February 2004

Russian Science and the World (WWW Monthly Digest)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Les scientifiques russes demandent à Poutine d'arrêter la fuite des cerveaux
• While the Oil Barons Sleep
• Russia Academy of Sciences may be exempt from paying for land
• First Russo-American technology symposium
• Viet Nam, Russia to strengthen research cooperation
• Uut and Uup Add Their Atomic Mass to Periodic Table
• Melting Siberian Peat Bogs May Unleash Huge Quantities Of Methane
• Russia reviving massive river diversion plan
• XXI century to be time of great discoveries in life sciences
• French Academy chief greets Russian academy on jubilee
• Une ébauche de décision finale sur l'ITER au mois de mars
• Le Russie planche sur un nouveau vaisseau spatial
• UD works with Russian academy on terahertz technology
• 7ème comité mixte franco-russe de coopération scientifique et technologique

Des scientifiques russes de renom ont appelé lundi le président Vladimir Poutine à prendre des mesures contre la fuite des cerveaux, qui menace selon eux l'avenir de la science en Russie, lors d'une réunion du Conseil sur la science et les hautes technologies.
Entre 1990 et 1998, le secteur de la science en Russie "a perdu plus d'un million d'employés, soit plus de 54% de ses cadres", certains chercheurs ayant quitté le pays, d'autres ayant changé d'emploi, a expliqué le recteur de l'université Lomonossov de Moscou, Viktor Sadovnitchi, au cours de la réunion à laquelle assistait M. Poutine. Le Conseil sur la science et les hautes technologies réunit une vingtaine de chercheurs réputés, membres de l'Académie russe des sciences, dont le prix Nobel de physique Jaurés Alferov. La "deuxième vague de l'émigration scientifique", qui a débuté à la fin des années 90, est marquée par "le départ des plus jeunes chercheurs, spécialistes dans les domaines les plus modernes et les hautes technologies, dont les mathématiques, la physique et la biovirologie, la génétique et la biochimie", a regretté M. Sadovnitchi. "Près de trente mille chercheurs travaillent à l'étranger sur contrat et une partie d'entre eux n'ont pas l'intention de revenir en Russie, où les salaires ne sont pas comparables avec ceux que peuvent proposer les employeurs étrangers", a souligné le recteur. "S'en vont ceux qui ont le plus de talent et qui travaillent avec le plus de productivité", a-t-il relevé, ajoutant que la recherche scientifique en Russie avait "des problèmes qui ne peuvent pas être réglés sans la participation du président". "Le financement de la science a été multiplié par 2,5 depuis l'an 2000 et celui de l'éducation par plus de trois. Ce n'est peut-être pas suffisant, mais c'est ce que l'Etat peut faire en tenant compte des possibilités du budget" national, a souligné de son côté Vladimir Poutine.

