shape crater, according to reports from the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) cited by NASA Earth Observatory.
As parts of the unstable dome collapse, they can trigger fast-moving pyroclastic flows made of hot ash, gas and volcanic rock. These flows leave behind thick deposits that can hold heat for months or even years after an eruption.
That lingering heat is visible from space.
In the new satellite images, snow has melted away along several flow channels where fresh volcanic deposits have spread across the volcano's slopes in recent months. Some of the dark scars highlighted in the imagery may still contain heat from Shivelyuch's massive 2023 eruption, which sent huge pyroclastic flows surging across the volcano.
"Shivelyuch is an incredible volcano that has collapsed over and over again," said volcanologist Janine Krippner in a statement released alongside the images by NASA Earth Observatory. "It goes through cycles of collapse but then builds itself up again and again through constant volcanic activity."
"It should really be on a motivational poster," Krippner added.

Найденный в Чагырской пещере на Алтае коренной зуб неандертальца возрастом 59 000 лет носит следы не только кариеса, но и стоматологического лечения. На вторую мысль российских археологов (Институт археологии и этнографии СО РАН, Музей антропологии и этнографии им. Петра Великого РАН) навело большое отверстие от жевательной поверхности зуба до пульповой камеры, выглядевшее, как результат целенаправленного воздействия. Дальнейшие исследования, а также практический эксперимент с яшмовым сверлом, подобным неандертальскому, и тремя зубами, двумя древними и одним современным, показали, что находка вполне может быть первым в истории случаем зубоврачебной практики - причем успешным. Судя по следам износа, полученным уже после появления отверстия, пациент не только перенес крайне болезненную процедуру, но и достаточно долго пользовался зубом в дальнейшем. Кроме того, это свидетельствует о том, что неандертальцы обладали хорошей мелкой моторикой, пониманием причинно-следственных связей и навыками медицинской диагностики.

In the early days of paleontology, Neanderthals got a bad rap and were depicted as primitive, brutish, ape-like creatures. That image has long changed, as discoveries in recent decades have shown that our evolutionary cousins buried their dead, cared for the sick and injured, and that most of us carry a bit of their DNA in our genome.
But a single Neanderthal tooth found in a Siberian cave really blows the lid off that old stereotype. The tooth was found in Chagyrskaya Cave, in Russia's Altai Mountains, and it belonged to a Neanderthal who lived there some 59,000 years ago. The distinctive feature of this tooth was that almost all its chewing surface was taken up by a large rounded hole.
A team of researchers from Russia and the United States has now shown that this cavity was an incredibly early, and surprisingly advanced, attempt at treating caries. The discovery not only pushes back the birth of dentistry by tens of thousands of years, but also suggests that, in terms of dexterity and cognitive abilities, Neanderthals were at least on par with their Homo sapiens contemporaries, the researchers reported in the journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday.
Now open wide, Mr. Og
Chagyrskaya has been undergoing excavations since 2007, and has yielded more than 70 fossils of Neanderthals who occupied the site between around 59,000 to 49,000 years ago.
The adult molar dubbed Chagyrskaya 64 was found at the bottom of the cave's occupational layers, putting it in the earliest days of Neanderthal life at the site, say Alisa Zubova, from Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg, and colleagues. Using a combination of microscopic analysis, micro-CT scans and experiments on modern teeth, the researchers show that the large concavity in the center of this lower molar was artificially created, to treat a serious case of tooth decay.
The CT scan, in particular, showed demineralization of the enamel and dentin typical of caries, suggesting the infection had reached deep into the pulp of the tooth and would have been particularly painful. Microscopic analysis on this tooth as well as experimental archaeology on modern sapiens molars showed that the minute traces inside the cavity were compatible only with the rotational movement of a drill, probably a thinly-tipped stone tool. It seems the Neanderthal carer manually drilled through the tooth all the way to the pulp and then removed the infected tissues.
The operation would have been extremely painful, given the likely absence of anesthesia, but it was apparently quite successful. The contours of the cavity are smooth and polished, indicating that the patient survived the procedure and continued to chew with that tooth, although we don't know for how long the tooth remained viable or for how long the patient lived on, the researchers note.
"The tooth's owner suffered from severe caries, and the removal of the affected area was most likely driven by an instinctive urge to reach and eliminate the source of pain," Zubova says in an accompanying interview published by PLOS ONE. "We have never encountered anything like this before - neither among Neanderthals nor among modern humans from much later periods."
