Российская наука и мир (дайджест) - Апрель 2007 г. (часть 2)
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Апрель
2007 г.
Российская наука и мир
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    Юрий Израэль, академик РАН, директор Института глобального климата и экологии считает, что климатическая паника, связанная с глобальным потеплением, безосновательна, и никакой серьезной угрозы в данный момент не существует. Особенно драматизируется картина антропогенного влияния на климат, который, тем не менее, менялся еще до появления человечества, под воздействием природных условий.

MOSCOW (By RIA Novosti) - I think the panic over the global warming is totally unjustified. There is no serious threat to the climate. There is no need to dramatize the anthropogenic impact - the climate has always been subject to change under the Nature's influence, even when humanity did not even exist.
Our institute has calculated that if all fuel that has been produced and discovered were burnt in several hours, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) would increase by about 800 ppm (parts per million). This is the ceiling beyond which we won't climb. But even this figure is not sensational - in the Carbonic period some 350 million years ago the Earth had several thousand ppm (10 times more than now). This time was marked by the rapid growth of vegetation that has left us with huge coal reserves. Study of the ice core recovered by Russian scientists from deep Antarctic holes has revealed that in the last 450,000 years the Earth has had at least four peaks of temperature upsurge with fluctuations of 10 to 12 degrees.
We also know the bottom limit - complete icing, that is, the "white ground" when the level of CO2 concentration was insignificant - less than 200 ppm. Judging by the Antarctic core samples, icing occurred once in 100,000 years. CO2 indicators changed from 200 ppm to 350 ppm. Interestingly, with today's 379 ppm we are close to the bottom limit. Hypothetically, we are more threatened by the cold than by the global warming.
But the world is concerned with global warming and its potential consequences. The forecast for the current century predicts an average rise by 2.5 C - 3 C (with extreme limits from 1.4 C to 5.8 C). The ocean level is supposed to rise by 47 cm. I don't think this poses a global threat to humanity. Of course, some lowlands and ports may face a problem, but new pierces will be built and people will live on the higher ground.
Scientists from the British Hadley Centre have discerned another global menace in Greenland's melting ice. They believe that if the temperature goes up by three degrees, it may wither away in three thousand years. In recent calculations, considerable melting of the Western Antarctic and Greenland's ice sheet may occur in many centuries or several thousand years. Some predicted a change in the Gulf Stream current that would considerably lower the temperatures in Scandinavia but the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change (IGECC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have not confirmed this hypothesis.
In recent calculations, the average temperature increase stands at 0.74 C. It is believed that this is enough to generate negative processes but there exists no scientific proof for many of these. Meanwhile, way back in 1974, Russian scientist Mikhail Budyko came up with an idea that may resolve the global warming problem in several years. The gist is to change the "meteorological sun constant" by introducing into the lower stratosphere (at an altitude of 12 km-16 km) fine dispersed aerosols of sulfuric acid, for instance. This will decrease solar radiation on the Earth's surface and reduce the temperature in the troposphere by the required number of degrees. This is an instrument of climate change.
I would like to note on the margins that in the fall of 2005, I published an article with concrete proposals based on that method, and gave dozens of interviews. Some of my colleagues supported the idea, while others were skeptical. But in the end of 2006, I read an article by Noble Prize winner Paul J. Crutzen, a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, who described exactly the same proposal - but without any references to Yury Izrael.
Today, the main goal is to stabilize the climate at today's level or the level of the pre-anthropogenic period (before the industrial revolution) - at 280 ppm. There are many changing parameters that affect the radiation flow, and hence, the climate. Hothouse emissions have the strongest impact. They have increased the radiation flow, which is believed to have raised the average temperature at the Earth's surface by 0.6 C - 0.7 C.
There also exist other "culprits" that may both warm up the air or cool it off. The worst are the hard aerosol particles generated by industrial plants, planes, volcanoes and dust storms. I suggest that we should not bother about CO2 that does not seriously threaten the climate. Instead, it makes sense to decrease solar radiation by 0.3%-0.5%. Stratosphere-based aerosols have the biggest capacity of weakening solar radiation. In tentative estimates, in order to bring down the temperature in the troposphere by one degree, it is necessary to throw into it about a million tons of aerosols or burn 300,000 tons of sulfur.