“Do you understand what you've done?! Now, we have two options. Either we kill you or chuck the whole oil-refining industry!” This is how the industry's major players reacted when they heard about the new technology developed two years ago by scientists at Novosibirsk's G.K. Boreskov Catalysis Institute, part of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In contrast to the traditional multi-stage process, the Novosibirsk technique refines oil in only one stage. The process yields high-octane gasoline and high-quality diesel oil that meet even the tightened environmental regulations recently introduced in Europe. Most importantly, however, the production of excellent quality fuel using the new technology costs several times less than older methods. The Catalysis Institute is no typical Russian academic establishment. Throughout its history, its scientists have only rarely pursued pure scientific curiosity. As a rule, they have been guided in their research by the needs of various industries. Virtually all developments at the Institute have found their buyers. The new, single-stage technology is no exception. At the Expert's second Russian Innovation Competition, the know-how from Novosibirsk took the British Council prize. It is already in use at several companies.
The light fractions
The discovery from Siberia only involves the so-called “top,” the light fractions of crude oil that are refined into gas and diesel, and not fuel oil. Using traditional refining technology, after initial distillation, the gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fractions are each further refined via separate processes. Thus, one method for refining the gasoline fraction into high-octane gas involves hydrotreatment (which removes sulfur and nitrogen), reforming, and alkylation. The diesel fraction is generally refined into what is referred to as “winter-grade diesel” in Russia and undergoes hydrotreatment and dewaxing. For more than a hundred years of this technology, each fraction has been processed separately using separate catalysts. Platinum catalysts are used in reforming, cobalt-molybdenum catalysts in hydrotreatment, and platinum and palladium catalysts in dewaxing. There have been many attempts to shorten this long chain and optimize the process, but all innovators were hampered by a single pre-existing assumption. They believed it was impossible to refine several different fractions at the same time (meaning in one reactor with one catalyst). The Novosibirsk scientists, however, proved them wrong.
The super catalyst
The new, single-stage method, when everything is processed at the same time, is called Binary Motor Fuel or BMF technology. It is very simple: after primary oil distillation, all light fractions are fed into one reactor block where the refining process takes place. Then, the resulting compound is directed into a dividing block where it is split into three final products, high-octane gasoline, winter diesel, and propane-butane. The last fraction yields a liquefied gas that can be used as both a household and automotive fuel. The beauty of the new method lies in a unique catalyst that is loaded into a reactor. The idea of a catalyst that could process heavy and light fractions at the same time without the processes interfering with each other occurred to Gennady Yechevsky, Doctor of Chemistry and the Head of the Catalytic Hydrocarbon Transformation Laboratory. He assumed that if a catalyst's structure were transformed in a special way, its active centers (the special areas of a catalyst where specific chemical reactions can take place) would occur with non-uniform density. In this case, diverse reactions, such as aromatization, alkylation, cracking, desulfurization, and isomerization, could take place at the same time on these active centers. The speed ratio of these reactions would allow all fractions to be processed in same amount of time, without clogging the active centers. The entire lab group, a scientifically strong team with several promising developments for the oil-refining and petrochemical industry to its credit, got to work on the new technology. Together they invented an industrial synthesis technique for this elegant catalyst. The method for redistributing active centers in the volume of a catalyst constitutes a fundamental innovation, as the material scientist chose to use in the new process – high-silica zeolite – is nothing new. The lab ran pilot trials of the new method in 2001, just one year after the discovery of the super catalyst idea. The first experimental industrial trials were already underway in August 2003. They proved Yechevsky's theory.
Clean, cheap, and beautiful
Thanks to BMF technology, the oil refining process has becomes considerably simpler. It no longer involves complex and costly processes, such as hydrotreatment (and cumbersome and troublesome hydrogen facilities), reforming, isomerization, alkylation, dewaxing, and various rectification stages. Capital expenditures are six times less and operating costs are at least eight times less, compared to the traditional process. BMF technology also uses at least four times less energy. The BMF catalyst– in contrast to the expensive and touchy noble metals used in the traditional process – is convenient in all respects: it is cheap, non-aggressive, and undemanding to boot. There is one more essential advantage to the Novosibirsk technology: it can refine oil with absolutely any concentration of sulfur compounds. When refining “dirty” oil using traditional method, hydrotreatment costs increase dramatically. Sulfur has to be removed, as it rapidly destroys the catalysts used in the next refining stages. Therefore, oil refineries are not eager to accept oil with high sulfur content for further refinement, because costs are too high. Russia, however, has a large amount of high-sulfur oil. The new zeolite catalyst isn't afraid of sulfur at all. That's why it doesn't matter in BMF technology how much sulfur the raw crude contains. Gulping up “sour” crude with ease, the BMF method yields fuel with a sulfur content of less than 0.001% (whereas under Russian state standards, 0.05% is considered good). Another advantage of BMF technology is the low benzol content of the resulting fuel. Benzol is carcinogenic when burned and Russian state standards set an upper limit of 5% for benzol concentration in fuel. The maximum benzol percentage under European standards is 1%. BMF technology produces fuel with a benzol content of less than 1%. BMF technology also produces excellent winter diesel. Traditional diesel fuel is considered high-quality if it remains liquid at -35єC. The Novosibirsk fuel doesn't freeze even at -75єC. If oil is refined using the traditional process, about 25% of the gasoline turns into a gas and is lost. BMF's developers have outperformed the older method here, too. They have succeeded in achieving much higher liquid yield, the most valuable fraction. The maximum “gas losses” run less than 18%. However, even this 18% cannot really be called a loss. The propane-butane content of this gas is as high as 95%. “A patent search has shown that there is other technology of this kind anywhere in the world. We already have four Russian and two international patents for a number of variations of BMF technology. Seven more patent applications for the innovations we made during our work are currently under consideration,” Yechevsky says.
Fueling ambitions
The BMF technology presents a radical break with existing oil refining processes. This, however, prevents BMF technology from be applied immediately industry-wide. It is not that simple to fit the new technology into the complex, multi-stage production cycle at oil refineries. While waiting for a response from “big oil,” Catalysis Institute officials have focused on promoting their technology in more limited niches, where smaller oil refineries are being set up from scratch. These include plants in remote and hard-to-reach areas, in particular in the Far North. Building oil refineries using the Novosibirsk technology also proves economically sound when developing new oil deposits. Secondly, the new technology is ideal for processing “problem” crude with large amounts of sulfur or paraffin. Plants bluntly refuse to accept some grades of this kind of oil, and in such cases there is simply no commercially viable alternative to BMF technology. There is one more promising market. Using the new technology, it would be possible to process gas condensate efficiently, as the liquid fraction is separated from the gas produced in order to send only residue gas through the main pipeline. Gas condensate is an ideal input for BMF technology. It is a mixture of mainly light oil fractions, and its fuel oil content is very low. The developers also hope to fuel the ambitions of regional politicians for promoting BMF technology. Officials in regions without their own oil refineries often want motor fuel production in their area to avoid price gauging at crucial moments like sowing and harvesting. Using BMF technology, they could build a compact and inexpensive oil refinery on a regional scale