Oggie, don't forget to pick your teeth!
Caries was relatively rare among Stone Age hominins, and less than ten cases have been identified amongst Neanderthal teeth recovered by archaeologists, Zubova and colleagues note. Rates of tooth decay only started to climb in the Neolithic, when the carb-rich diet introduced by farming favored the growth of the bacteria responsible for caries.
It was already known that early hominins cared for their pearly whites from time immemorial. Grooves attributable to toothpick use to clean teeth have been found on fossils belonging to Homo habilis, the earliest known member of the Homo genus, and the behavior has been observed among modern Japanese macaques.
A groove attributable to regular tooth picking was also found on the side of the Chagyrskaya 64 tooth. But it's one thing to use a small stick to remove that nasty bit of mammoth flesh stuck between teeth, and another to undergo a painful procedure to tackle a serious disease.
So far, the earliest evidence of caries removal came from a sapiens tooth found in Italy and dated to the late Stone Age, around 14,000 years ago. However, that intervention was much more limited and was confined to scraping the enamel to try to remove the affected external tissue.
Even though it happened tens of thousands of years earlier, the Neanderthal dentistry at Chagyrskaya was a much more in-depth affair.
"It's amazing, it's very similar to what we would do today in a clinic," says Prof. Rachel Sarig, a dental anthropologist and the head of the School of Dental Medicine at Tel Aviv University. Neanderthals obviously had no understanding of bacteria or medical science, but apparently they instinctively understood that by drilling in the tooth they could relieve the pressure that was causing pain, says Sarig, who did not take part in the study.
It should be noted that the Russian researchers used spectroscopy to check whether the cavity was filled with beeswax or tar, which humans used as fillings later in the Neolithic, or other antiseptic or painkilling material, but no such residue was found. This could either mean that the filling decayed completely in the intervening millennia or that the cavity was left open.
In the latter case, infection would have likely returned at some point, eventually forcing the individual to have the tooth pulled or risk dying of sepsis - a scenario that is somewhat more probable given that the tooth was found in isolation, and not attached to a skeleton, Sarig says.
Still, the Chagyrskaya cavity represents by far the earliest evidence for dental treatment, and adds to the pile of evidence of the cognitive prowess of the Neanderthals, she tells Haaretz in a phone interview.
Unusual knowledge
"In Neanderthals, we have multiple examples of individuals with severe injuries, hearing loss, or advanced age who survived for years - meaning others shared food and protected them. That's social care," says Ksenia Kolobova, from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"But what we found goes further. Treating a carious tooth is not just feeding or guarding someone. It requires diagnosing the source of pain, selecting an appropriate tool, performing a painful, invasive action, and persisting despite the patient's discomfort," Kolobova, who was one of the leading researchers on the team, says in the PLOS ONE interview. "That is active, targeted medical intervention. It suggests that Neanderthals understood cause and effect: 'If I remove the decayed tissue, the pain may stop.' That is a cognitive leap beyond instinct."
One could wonder why the Chagyrskaya hominins had the know-how to perform such a complex operation that, so far, has not been documented among Neanderthals or sapiens in the following tens of thousands of years.
Chagyrskaya is the easternmost known Neanderthal site, inhabited by hominins who had migrated from Central and Eastern Europe starting 70,000-60,000 years ago. The locals were pretty standard Neanderthals and we know from previous research that their tools were more similar to Neanderthal artifacts found in Croatia, thousands of kilometers away, than to those from nearby Denisova Cave, an earlier site inhabited by both Neanderthals and Denisovan hominins.
On the other hand, there may have been something unusual in their mouths: of the handful of caries cases documented in Neanderthals across Eurasia, two were found in Chagyrskaya, with the second being an untreaded cavity on a deciduous tooth.
"Two cases of caries in one small population is an unusual circumstance for Neanderthals, where carious lesions are very rare," the researchers write in their paper. Previous isotopic analysis of tooth enamel has shown that the inhabitants had a similar diet to their European Neanderthal peers. So the unusual incidence of caries at Chagyrskaya may indicate that the locals' oral microbiome made them particularly susceptible to the disease, they write.
"Perhaps the person who owned this tooth was unique in his grasp of the disease. Or perhaps his knowledge simply got lost because it wasn't needed in a Neanderthal world where caries were extremely rare," Zubova says. "In the end, this is the first time we have encountered a case where the right idea for treating a disease arrived about 60,000 years ahead of its time."