We could either introduce sulfur into the troposphere by a special method, or supply high-altitude aircraft with high-sulfur fuel. These measures will bring down the troposphere temperature very quickly - in two to three years.
But what will happen to artificial aerosols with a stratosphere life span of one to two years? They will be drifting in space, gathering in broad bands - from 30 degrees to 70 degrees latitude. These bands will offer some protection of the Earth from solar radiation. Will it have an adverse effect on the biosphere and human health? Calculations show that a decrease of solar radiation will be less than one percent near the Earth's surface. This regularly occurs after big volcano eruptions and does not threaten life on Earth. The amount of aerosols that will eventually subside on the ground will be 0.2 mg of sulfur per square meter a year. This is about 1,000 times less than what usually comes with industrial emissions, rain and snow.
Importantly, such actions tally with international agreements, such as the 1978 Soviet-American Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. They are not aimed against any countries but are designed to deal with the climate change - a global challenge.
The United Nations adopted a Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Its main goal is to stabilize hothouse emissions in the air at the level that would pose no danger of anthropogenic impact on the climate. In 1997 the convention was supplemented with the Kyoto Protocol under which industrialized nations decided to reduce hothouse emissions on their free will by an average of 5.3% from 2008 to 2012. The document focused on hothouse emissions that have the greatest impact on the climate. But it transpired before long that it will take a lot of time to decrease the anthropogenic pressure by reducing CO2 and other hothouse emissions in order to stabilize the atmospheric level, and that the industrialized countries were not likely to cope with this task on their own. Moreover, in IGECC's estimate it will require tremendous spending - up to $18 trillion during this century. The method of aerosol impact on the stratosphere is much cheaper, hundreds of times faster, and, if need be, can be easily stopped.
It goes without saying that this method should be approved by the world community. For the time being, Russian scientists are working at home - making detailed calculations for further tests.

© Copyright 2004-2007 by Post Chronicle Corp.
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    Завершилась российско-французская кампания Serpentine по изучению гидротермальных полей Ашадзе, Логачева и Краснова (Атлантический хребет), организованная французским Институтом изучения и освоения океана (IFREMER).

Six instituts et organismes français étaient représentés à bord du Pourquoi pas ? : l'Ifremer, l'IPG Paris VI, l'ENS Paris XI, l'UMPC Roscoff, l'UBO UMR7127 et le CNRS. Côté russe, six scientifiques issus de cinq instituts ont participé à la campagne : l'IGEM de Moscou (métallogénie, géochimie), l'IGMRO de Saint-Petersbourg (ressources minérales océaniques, géochimie), le Shirshov Institute de Moscou (biologie), le Vernadsky Institute de Moscou (Géologie, géochimie des roches) et le Winogradsky Institute de Moscou (microbiologie).
Les thèmes de recherche de la campagne Serpentine relevaient autant des sciences de la vie que des sciences de la terre. C'est pourquoi cette mission, dirigée par Yves Fouquet, responsable du laboratoire de Géochimie et Métallogénie d'Ifremer Brest et du programme pluridisciplinaire d'études des milieux extrêmes dans les grands fonds (programme GEODE), rassemblait géologues, géochimistes, géophysiciens, biologistes et microbiologistes.
Neuf plongées ont ainsi été réalisées pendant Serpentine, pour une durée totale de 309 heures et 144 kms parcourus sur le fond, dont 96 kms consacrés à la cartographie haute résolution près du fond. Pendant ces plongées, 22 fluides hydrothermaux, 50 échantillons d'eau, 255 échantillons biologiques et 128 roches ont été prélevés par Victor 6000.
Entre les opérations de plongées, ce sont 10 dragages, autant d'opérations de bathysonde et des profils magnétiques qui ont été réalisés.