MOSCOW, January 29 (Itar-Tass) -- The Duma committee for property has supported the bill of Academician Zhores Alferov suggesting the exemption of the Russian Academy of Sciences and its institutions from the payment for land, Viktor Pleskachevsky, the chairman of the committee, told the press.
“The committee has endorsed the amendments to Russia's Land Code suggested by deputy Alferov under which the Russian Academy of Sciences and its institutions will be exempt from the payment for land on the same basis as state institutions,” Pleskachevsky said.
According to the Land Code, plots of land are provided for termless use to state organisations only while other enterprises and organisations must either buy them out before January 1, 2006, or to acquire the right of lease of plots of land on which they are situated.
The presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Tass that the academy, under its charter, is a non-commercial organisation with a state status, rather than a state institution.
“We have supported this approach as the funding of academic institutions is yet low and the payment for plots of land used by the academy consume considerable part of the funding,” Pleskachevsky said.
He said the bill would have the first reading at the plenary meeting of the State Duma in early March.

PALO-ALTA (CALIFORNIA), - The first Russo-American technology symposium is currently under way at Stanford University here. Its purpose is to promote the Russo-American contacts in the field of science-intensive technologies.
Co-Chairman of the Symposium and Russian Acting Minister of Industry, Science and Technology Andrei Fursenko told Itar-Tass that the forum's main task and end-goal should be to improve the relationships between partners in both countries. He expects the symposium to serve as a catalyst for the promotion of cooperation in this domain.
President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia Andrew Somers shared this view.
The main goal is to achieve better understanding among American investors, he noted. At present, U.S. investors in information technologies have, as a rule, a very faint idea of the opportunities offered by the Russian information technology market and of its potential, he added. Therefore, the current symposium will help them acquire a better understanding of the situation, Somers pointed out.
In turn, President of the Boeing-Russia/CIS Company Sergei Kravchenko, who is representing the Boeing Corporation, described the symposium as a very useful meeting of leaders of the Russian and American science-intensive industries, wishing to cooperate with each other.

Ha Noi, Feb. 4 (VNA) -- Representatives of the Vietnamese and Russian governments on Wednesday signed a supplement protocol on further cooperation in scientific research at the Viet Nam - Russia Tropical Centre.
Signatories were Senior Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Huy Hieu, President of the Vietnamese section in the Joint Committee for Viet Nam - Russia Scientific Research and Tropical Technology and Paplov D.X, member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The protocol provided the centre with another function in the training of scientists.
 Established 15 years ago, the Viet Nam - Russia Tropical Centre, has become an effective model of cooperation between Viet Nam and Russia under their strategic partnership.  Established 15 years ago, the Viet Nam - Russia Tropical Centre, has become an effective model of cooperation between Viet Nam and Russia under their strategic partnership.