No pain, no gain
It is also impressive how this patient understood that the extreme pain caused by the operation was a necessary evil to be withstood in order to get better - a far cry from the old animalistic portraits of the Neanderthals, says Lydia Zotkina, another Russian Academy of Sciences researcher on the team.
In their experiments to reproduce the concavity on the Neanderthal tooth, the researchers used thinly tipped stone tools to manually drill into modern human molars. These simulated operations took up to 50 minutes, and that's not taking into account that in Chagyrskaya the procedure was performed on a live tooth that was in the mouth of a person who was salivating and likely screaming and writhing in pain.
"What an incredibly strong-willed person this Neanderthal must have been. He must have surely understood that although the pain of the procedure was greater than the pain of the inflammation, it was only temporary and had to be endured," Zotkina says. "Now, every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy."

Во время полевых исследований на кургане Левоподкумский-1 (Карачаево-Черкесия) специалисты из Института археологии РАН и Государственного исторического музея сделали уникальную находку - деталь конской сбруи в виде накладки из сплава золота и серебра. Артефакт датируется второй половиной III в. н. э. и представляет собой наложенные друг на друга тисненые пластины; пространство между ними было заполнено белой мастикой на основе карбоната кальция и воска.

Archaeologists in Russia have uncovered a rare Alan harness plate made from a gold-silver alloy inside an ancient Caucasus burial mound. The artifact dates to the middle and second half of the 3rd century AD and sheds new light on the cultural reach of the early Alans some 1,700 years ago. Specialists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the State Historical Museum made the discovery during 2024 field research.
The site is the Levopodkumsky 1 burial mound in the Malokarachaevsky district of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. Their findings appear in the latest issue of the journal "Russian Archaeology", published in 2026.
The burial was housed in an underground catacomb that grave robbers had looted in antiquity. Despite that, researchers recovered several significant artifacts. The original mound had been destroyed during Soviet-era farming, but scientists reconstructed its outline using geophysical surveys and traces of a square-shaped ditch surrounding the site.
Horse skeleton and weapons unearthed in the robbed catacomb
Inside the entrance pit of the catacomb, researchers found the skeleton of a horse. Bone analysis confirmed it was an adult male, eight to nine years old, that had been heavily used for riding or as a draft animal.
The burial also contained an iron spear tip, fragments of an iron sword or dagger with scabbard remnants, and knife fragments. The harness plate stood out most. It consists of two embossed metal sheets pressed together. The inner sheet is made from a copper-based alloy, while the outer sheet contains gold and silver.
X-ray fluorescence analysis showed the face plate holds gold and silver in a ratio of two to one by mass. The small decorative pins holding the plates together have silver heads and copper stems. Researchers also analyzed a white paste filling the interior of the plate. It consists mainly of calcium carbonate with wax serving as the primary binding agent. Clay minerals and a mix of proteins and lipids were also present.
Who were the Alans?
The Alans were an ancient Iranian-speaking nomadic people associated with the Sarmatians who lived across the Eurasian steppes and later in the North Caucasus. According to the Wikipedia article, they first appeared in Roman sources during the 1st century AD after becoming dominant among Sarmatian groups on the Pontic-Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea. They were known as highly mobile horse-riding pastoralists and warriors whose cavalry gained a strong military reputation. Over time, different Alan groups migrated westward into Europe and North Africa, while others remained in the Caucasus and formed the medieval kingdom of Alania. The article also notes that many historians consider the Alans to be the ancestors of the modern Ossetians
Alan harness plate from the Caucasus points to early cultural influence
Professor Dmitry Korobov of the Institute of Archaeology and his co-authors described the object as a notably complex piece requiring considerable craftsmanship to produce. They outlined a detailed production sequence, from creating a metal mold and pressing the sheets to filling the cavity with paste and attaching the finished piece to leather. The researchers concluded that this decorated plate, combined with the square-ditched mound, confirms Alan cultural influence from the Central Caucasus had already reached the Kislovodsk basin by the mid-3rd century AD.
That places it roughly half a century before the Alans are known to have formally settled in the region.