Trois nouveaux sites actifs identifiés... des caractéristiques biologiques à élucider
Trois nouveaux sites hydrothermaux actifs de haute température ont été découverts lors de la campagne : Ashadze 1, Ashadze 2, Logatchev 2. Cela multiplie par 2 le nombre de sites actifs actuellement connus sur des roches du manteau. Un site inactif (Logatchev 5) a aussi été découvert. Ashadze 1 est aujourd'hui le site hydrothermal le plus profond.
Autre originalité de ce site, les scientifiques ont pu observer des bulles de gaz dans les fumeurs.
Les plongées sur le site hydrothermal Krasnov, à 16°38N, confirment qu'il s'agit de la plus grande accumulation de sulfures massifs actuellement connue dans les océans.
Par ailleurs, la faible salinité sur le nouveau site Logatchev prouve l'existence d'une émission de phase vapeur condensée pour un système mantellique et indique des températures supérieures à 400°C en profondeur.
Ashadze, Logatchev, Krasnov : des hommes de science
Ashadze, Logatchev et Krasnov sont les noms des sites hydrothermaux de la campagne Serpentine. Ce sont également des chercheurs russes à qui la communauté scientifique rend hommage...

  • Logatchev : professeur en géophysique du Mining Institute de Saint-Pétersbourg, il fut l'un des inventeurs des premiers magnétomètres utilisés pour l'exploration océanographique. Le navire russe Professor Logachev, construit en 1991, lui rend hommage.
  • Ashadze (1957 - 2001) était un géologue du Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition de Saint-Pétersbourg. Il a participé à de nombreuses missions sur la ride médio-atlantique pour explorer et étudier les zones hydrothermales.
  • Krasnov (1952 - 1996) était un géologue marin du VNIO Okeangeologia de Saint-Pétersbourg. Il a été un des premiers scientifiques russes à s'intéresser à l'hydrothermalisme océanique. Il a représenté la Russie dans le cadre du programme InterRidge et a publié de nombreux papiers sur les processus hydrothermaux.
    En biologie, les scientifiques ont notamment découvert sur les sites Ashadze une faune fortement différente de celle des autres sites de l'Atlantique. Elle est dominée par les anémones, les crevettes et les vers tubicoles.
    Sur le site Logatchev 2, la présence d'importants champs de moules mortes a étonné les scientifiques. Les coquilles sont intactes, récentes et semblent témoigner d'un événement catastrophique ayant détruit très rapidement l'environnement favorable à la croissance de ces moules.
    Une révolution : les cartes de haute résolution !
    Jusqu'à présent, les cartes obtenues depuis la surface avec un sondeur multifaisceaux n'avaient pas une résolution suffisante (100 m) pour des travaux précis d'exploration et d'échantillonnage.
    Durant la campagne Serpentine, un temps significatif des plongées a donc été consacré à la réalisation de cartes bathymétriques haute résolution près du fond, rendue possible grâce au module de mesures en route de Victor 6000.
    Celui-ci a été utilisé au maximum de ses capacités d'emport pour acquérir le plus d'informations possible sur la composition de l'eau près du fond (analyse in situ du manganèse), les paramètres physiques dans la colonne d'eau (turbidité, température...) et les données magnétiques.
    Les cartes obtenues, retraitées à bord quelques heures après la fin de la plongée, ont une résolution de quelques dizaines de centimètres et permettent de mener les opérations sous-marines dans d'excellentes conditions. Sans elles, Logatchev 2 n'aurait pas été localisé. Ce type de cartes acquises pour la première fois sur une dorsale par 4000 m de profondeur, révolutionne la compréhension des processus tectoniques, gravitaires et hydrothermaux sur les dorsales.
    Par ailleurs, la caméra longue portée OTUS a permis de réaliser une mosaïque photo générale des zones hydrothermales actives à 8 mètres du fond.
    Sur les trois sites hydrothermaux, les cartes réalisées révèlent pour la première fois l'importance des processus gravitaires associés au rifting et à l'extrusion des roches du manteau.
    La technologie au service de la science
    La campagne doit principalement son succès :
    1) aux nouvelles capacités offertes par l'arrivée du Pourquoi pas ?
    2) à la maturité du submersible Victor 6000 et à l'arrivée du module de mesures en route ;
    3) à l'expérience et à la pluridisciplinarité de l'équipe scientifique ;
    4) à la complémentarité de la coopération franco-russe.