A team of Russian and American scientists are reporting today that they have created two new chemical elements, called superheavies because of their enormous atomic mass. The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond.
The team, made up of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, is disclosing its findings in a paper being published today in Physical Review C, a leading chemistry journal. The paper was reviewed by scientific peers outside the research group before publication. "Two new elements have been produced," said Dr. Walt Loveland, a nuclear chemist at Oregon State University who is familiar with the research. "It's just incredibly exciting. It seems to open up the possibility of synthesizing more elements beyond this."
The periodic table is the oddly shaped checkerboard — with an H for hydrogen, the lightest element, in the upper-left-hand corner — that hangs in chemistry classrooms the world over. Each element has a different number of protons, particles with a positive electrical charge, in the dense central kernel called the nucleus. The number of protons, beginning with one for hydrogen, fixes an element's place in the periodic table and does much to determine an element's chemical properties: ductile and metallic at room temperature for gold (No. 79), gaseous and largely inert for neon (10), liquid and toxic for mercury (80).
Elements as heavy as uranium, No. 92 on the list, are found in nature, and others have been created artificially. But much heavier elements have been difficult to make, partly because they became increasingly unstable and short-lived. Still, for roughly half a century, nuclear scientists have been searching for an elusive "island of stability," somewhere among the superheavies, in which long-lived elements with new chemical properties might exist. Dr. Loveland said that the new results indicated that scientists might be closing in on that island.
"We're sort of in the shoals of the island of stability," said Dr. Kenton J. Moody, a Livermore nuclear physicist who was one of the experimenters in the work.
"It's an amazing effect," he added. "We're really just chipping away at the edges of it."
The experiments took place at a cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator, in Dubna, where the scientists fired a rare isotope of calcium at americium, an element used in applications as varied as nuclear weapons research and household smoke detectors. Four times during a month of 24-hour-a-day bombardment in July and August, scientists on the experiment said, a calcium nucleus fused with an americium nucleus and created a new element.
Each calcium nucleus contains 20 protons and americium 95. Since the number of protons determines where an element goes in the periodic table, simple addition shows the new element to bear the atomic number 115, which had never been seen before. Within a fraction of a second, the four atoms of Element 115 decayed radioactively to an element with 113 protons. That element had never been seen, either. The atoms of 113 lasted for as long as 1.2 seconds before decaying radioactively to known elements.
Scientists generally do not give permanent names to elements and write them into textbooks until the discoveries have been confirmed by another laboratory. By an international convention based on the numbers, element 113 will be given the temporary name Ununtrium (abbreviated Uut for the periodic table) and element 115 will be designated Ununpentium (Uup).
Dr. Loveland said he agreed that the new elements would require independent confirmation before they could receive final acceptance. And he conceded that the Dubna find was likely to receive more than the usual amount of scrutiny: two years ago, the reported discovery of Element 118 was retracted after a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was found to have fabricated evidence.