Археозоологическое исследование более 67 000 костей млекопитающих, птиц и рыб из поселения Земляное Городище в Старой Ладоге, найденных в культурных слоях VIII-XVII вв., позволило проследить экономические изменения в одном из важнейших средневековых городов северо-западной России. Возможно, до того, как древняя Ладога стала крупным торговым и ремесленным центром, основную роль в обеспечении населения продовольствием и ранней торговле играло рыболовство. В начале IX века количество рыбных останков в археологических находках резко возросло и более 50 лет рыба составляла от 63 до 83 % всех обнаруженных костей животных, что, по мнению исследователей, превышало потребление домохозяйств. Это позволяет предположить, что излишки рыбы могли использоваться для обмена.

Ancient Ladoga may have owed its early rise not only to trade routes and craft workshops, but to something far more immediate: huge sturgeon moving up the Volkhov River from Lake Ladoga.
A new archaeozoological study of animal bones from the Zemlyanoye Gorodishche settlement at Staraya Ladoga in Russia’s Leningrad region suggests that fishing played a central role in the town’s food supply, economy, and perhaps even its early trade. Researchers examined more than 67,000 animal bones from cultural layers dating from the 8th to the 17th century, allowing them to trace almost a thousand years of economic change in one of northwestern Russia’s most important medieval settlements.
A river town at the edge of major trade routes
Known today as Staraya Ladoga, ancient Ladoga emerged no later than the mid-8th century near the lower reaches of the Volkhov River. Its position was strategic. From here, waterways connected the Baltic world with routes leading toward the Black Sea, Byzantium, the Caspian region, and the Islamic East.
That geography helped Ladoga grow into a major trade and craft center of the early medieval eastern Baltic. Archaeological research has long linked the settlement with merchants, artisans, Scandinavian contacts, Slavic and Finnic communities, and the wider network often associated with the early Rus world. Staraya Ladoga was one of the key trade and craft centers of the eastern Baltic during the early Middle Ages. But the new study adds another layer to this picture. Before Ladoga became fully recognizable as an urban craft and trade hub, its early economy may have leaned heavily on large-scale fishing.
Fish were not just food
The research was carried out by Natalia Grigorieva of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with archaeozoologists Olga Bachura and Tatiana Lobanova from the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Earlier studies of animal remains from Staraya Ladoga had been selective. This project examined material collected systematically through the full depth of the cultural layer during excavations conducted in 2011-2013 under Anatoly Kirpichnikov. That complete sampling made it possible to compare different phases of the settlement more precisely.
The result is striking. In the early 9th century, fish remains sharply increase in the archaeological record. For more than 50 years, fish made up 63 to 83 percent of all animal bones recovered from the studied layers. Atlantic sturgeon alone accounted for 27 to 34 percent of the remains, while bony fish such as pike-perch, bream, and Volkhov whitefish formed another major share.
The researchers argue that such quantities exceeded household consumption. Fish was probably processed near the river, then salted, dried, or frozen. In other words, Ladoga’s fish were likely not only eaten locally, but also used as a surplus product for exchange.
Sturgeon the size of small boats
The most eye-catching evidence comes from Atlantic sturgeon. Because much of a sturgeon’s skeleton is cartilaginous and does not survive well in archaeological deposits, the real presence of sturgeon may have been even larger than the surviving bones suggest.
Based on the preserved remains, some ancient sturgeon caught by Ladoga’s inhabitants may have reached three meters or more in length and weighed around 300 kilograms. These were not casual catches. They point to organized knowledge of seasonal fish movement, especially spawning runs from Lake Ladoga into the Volkhov River.
Natalia Grigorieva noted that fish had always been known at the site, which is expected for a river settlement. What is new, she said, is the scale shown by systematic collection from every part of the excavated cultural layer. The evidence indicates that in the first stage of the town’s life, fishing became a foundation of the economy, trade, and diet, not a minor supplement.
From fish to livestock
The pattern did not last unchanged. From around the middle of the 9th century, fish remains begin to decline, while domestic livestock becomes more prominent. By the 10th century, pigs and dairy cattle increased significantly, with sheep and horses also present.
This shift looks more like the economic profile of a developed medieval town. The reason for the decline in fish remains is still uncertain. One possibility is pressure on fish populations, especially Atlantic sturgeon, which has been almost eliminated in the region today. Another possibility is that fish processing moved to another part of the settlement as the town grew and reorganized.
Later changes also affected the archaeological record. In the 12th century, the number of animal bones in the studied area drops sharply. The researchers connect this with changes in urban topography. Around 1153, the stone Church of St. Clement was built nearby, and an administrative center formed in the area, as suggested by finds of lead seals. Animal keeping and kitchen waste may then have shifted elsewhere.