    L'un des points remarquables du navire océanographique de l'Ifremer Pourquoi pas ? est la qualité de son positionnement dynamique. Les opérations de bord ou avec les engins ont été menées avec une précision qui n'aurait pas été envisageable sur un autre navire à de telles profondeurs (4000 m). Le module de mesures en route a également révolutionné la manière de travailler sur une telle campagne qui associait exploration et échantillonnage.
    © News Press 2007.
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      Ученые Института цитологии и генетики СО РАН, совместно с американскими и французскими коллегами, исследовали мутации гена-онкосупрессора lgl у дрозофил. В результате обнаружился интересный факт: две дозы гена, который в норме блокирует развитие опухоли, в условиях стресса становятся избыточными. Утрата же одной дозы lgl повышает выживаемость и длительность жизни. Открытие поможет разобраться в парадоксах действия многих факторов генетического риска у человека.

    The Russian researchers at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Center for Demographic Research, Duke University (USA), jointly with their French colleagues have investigated the mutation, the double dose of which causes malignant growths, but a single dose increases stress resistance and prolongs life. Thus, due to the benefits provided by the mutation, the population preserves high risk of cancer.
    The overwhelming majority of genes are represented in two copies in the cells of animals: one is received from the mother, the other - from the father. In many cases, the organism endures with difficulty the damage to one of the copies: a single dose of a gene may be insufficient for normal evolution. However, for some genes a single dose is not simply endurable but also welcome. Such cases deal primarily with the genes that increase life span and stress resistance. Individuals with a single normal copy of such gene (the second copy is desperately spoiled as a result of mutation) live longer and better endure unfavorable conditions. But, the owners of a double dose of the mutant gene are either nonviable or more frequently than others die of some disease such as malignant growth.
    Investigation of mutations in stress resistance genes is only possible on models, and the researchers worked with drosophilas. They studied the lgl tumor suppressor gene. Human beings have the gene with the same functions, it is called Hugl-1. If normal copies of the gene are absent in the cells, frequency of cancer occurrence is high. It may seem that such detrimental mutation should be abolished by selection, however, the lgl gene mutations are rather frequently found in the population. Why?
    It has turned out that the drosophilas containing one mutant copy and one normal copy of the gene possess increased embryonic survival rate if they develop at stressful temperatures (16 and 29 degrees centigrade). At the temperature of 25 degrees (which is optimal for flies), viability of mutation carriers is slightly lower that the one of owners of the double gene dose. Besides, mutation carries have a longer life span.
    These useful properties become normally apparent in case if mutation was received from the mother. Apparently, increased viability of flies is being formed in the early embryonic evolution stage and depends on the maternal genotype. Mutation carriers are more stable to viral infections.
    Thus, if the gene does not work at all in case of two mutant copies, then probability of cancer development in the organism is high, and a single copy of the gene (in case of one mutant copy) in some way ensures optimal state of the organism in stress conditions.
    Cancer development with human beings and animals is a complicated, multi-stag process connected with the loss or damage of certain genes. The drosophila investigations carried out by the Russian researchers help to understand why the mutations that can cause cancer do not disappear from the population but are preserved in it.

    © AlphaGalileo Foundation 2003.
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      В послании Федеральному Собранию президент России Владимир Путин выделил нанотехнологии в качестве наиболее приоритетного направления развития науки и техники. О глобальных тенденциях и российском потенциале в сфере нанотехнологий – в интервью с Барбарой Фостер, президентом Microscopy/Marketing & Education, Inc. и стратегическим консультантом Nanotech America.

    An interview on global trends in nanoscience instruments and education with 30-year veteran Barbara Foster, President Microscopy/Marketing & Education, Inc. Foster shares why Russia offers innovative new tools, and some broader lessons for nanoscientists.
    Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin put nanotechnology right at the top of spending priorities for his country - only housing and roads were more important. Many nanoscientists may have briefly raised an eyebrow, and then peered back into their microscope. But, one nanotech expert familiar with Russia says we should take more notice and even take a lesson or two.