Massive Siberian peat bogs, widely known as the permanently frozen home of untold kilometers of moss and uncountable hordes of mosquitoes, also are huge repositories for gases that are thought to play an important role in the Earth's climate balance, according to newly published research by a team of U.S. and Russian scientists in the journal Science. Those gases, carbon dioxide and methane, are known to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, but the enormous amounts of the gases contained in the bogs haven't previously been accounted for in climate-change models.
The new research, said Laurence Smith, an associate professor at the University of California and primary author of the paper, could help to refine those materials. Smith's work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). A key finding of the research, unrelated to modern climate change, is that the bogs themselves came into being suddenly about 11,500 to 9,000 years ago - much earlier than previously thought - and expanded very rapidly to fill the niche they now occupy. Their appearance coincides with an abrupt and well documented spike in the amount of atmospheric methane recorded in ancient climate records. The finding counters previously held views that the bogs were largely unchanged - and unchanging - over millennia. The rapid appearance of the bogs provides strong evidence that this is not the case.
Scientists have hotly debated the origin of the methane spike, variously attributing it to sources in tropical wetlands and offshore sediments. The new research conclusively points for the first time to Siberia as a likely methane source. But the researchers also point out that the bogs - which collectively cover an area of roughly 603,000 square kilometers - have long absorbed and held vast amounts of carbon dioxide, while releasing large amounts of methane in the atmosphere.
If, as many scientists predict, a regional Arctic warming trend thaws the bogs and causes the trapped gases to be released into the atmosphere, that could result in a major and unexpected shift in climate trends, according to the researchers. The teams spent three seasons in the Siberian Arctic, drilling several meters down into the sphagnum moss to produce the peat samples for analysis. Smith said thawing of the permafrost would essentially turn the carbon and methane balance in the peat bogs from a scientific constant in climate-change equations to a variable.
"Traditionally, we had thought these areas were simply a gradually varying source of methane and an important sink for atmospheric carbon," he said. "They've been viewed as a stable thing that we always count on. The bottom line is Siberian peat lands may be a bigger player in climate change than we knew before."
"There are natural sources of greenhouse gases out there that are potentially enormous that we need to know about," Smith said. "One of the concerns is that up until now, the bogs have been more or less a sink for CO2, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In an extreme scenario, not only would they stop taking up CO2, they would release a lot of the carbon they have taken up for centuries." Smith conceded that the team searched their Siberian peat samples for evidence that such a drastic release of gas occurred in the past, with inconclusive results.
But, he added, as other research into Earth's ancient climate begins to yield evidence that changes have occurred before, accounting for unknowns such as the carbon and methane balance in the bogs becomes more important. "It emphasizes a point that has been emerging over the past few years; the idea that the climate system is highly unpredictable and full of thresholds that can trigger greenhouse gas sources and sinks to abruptly switch on and off," he said. "The more of them we can identify, the more accurately we can model and anticipate changes in the future."