Rethinking ancient Ladoga
The study also shows what Ladoga was not. Hunting seems to have played only a limited role in the diet, since wild animal bones are rare. Dog and cat bones are also scarce, a detail that may point away from a typical rural farming settlement.
Taken together, the evidence strengthens the view that ancient Ladoga developed early as an urban center rather than a simple agrarian village. Its economy combined river resources, craft production, and long-distance exchange. The giant sturgeon bones now show that fish may have been one of the first engines behind that transformation.

В 1866 году наблюдения итальянского астронома Анджело Секки за Гаммой Кассиопеи привело к открытию Ве-звезд - очень горячих звезд, спектр которых показывает минимум одну эмиссионную линию излучения, обычно водородную. В последующие десятилетия астрономы установили, что Ве-звезды вращаются с огромной, почти критической скоростью, формируя из выброшенного вещества газовый диск, от которого и исходят эмиссионные линии, а у Гаммы Кассиопеи, самой странной из этого класса, было обнаружено жесткое ренгтгеновское излучение, источник которого - плазма температурой 150 млн градусов. Обзорная статья, опубликованная сотрудниками Пулковской обсерватории, Санкт-Петербургского университета и Университета ИТМО, представляет историю изучения Гаммы Кассиопеи, в том числе исследования советских ученых, опубликованные на русском языке и малоизвестные западным астрономам.

In 1866, Italian astronomer Angelo Secchi noticed something strange in one of the five stars that makes up the W-shaped Cassiopeia constellation - the central star known simply as "Gamma." Where the star’s hydrogen emissions should have been bright, they were instead dark. This feature was so unusual - and Secchi would know, since he studied the spectra of some 4,000 stars during his lifetime - that he created an entirely new stellar classification, the Be star, to mark both its temperature (B) and its hydrogen emission lines (e).
Over the decades, astronomers found that Be stars rotate at breakneck speeds, between roughly 70 to 80 percent of the velocity that’s required to essentially rip a star apart. That ultrafast rotation also flings gas off the stars’ equators. In the mid-20th century - during one of the star’s more variable eras, when it brightened visually yet its surface temperatures plummeted - Soviet scientists were the first to model the star’s disc as individual gas blobs rather than a smooth envelope. But much of this foundational work, by researchers like A.A. Boyarchuk and V.G. Gorbatskii, was published only in Russian and remained largely unknown to Western astronomers. A new review paper, authored by scientists at Russia's Pulkovo Observatory and St. Petersburg University and published in the journal Galaxies, is the first to bring these Soviet-era studies to an English-speaking audience.
Around 20 percent of B-type stars are actually Be stars, and their spectra are variable, meaning they change with time. Although Secchi first noticed Gamma Cas’s strangeness compared with other stars, Soviet astronomers took the first step to explain it, and modern astronomers continued to be obsessed with this otherwise unassuming star, which is the 63rd brightest in the night sky.
It wouldn’t be until a full century later after Secchi’s first observations that scientists fully grasped the depths of the weirdness of Gamma Cas. In 1976, astronomers using X-ray satellite observatories discovered that Gamma Cas was pumping out high-energy X-rays at a rate hundreds of times greater than what’s typical for Be stars. The plasma producing these X-rays reached a scorching 150 million degrees Celsius.
Soon, theories suggested that Gamma Cas must have another stellar companion, possibly a neutron star or white dwarf, that was gobbling up the star’s disc material. Now, a new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics discovered, with the help of JAXA’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) space telescope, that the curious X-ray emissions are linked to the orbital motion of a companion white dwarf.
"There has been an intense effort to solve the mystery of gamma-Cas across many research groups for many decades," University of Liège’s Yaël Nazé, lead author of the study, said in a European Space Agency (ESA) press statement. "And now, thanks to the high-precision observations of XRISM, we have finally done it."
Of course, all great discoveries typically inspire more and more questions, and the discovery of Gamma Cas’s white dwarf companion is no different. Scientists expect this arrangement, especially among low-mass stars, to be plentiful throughout the universe, but data suggests they’re a rarer arrangement that initially predicted and actually tend to occur among high-mass Be stars.
"We think the key is in understanding how exactly the interactions take place between the two stars," Yaël said in a press statement. "Now that we know the true nature of gamma-Cas, we can create models specifically for this class of stellar systems, and update our understanding of binary evolution accordingly."