    Nano World News talks with Barbara Foster, a strategic consultant for the microscopy and imaging world, whose key client, Nanotech America, is the North American distributor for NT-MDT, a leading Russian device maker. Ms. Foster shared why Russia has lessons and tools that could help take U.S. nanoresearchers into the future.
    "Modularity and hybridization are two key trends driving the latest in nanotechnology instruments," Foster told Nano World News. "When you think about it, the reasons are obvious. Scientists are learning more about the fundamentals of their own areas of nanoresearch, but the way to move to the next level, including commercialization of new nanotechnologies, is to reach out and work with those in other disciplines," Foster said.
    All across nanoscience, Foster said she sees more frequent examples of multi-disciplinary work, where professionals from chemistry, biology, physics and even electronics are recognizing the need to work with each other. But, it's not always that simple. She observed that "in the US, we've tended to compartmentalize our science. One group may have a specialty tool that works for them, but if scientists are focused just on their specific discipline, they might not be aware that the same tool can solve their problems. In other parts of the world, scientists tend to see things from a more integrated perspective, and that's an important lesson for us to learn."
    "For instance," she went on, "for over half a century, there has been a schism between imaging and spectroscopy." A graduate level chemist by training who came to microscopy as a second career, she is part of a rare group who straddles both arenas. She has also worked inside the imaging industry, including being a technical marketing manager for Zeiss and Cambridge Instruments (now part of Leica), and as president of her own nanotech and biotech consultant firm Microscopy/Marketing & Education, Inc. (Allen, TX), she fully understands the business implications of bringing these two technologies together.
    "This schism meant chemists worked in a black-box. They rarely watched their analyses or experiments at the real-world, micro level, leaving the results open to misinterpretation. Nanoscience is changing a lot of that. We're seeing new demand convergence of technologies that are literally opening the eyes of researchers, engineers, and analysts. Light, Confocal, Electron (SEM and TEM), and Atomic Force (AFM) microscopies are colliding with FTIR and RAMAN spectroscopies, all driven by new, often 3D, imaging software to form new tools and platforms."
    One of Foster's clients, Nanotech America, Inc., imports atomic force microscopes for the U.S. and Canadian markets from NT-MDT, a leading Russian designer and manufacturer of next-gen nanotechnology tools. "AFM is THE technology for nanotech and NT-MDT leads the field with modular and hybrid tools for nanoscience," Foster said.
    She notes that these devices and their derivative tools are enabling new directions in multi-discipline nanoresearch in Russia and other key labs in the world. As a result, Putin has tapped Dr. Victor Bykov, NT-MDT's founder, as a commercial advisor to push nanoscience initiatives in Russia. "From our interactions with Victor, we've learned about Russia's aggressive nanotech building program. For example, Dr. Bykov was a key speaker at the 2005 inauguration of the Center of Nanotechnology and Institute for NanoPetrography in Khanty-Mansiysk, a gorgeous glass and steel building with very high security, located in the frozen heart of Siberia."
    NT-MDT's Nanotech Instruments - Available from Nanotech America
    Two key NTMDT microscopes embody the new directions in nano-level analysis. The NTegra Spectra marries Raman spectroscopy to AFM, and NTegra TOMO unites AFM with microtomy. These two devices also offer a glimpse into how Russian nanotechnologists define their growing need for convergent capabilities.
    Let's take a detailed look:

  • The NTegra Spectra integrates AFM and Raman, and is built around a high-resolution Solare spectrometer and the modular NTegra AFM. The design offers motorized controls for the confocal apertures; a choice of 3 different lasers; and multiple dichroics. The device's integrated approach even extends to its support software. All the NTegra Spectra options can be managed through the same software (called Nova) that runs the AFM. In fact, in total, the NTegra Spectra's Nova software provides control to both light and more than 40 different AFM/SPM modes, and both confocal Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy. Furthering the modularity theme, the NTegra Spectra fits onto an Olympus IX-71 microscope to support transmitted light applications and near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM).