Russian scientists are reviving an old Soviet plan to divert some of Siberia's mightiest rivers to the parched former Soviet republics of central Asia. Its backers say it will solve a growing water crisis in the region and replenish the now desiccated Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea. The $40 billion scheme could also gain international support. Recent increases in the flows of Siberia's rivers, probably due to global warming, have raised fears that a less salty Arctic Ocean could shut down the Gulf Stream and trigger icy winters across Europe. Diverting part of the flow of the rivers could prevent that
But some experts say that the hugely ambitious scheme will cause social, economic and environmental disaster. The megaproject was rejected by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s. But in recent months it has won vocal support. Backers include Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, a possible successor to Vladimir Putin as Russian president, alongside central Asian leaders and a growing number of Russian scientists. One of the country's senior environmental scientists has told New Scientist he has resumed research on the project.
Thirsty crop
The proposed scheme would be roughly equivalent to irrigating Mexico from the North American Great Lakes. It would drive a canal 200 metres wide and 16 metres deep southwards for some 2500 kilometres, from the confluence of the north-flowing rivers Ob and Irtysh, to replenish the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers near the Aral Sea The canal would carry 27 cubic kilometres of water a year. Though this is just seven per cent of the Ob's flow it would bring 50 per cent more water to the lower Aral Sea basin.
The rationale behind the scheme is clear. Central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union are economically dependent on cotton, a notoriously thirsty crop. Today the region's two biggest cotton-growing nations, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, have the highest per capita water consumption in the world. Yet Turkmenistan says it intends to double cotton production in the next decade.
International plans to kick-start the economy of northern Afghanistan, on the upper reaches of the Amudarya, depend on taking as much as 10 cubic kilometres of water a year from that river. With climate models predicting big decreases in rainfall in central Asia, the International Crisis Group, an NGO based in Brussels, Belgium, recently forecast water wars in the region.
Already, the Amudarya and Syrdarya, which once had combined flows greater than that of the Nile, have been largely emptied by massive irrigation projects to grow the cotton. As the rivers died, so has the Aral Sea into which they drain. It has lost three-quarters of its water since 1960, leaving former ports up to 150 kilometres from the receding shoreline, and a salty wilderness where the sea used to be.
Dilapidated and inefficient
Meanwhile, irrigation canals in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have become increasingly dilapidated and inefficient. Few of the region's 50,000 kilometres of irrigation channels are sealed, so much of their water goes to waste. According to a World Bank study, some 60 per cent of water intended for farms does not reach the fields. Two years ago, while on a visit to Putin in Moscow, Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, revived the idea of diverting Siberian rivers. "Although it seems ambitious, it appears to be the only tangible solution to the ecological and other problems caused by the drying of the Aral Sea," says Abdukhalil Razzakov of the Tashkent State Economic University in Uzbekistan.
Now, after more than a decade without discussion of the project in Russia, it is back on the table. This week, Igor Zonn, director of Soyuzvodproject, a Russian government agency in charge of water management and ecology, told New Scientist: "We are beginning to revise the old project plans for the diversion of Siberian rivers. The old material has to be gathered from more than 300 institutes." In January, Luzhkov visited Kazakhstan to promote the plan. He says that central Asia would have to pay for the water, but behind the scenes Moscow sees the scheme as a way to rebuild its political and economic power in the region. It also wants to avoid a collapse of its southern neighbours' economies, which could send a flood of ecological refugees towards Russia. One-fifth of the population of the Karakalpak region of Uzbekistan has emigrated since 1990. But, as in the 1980s, the scheme will be hugely controversial in Russia. The chairman of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Dobretsov, has told New Scientist that the diversion "would threaten the Ob basin with eco-catastrophe and socio-economic disaster", destroying fisheries and upsetting the local climate.
Efficiency gains
Some environmentalists support the scheme as a means to revive the Aral Sea. But Oleg Vasilyev, a former head of the Institute of Water and Ecology Problems, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who backs the plan, says the water should be used primarily for irrigation, and so would never reach the Aral. Central Asia now faces a choice: begin massive reforms that will allow a more efficient use of water and less reliance on thirsty crops like cotton, or buy in water from outside. Nikita Glazovsky, a leading Russian geographer and former deputy environment minister under Boris Yeltsin, says the region's engineers "still find it easier to divert rivers than to stop inefficient irrigation". And reform has so far proved beyond the leaders of central Asia, whose methods of government have changed little since Soviet times.
If Russia pursues the plan, the global ecological repercussions are bound to loom large. In the 1980s, western scientists feared that reducing the flows of north-flowing Siberian rivers would damage the Arctic ice cap and upset global climate. Now the tables have turned, and the worry is more about the increasing flow caused by global warming. The Ob and nearby rivers pour seven per cent more fresh water into the Arctic Ocean than 70 years ago, and climate models indicate that flows could rise by up to 80 per cent by the end of the century. The arrival of such large volumes of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean could lead to a sudden breakdown of a global ocean circulation system that ultimately drives the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe warm in winter. Such a breakdown could leave Europe facing a new ice age as the rest of the planet warms. Work on the diversion project is unlikely to begin soon, and it faces many financial, political, ecological and design hurdles. But a project on this vast scale no longer seems unthinkable. China's south-north project to take water from the Yangtze river to the parched Yellow river is as large and expensive, and is under way. Some observers believe that Putin might like to leave the canal as a lasting symbol of his Presidency. According to Victor Brovkin, a Russian expert in climate modelling, now at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, "If Putin wants to respond to Bush's plan to go to Mars, this might be it."

MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) -- The twenty first century will be the time of great discoveries in life sciences and energy. “Research in such fields as biotechnology, pharmacology and molecular biology will open up new vistas in the practical medicine,” a source in the Russian Academy of Sciences that celebrates in 280th anniversary Sunday told Itar-Tass. Russian Science Day is marked on February 8 since 1999 under a Russian presidential decree.
According to president of the Academy of Sciences Yuri Osipov “scientists will focus attention on the live organism and live cell in the current century.” Osipov believes that their study opens new opportunities for the development of medicine. Russian scientists name nanotechnologies as another priority. “Further successes in microelectronics, optics, biotechnologies and creating radically new medicines are impossible” without nanotechnologies, he emphasised. “Medicines affecting selectively genetic programmes that are responsible for some or other diseases will be used for treatment soon,” Academician Valentin Vlasov told Itar-Tass.
Energy will also change in the twenty first century. “The stocks of natural resources of oil and gas are rapidly exhausting and their restoration will take millions of years,” the source said. Meanwhile “there are unique developments in hydrogen and thermonuclear energy in Russia,” Academician Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi told Itar-Tass. He recalled that the international thermonuclear reactor project that became international “was worked out and made the first steps for the practical implementation in our country.” Meanwhile he is confident that “hydrogen will be used sweepingly as an energy carrier for heating houses, car engines and even children toys already in twenty years.” For his part, Sergei Nikolsky, 98, the oldest Russian academician, believes that “the main discoveries in the new century should be expected in biology and physics.” “However without the state support many of them will not be put into practice and probably remain on paper,” he told Itar-Tass.
The Russian Academy of Sciences was established by a decree of Peter the Great on February 8 1724. At present the academy comprises of 400 research institutes located all over the country, the Academy of Sciences presidium said. 18 academy scientists were awarded with Nobel Prizes. Academician Ivan Pavlov was the first Nobel laureate in 1904. The Nobel Prize was bestowed on Academicians Vitaly Ginzburg and Alexei Abrikosov last year.

MOSCOW,February 9 (Itar-Tass) -- Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences Helene Carrere d'Encausse believes that the 280th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences that was marked on February 8 is a great holiday not only for scientists.
Instituted 280 years ago in St. Petersburg by order of Tsar Peter I, the Russian Academy of Sciences united the most brilliant and outstanding people from all parts of Russia. The Academy's creation was not just a landmark in Russia's intellectual history. It also gave the first opportunity to unite the country's best intellectual forces for developing scientific life, Helene Carrere d'Encausse told Itar-Tass in Russian on Sunday, February 8.
Helene Carrere d'Encausse is the permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences and a prominent expert on Russia who has written more than ten books about this country.
France attaches great importance to cultural and scientific relations with Russia, Helene d'Encausse went on to say. She added that Peter the Great who studied the French scientific experience during his tour of France supplemented it considerably in his decree on the institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Though the French Academy was organized 400 years ago and still gathers together the best scientists, it doesn't have scientific institutions or education establishments and doesn't conduct any scientific research. Therefore, Russia and France develop scientific and cultural cooperation through direct contacts between their academicians.
“It's a great honour for me to be a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I am very proud of my membership,” Helene Carrere d' Encausse said in conclusion.

Les délégations des six partenaires participant à la négociation relative au site d'implantation du réacteur thermonucléaire expérimental international (ITER) se sont réunis à Vienne, en Autriche, le 21 février dernier, sans toutefois parvenir à une décision commune.
D'après une déclaration commune de la Chine, du Japon, de l'Union européenne, de la Russie, de la République de Corée et des États-Unis, « les parties de l'ITER poursuivront leurs discussions, y compris sur l'exploration prochaine d'une approche de projet plus vaste de l'énergie de fusion. Toutes les délégations ont réaffirmé leur engagement en faveur d'un consensus sur une mise en ouvre conjointe de l'ITER»
Les partenaires ont convenu de convoquer une réunion d'experts techniques début mars, principalement dans le but de réaliser une analyse technique. Un porte-parole de la Commission a confié à CORDIS Nouvelles qu'une réunion finale visant à parvenir à une décision est également prévue courant mars, mais qu'il faut encore trouver des arrangements. Selon le porte-parole de la Commission, « les négociations sont toujours en cours, mais aucune avancée importante n'a été enregistrée au cours de la réunion de Vienne. L'Union européenne reste convaincue de sa capacité à persuader les autres partenaires de l'ITER de l'opportunité du choix de Cadarache (France). Interrogé sur les informations laissant entendre que le Japon serait prêt à mettre au point son propre réacteur si son site de Rokkasho-Mura n'était pas sélectionné, le porte-parole a déclaré à CORDIS Nouvelles: « Cette affirmation n'a pas été confirmée officiellement. Il va de soi que le Japon est libre d'agir de la sorte s'il le souhaite, mais l'UE attendra la présentation officielle des intentions japonaises avant de prendre position. »