For more than 150 years, this strange star has only been a source of unending questions. But now, with the discovery of its binary nature, maybe the central star of the constellation Cassiopeia is finally starting to provide some answers.

Российские ученые проводят эксперимент по синтезу сверхчистых полупроводников в космическом вакууме - установка «Экран-М», созданная в Институте физики полупроводников СО РАН, закреплена на наружной поверхности Международной космической станции. Кристаллические пленки арсенида галлия выращиваются методом молекулярно-лучевой эпитаксии.

Russia’s ambitious orbital manufacturing initiative is advancing as cosmonauts prepare for a spacewalk to grow ultra-pure semiconductors in open space. Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev, Russian cosmonauts, are scheduled to retrieve an additional cassette from the experimental "Ekran-M" equipment, which sits outside the International Space Station, on May 27. The semiconductor substrates in the cassette were subjected to the vacuum of space, resulting in the formation of layers of gallium arsenide.
The effort includes a much broader scope than a straightforward ISS experiment. Scientists in Russia are increasingly considering orbital semiconductor production as a potential technological frontier in which space itself is integrated into the manufacturing process. This project could eventually enable the production of high-performance electronic materials in orbit with a level of purity that is exceedingly challenging and costly to obtain on Earth, provided that it is successful.
A Unique Semiconductor Experiment in Orbit
Russian researchers presently describe the "Ekran-M" project as the only active experiment in the world that is dedicated to the development of ultra-pure semiconductor structures in open space through the use of molecular beam epitaxy technology. The Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences was responsible for the development of the system.
The project’s concept is deceptively straightforward. Extremely pure conditions are necessary for semiconductor growth. The crystal structure of advanced semiconductor materials can be disrupted by even microscopic contamination from oxygen, water vapor, or ambient particles on Earth. Manufacturers use vibration isolation systems, vacuum chambers of huge dimensions, fabrication facilities that are exceedingly costly, and several purification stages to address this issue.
Nevertheless, one of the essential components required for these processes is inherently present in space: ultra-high vacuum. Some of the complexity associated with terrestrial semiconductor production may be removed by the orbital environment, according to scientists. The vacuum conditions outside the International Space Station (ISS) are believed to facilitate the formation of more pure crystalline layers, which could potentially expedite the entire deposition process, according to Russian researchers.
The molecular beam epitaxy method, which is often shortened as MBE, is used by the equipment that is installed outside the station. This method includes the evaporation of ultra-pure materials, resulting in the formation of narrow molecular beams that settle onto a heated crystalline substrate. Atoms organize themselves into semiconductor films that are only a few nanometers thick, layer by layer.
Molecular beam epitaxy systems are among the most sophisticated devices in the semiconductor industry on Earth. They operate within ultra-high vacuum chambers, where the pressure can approach near-perfect vacuum conditions, and the material purity requirements often exceed 99.999999 percent.
Russian scientists are of the opinion that the execution of this process in space could yield even more superior results while simultaneously easing certain engineering constraints that are imposed by Earth-based facilities.
Why Gallium Arsenide Is Important
Gallium arsenide, or GaAs, is the semiconductor that serves as the focal point of the experiment. Gallium arsenide, in contrast to conventional silicon, is capable of operating at high frequencies and elevated temperatures due to its extraordinary electron mobility. It is beneficial for satellite technologies, military radar systems, aerospace electronics, photonics, and advanced communications due to these attributes.
Gallium arsenide is currently used in smartphone power amplifiers to further improve wireless communication efficacy and signal quality. Additionally, it is indispensable for microwave electronics, lasers, photodiodes, solar panels, and high-frequency integrated circuits. GaAs solar cells are highly valued in space applications due to their exceptional efficiency and radiation resistance.
The global community is increasingly recognizing the strategic importance of the broader family of gallium-based semiconductors, which includes gallium nitride. Due to its capacity to operate at higher temperatures and voltages, gallium nitride technology is quickly replacing silicon in radar systems, high-power electronics, and advanced telecommunications equipment.
Not only could the production of ultra-pure gallium-based semiconductor layers be significant for civilian industries, but it could also have a major effect on aerospace and defense technologies in Russia.
What is the purity of Western semiconductor materials?
One of the main questions regarding the "Ekran-M" experiment is whether orbital manufacturing can truly outperform the purity and crystalline quality that are achieved in the most advanced terrestrial semiconductor fabs.