  • The NTegra TOMO creates a new hybrid between AFM and ultramicrotome capabilities for preparing samples and imaging ultrastructure without staining, enabling both 2- and 3D nanotomography. By imaging from the block in which the sample is mounted rather than a cut slice which needs to be moved to a microscope, TOMO dramatically reduces typical sectioning problems such as stretching, wrinkling, or distortion. Based on a Leica UC-6 ultramicrotome, it can prepare slices as thin as 10-15 nm. Since the AFM is integrated directly within the UC-5, researchers can do multiple serial images. Importing these sections into programs such as Media Cybernetics' 3D Constructor creates exciting and dynamic 3D images without the usual excruciating and labor-intensive alignment process. "TOMO really drops the barriers to 3D imaging. Researchers can actually see what's going on, rather than relying on mathematical models," Foster said.
    Broader Trends, Deeper Lessons
    Beneficiaries of these new tools reach beyond academia and into commercial labs. Foster cites a leading printer company designing a new kind of ink, and a famous athletic shoemaker who wanted to see the structures of their new nanoscale materials. "There is a structure-function relationship that until now has only been visible with mathematical models in 3D. Our customers are now seeing things they've never seen before."
    But to Foster, the more important point is that these modular and hybrid tools are helping expand research dollars inside academia. "Modularity means that one department might buy a base and one component, and researcher or professors in another department will buy an add-on module to meet their unique needs. We've recently quoted to one university with the core going to one researchers and four other modules going to 4 different departments. The microscope became a real shared resource, rather than requiring each to have its own stand-alone device," Foster said.
    And, modular also means mobile. "Over the past year we've begun offering just the core scanner, which lets researchers scan at the desktop - or even more interestingly, lets them go into the field to look directly at nanostructures on a aircraft wing, locomotive or whatever interests them." AFMs operate on the concept similar to a phonograph needle reading a record: as long as the record is not moving, the sound is great. Similarly, as long as the sample is not vibrating, the images will be great. In the lab, the scanner sits on a special base, built for extreme stability. At a price tag starting at $50,000, the NTegra line also "makes a great teaching tool," Foster said. And for Foster, that's not just a sales pitch: She taught for 15 years before launching into her current career.
    She truly believes that we need to do better with science education and teaching. "That's another other lesson we can learn from Russia," she said. "For over a quarter of a century, I've worked with multi-national companies and end-users in many different fields of science. My dad was a scientist in the Manhattan Project and I was in high school when John Glenn first orbited the earth. As a consultant, I've been privileged to work on the cutting edge of biotech and nanotech. From that global perspective, I am extremely concerned about our ability to stay competitive in science. The U.S. needs to re-focus and invest strongly in science education. While I am very enthusiastic about nanotechnology's ability to deliver on the future, it will take strong educational programming and serious financial commitment in science education for the U.S. to remain a key player."
    © Nano Science and Technology Institute.
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      24 апреля в Москве состоялась Международная конференция "Перспективы создания трансконтинентальной магистрали через Берингов пролив", посвященная обсуждению проекта создания Трансконтинентальной магистрали (ТКМ): Якутск - Магадан - Анадырь - Уэлен (Россия) - Ном - Фэрбенкс - Британская Колумбия (Северная Америка) с тоннелем под Беринговым проливом. О перспективах строительства магистрали - американский экономист и политический деятель Линдон Ларуш.

    The intention to create a trans-Siberian rail system, implicitly extended, across the Bering Strait, to North America, dates implicitly from the visit of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev to the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The defeat of Lord Palmerston's scheme for destroying the United States, by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's leadership, spread the influence of what was called The American System of political-economy into Russia, as also the Germany reforms under Bismarck, the industrialization of Japan, and elsewhere. These global, so-called geopolitical developments of the post-1865-1876 interval, have been the focal issue of all of the spread of great wars throughout the world from the British orchestration of the first war of Japan against China, in 1894-95, until the 1945 death of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.
    Throughout the ebbs and flows of global economic and geo-political history, up the present day, the realization of Mendeleyev's intentions for the development of Russia remains a crucial feature of that continuing history of the post-1865-1876 world to the present moment. The revival of the intention launched by him, now, is presently renewed as a crucial quality of included feature of crucial importance for the world as a whole today.