MOSCOU (AP) -- Les ingénieurs russes ont commencé à travailler sur le projet d'un nouveau vaisseau spatial qui serait deux fois plus grand et spatieux que le Soyouz, a annoncé mardi le directeur de l'Agence aérospatiale russe, Youri Koptev.
Le nouveau vaisseau pourra transporter au moins six astronautes et possèdera une section habitable réutilisable, a précisé M. Koptev lors d'une conférence de presse. Par comparaison, le Soyouz, qui a été mis au point à la fin des années 60, peut emmener trois cosmonautes et n'est pas réutilisable.
Le vaisseau conçu par l'entreprise RKK Energiya aura un poids au décollage de 12 à 14 tonnes, soit deux fois plus que le Soyouz.
M. Koptev a affirmé que le projet était bien avancé, mais il n'a pas donné de délai pour la construction du vaisseau. Il a précisé que le nouveau véhicule serait destiné au vol orbital autour de la Terre. ���

The University of Delaware is working with the Russian Academy of Sciences on a project to develop novel devices that emit terahertz signals for applications in biochemical identification, medical diagnostics and cancer research. The research is being conducted at laboratories headed by James Kolodzey, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UD, and Miron Kagan, director of the Russian Academy's Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics, with funding provided through the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF).
“This CRDF program achieves synergy by combining the scientific strengths of the groups in St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia with the experimental abilities of the University of Delaware,” Kolodzey said. The UD research team is recognized as an international leader in the development of terahertz nanotechnology, last year announcing it had discovered a means to harness the power of the terahertz frequencies in a palm-sized device using a semiconductor nanostructure.
Terahertz is the final frontier in the study of electromagnetic waves, according to Kolodzey, who said that in the frequency spectrum it lies between microwaves and infrared light. It is 1,000 times higher in frequency than microwaves, which are used in cell phones and ovens, and 100 to 1,000 times lower than visible light. Not much is known about the terahertz frequencies, Kolodzey said, and the UD team's research is in both basic science and in practical applications.
It is known that the frequencies are strongly absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, which makes terahertz a poor medium for long distance communication through the air, which is how the microwave frequencies are used. However, terahertz is of great value at closer ranges because of its strong interactions with materials, which could provide opportunities in chemical diagnostics and medicine.
In informing Kolodzey about the grant award, U.S. Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) applauded “the University of Delaware's commitment to science and its efforts to collaborate with institutions abroad.”

Le ministère des Affaires étrangères participera à la 7ème réunion du comité mixte franco-russe de coopération scientifique et technologique qui se tiendra à Paris au ministère délégué à la Recherche et aux Nouvelles Technologies le 26 février 2004.
 Les deux parties échangeront d'abord des informations sur les dernières évolutions de leurs politiques nationales en matière de recherche et établiront le bilan de la coopération scientifique et technologique franco-russe à la suite du 6ème Comité Mixte du 10 décembre 2002; puis, elles procéderont à une analyse des actions en cours: la coopération entre l'Académie des Sciences, le CNRS, l'Académie des Sciences de Russie et le RFFI (Fondation Russe pour la Recherche Fondamentale); les travaux du laboratoire conjoint de mathématiques, du réseau de recherche Climat/Environnement, du réseau de recherche Lasers et techniques optiques de l'information, du programme de recherche Protéomique très haute performance, du programme de mobilité de chercheurs ; la coopération technologique sur la propriété intellectuelle, le réseau franco-russe des Centres d'Innovation Technologique; les actions en biotechnologie et bio-incubation, en biosécurité et en nanotechnologies. Toutes ces initiatives bénéficient du soutien financier du Département.
 Les deux délégations procéderont également à l'examen des nouvelles coopérations proposées pour 2004. Pour le volet scientifique, les discussions porteront sur la magnétoacoustique, la chimie (catalyse, supramoléculaire, polymères), la biochimie de l'ARN, la glaciobiologie et la physique théorique. En ce qui concerne la partie technologique, seront abordés l'identification de nouveaux outils de stimulation de l'innovation et le développement du Centre franco-russe de transfert de technologie.  Par ailleurs, une convention entre le BRGM et le Musée Géologique d'Etat Vernadesky de Moscou sera signée à cette occasion pour permettre l'installation d'un centre franco-russe de recherche pour la mise en évidence de gisements métalliques géants.

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