Already, semiconductor manufacturing in the Western world operates with remarkable precision. Semiconductor materials with impurity concentrations measured in parts per billion or lower can be generated by modern molecular beam epitaxy systems in the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Advanced fabrication often uses ultra-pure source materials that exceeds the purity threshold of 99.999999 percent, which is commonly referred to as "8N purity."
Companies that specialize in the development of advanced GaAs and GaN semiconductors depend on cleanroom environments that are significantly cleaner than those found in hospital operating rooms. The air within these facilities is subjected to continuous filtration to eliminate microscopic contaminants. Crystal growth can be influenced by even minute temperature fluctuations or vibrations from nearby traffic.
Earth-based production continues to meet inherent physical constraints, regardless of these gains. Convection currents are influenced by gravity, impurities settle differentially, and atmospheric contamination continues to be a persistent issue. The preservation of ultra-high vacuum conditions necessitates the use of energy-intensive, huge apparatus.
According to Russian scientists, these constraints are naturally eased by open space. In orbit, there is a vacuum environment that is difficult to replicate economically on Earth, and there is virtually no atmosphere. Additionally, there is no exposure to oxygen. This does not necessarily ensure that the semiconductors are of superior quality; however, it may facilitate the production of experimental structures that are impossible to produce conventionally.
Consistency is the main obstacle. Western factories are capable of producing billions of transistors with extremely accurate tolerances. Orbital production continues to be logistically challenging, costly, and experimental. It could require many years to retrieve materials from orbit, analyze them, and scale the process for industrial manufacturing.
Building a Space Factory
The long-term implications of "Ekran-M" are far-reaching and exceed mere scientific curiosity. The potential for the direct production of semiconductor materials in orbit is a topic of open discussion among Russian researchers.
Future space stations or autonomous orbital platforms could potentially manufacture specialized semiconductor wafers that are economically unfeasible to produce on Earth if orbital manufacturing becomes feasible. These facilities may concentrate on high-value, niche components rather than mass-market processors.
This concept is consistent with a more generalized global trend toward industrialization that is based on space. Pharmaceuticals, fiber optics, crystals, biological materials, and advanced alloys are currently being investigated by companies and research agencies worldwide to determine whether microgravity and space vacuum environments can enhance their production practices.
Semiconductors are particularly appealing due to the fact that even minor improvements in crystal quality can significantly improve performance in critical applications, including high-efficiency solar cells, military radar, satellite communications, and quantum computing.
Orbital manufacturing is also of strategic importance to Russia, which has been subjected to escalating pressure from technology sanctions and restricted access to sophisticated Western semiconductor equipment. The national priority is the development of independent high-performance semiconductor capabilities.
Timeline of the Experiment
The equipment used for the experiment was installed on the exterior of the ISS Nauka module by cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Sergey Ryzhikov in October 2025, marking the officially beginning of the first phase of the "Ekran-M" mission. The first cassette was inserted in the device later that month to continue the growth process.
In March 2026, an additional experimental cycle was implemented. Another cassette containing substrates coated with gallium arsenide layers grown directly in the vacuum of space will be retrieved by Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev during the forthcoming May 27 spacewalk.
Upon its return to Earth, scientists will evaluate the material’s electronic characteristics, purity, defect density, and structure. These measurements will ascertain whether orbital growth resulted in quantifiable enhancements in comparison to terrestrial semiconductor fabrication.
A New Industrial Frontier in Space
The "Ekran-M" program demonstrates the increasing use of the International Space Station as a testing site for future industrial technologies, in addition to serving as a laboratory for scientific research. Although numerous ISS experiments concentrate on human health or biology, this endeavor is specifically designed to advance manufacturing.
It is uncertain whether space-grown semiconductors will ultimately become commercially viable. Major challenges include radiation exposure, launch costs, operational complexity, and limited production volume. However, the project underscores a growing recognition in the global technology sector: the future of manufacturing may not be limited to Earth.
The implications of Russian scientists’ demonstration that orbital conditions authentically enhance semiconductor crystal quality could have a significant impact on a variety of industries, including telecommunications, renewable energy, military electronics, and artificial intelligence hardware.
At present, the small cassette that is being recovered from outside the International Space Station may appear inconsequential. However, it may contain evidence that the next iteration of semiconductor manufacturing may eventually expand beyond cleanrooms and into space.

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