    The same impulse toward new world wars persists in new guises today. At the present moment, the world is gripped by what threatens to be, very soon, the greatest global monetary-financial collapse in the entirety of modern history to date. The spread of warfare and related conflict out of Southwest Asia is nothing other than a reflection of the same, continuing, so-called geo-political impulse which has prompted all of the world's major wars since the 1763 Treaty of Paris, but, more emphatically, the rise of the U.S.A.'s 1865-76 challenge to the Anglo-Dutch Liberal monetary-system.
    This onrushing collapse of the world's presently hyper-inflated, disintegrating world monetary-financial system, requires early concerted emergency action by responsible leading nations. A sudden change in U.S. political trends, back to the traditions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is urgently needed for this purpose. Such a change in U.S. policy must be realized through emergency cooperation which would be led by a concert of leading world powers. These must include the U.S.A., Russia, China, and India, as the rallying-point for a new, spreading partnership among perfectly sovereign nation-state economies. In such cooperation, the development of a great network of modern successors to old forms of rail transport, must be spread across continental Eurasia, and across the Bering Strait into the Americas. The economically efficient development of presently barren and otherwise forbidding regions in entry into the urgently needed future development of the planet as a whole.
    Such a plan was already crafted, during 1990-1992, under the direction of my wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who remains the principal political and cultural leader among my associates in Europe and beyond. This perspective must now be revived to become a global actuality.
    Technologically, the leading thrust of scientific development is located in the succession of the work of such exemplary figures as Mendeleyev and Academician V.I. Vernadsky, and the work of the relevant, but too little heralded leader in the same field, the American pioneer William Draper Harkins.
    This requires the creation of long-term diplomatic agreements among nations, creating a new system of relatively fixed-exchange-rate treaty-agreements, at very low prime interest-rates, over forward-looking intervals of between a quarter to half century. These present periods covering the economic-financial half-life-span of principal long-term investments in the development of that basic economic infrastructure which the needs of the present and coming generations of the peoples of these natures require.
    We have thus entered a time, measured by the clock of nuclear-fission and thermonuclear power's development, when the long history of the domination over the land-masses of the planet by actually or implicitly imperial maritime powers, is no longer an acceptable practical proposition. Instead, the science-driven, capital-intensive mode of development of the basic economic infrastructure and standard of living of the populations, will dominate any successful form of civilized development of relations among the sovereign nations of the planet. To this end, the tundras and deserts of our planet must be conquered by the forces of science-driven technological development of the increased productive powers of labor. Development must now proceed from the Arctic rim, southwards, toward Antarctica.
    The bridging of the Bering Strait becomes, thus, now, the navel of a new birth of a new world economy.

    * * *
      ВЦ МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова и Межведомственный суперкомпьютерный центр РАН представили шестую редакцию списка самых мощных компьютеров СНГ Тор50. Суперкомпьютер МВС-15000ВМ в МСЦ РАН, удерживавший первое место в течение полутора лет, уступил суперкомпьютеру "СКИФ Cyberia" компании "Т-Платформы" в Томском государственном университете и занял вторую позицию.

    The computing center of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Science (MSTS RAN) have issued the sixth edition of Top50, a list of the most powerful supercomputers in the CIS.
    For the first time since the existence of the rating, the total real system performance on the Linpack benchmark has doubled over a half a year period, reaching 45.8 TFlops. 7 from 13 new systems appeared in the sixth edition are among the top 10.
    MSTS RAN's MVS-15000VM supercomputer, which was topping the list during 1.5 years, has given way to a new leader, SKIF Cyberia from T-Platforms with real performance of 9 TFlops installed in Tomsk State University. MSTS RAN's IBM PowerPC-based supercomputer with real performance of 6.7 TFlops is on the second place. The next three systems are an HP supercomputer at MSTS RAN with real performance of 4.8 TFlops, Sberbank's supercomputer with 3 TFlops performance and a supercomputer with peak performance of 2.2 TFlops located in the Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, which was built by a Ukrainian developer Entry.

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