DISCOVER Magazine. Science, Technology and The Future
Current Issue
Subscribe Today »
  • Renew
  • Give a Gift
  • Archives
  • Customer Service
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Newsletter
  • Health & Medicine
  • Mind & Brain
  • Technology
  • Space
  • Human Origins
  • Living World
  • Environment
  • Physics & Math
  • Video
  • Photos
  • Podcast
  • RSS
80beats

Posts Tagged ‘Russia’

« Older Entries

How Can You Tell If You’ve Hit an Antarctic Lake?

VostokThe outline of Lake Vostok beneath the ice, as seen from space.

Last week, as Russian scientists neared the end of two decades of drilling to reach Lake Vostok, an ancient Antarctic lake buried beneath miles of ice that hasn’t seen light in 20 million years, people around the world waited with bated breath for news. Yesterday the Russian state-run news agency announced that on Sunday, the drill had reached water, apparently the lake surface. Today, the project leader clarified that they need to verify that the water the drill struck was actually Lake Vostok. New Scientist has a tidy explanation of why it’s not necessarily obvious if you’ve hit a massive underground lake:

[Hitting water] suggests the lake has been breached, but the team are now checking the level of water in the borehole and readings from pressure sensors to confirm that the water did come from the lake and not a pocket of water in the ice above the lake. Ice temperatures rise as you go deeper into the ice sheet, and approach melting point just above the lake, so the fact that the team hit liquid water doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve reached the lake.

(more…)

Share

February 7th, 2012 Tags: Antarctica, drilling, ice, Lake Vostok, Russia
by Veronique Greenwood in Environment | 7 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Is It Time to Destroy the Last Smallpox Stores?

Virions from a smallpox vaccine

What’s the News: Global health officials are expected to decide whether to destroy the world’s last caches of smallpox at the 64th World Health Assembly this week. The disease was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1979, but two small stores of the virus remain: one at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and one in a Russian government lab.

Now, public health officials are divided on how to ensure that the disease stays eradicated. Some say our best bet is to keep the remaining samples of the virus safe and continue to study them, then destroy them at a later date; others say the safest course is to destroy them now, once and for all.

(more…)

Share

May 17th, 2011 Tags: CDC, health policy, infectious diseases, Russia, smallpox, USA, World Health Organization
by Valerie Ross in Health & Medicine | 24 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Thwarted Drillers Leave Antarctic Lake, and Leave Controversy Behind

Antarctica’s Lake Vostok–and its potential scientific findings–remains cut off from the outside world for yet another year. Russian scientists spent the Antarctic summer drilling towards the water in the frozen-over Antarctic lake, but plummeting temperatures forced them to leave earlier this week, as their airplane’s hydraulic fluid was in danger of freezing.

The Russians may have flown off, but they left some controversy behind. To keep the 12,300-foot-deep borehole from filling with ice the researchers loaded it full of kerosene, and some Antarctic experts are worried that the chemicals will contaminate an otherwise pristine place.

The 6,200-square-mile lake is important for scientists because the iced-over waters have been isolated for over 14 million years. Biologists are excited to see whether it holds ancient microbes; climatologists are interested in the record held in its sediments; and geologists want to learn how such an isolated sub-glacial lake forms. And despite this year’s setback, researchers are surprisingly unfazed:

(more…)

Share

February 10th, 2011 Tags: Antarctica, earth science, lake, Lake Vostok, pollution, Russia, water
by Patrick Morgan in Environment | 8 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Russian Drill Ready to Reach Untouched Lake Vostok Beneath Antarctica

At the bottom of the ice sheet at the bottom of the world lies one of the most pristine and tantalizing places on the Earth—a lake beneath Antarctica that has been isolated for millions of years. Soon, humans will get a glimpse of Lake Vostok.

Since 1990, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute [AARI] in St Petersberg in Russia has been drilling through the ice to reach the lake, but fears of contamination of the ecosystem in the lake have stopped the process multiple times, most notably in 1998 when the drills were turned off for almost eight years. Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent’s environment, that it’s come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. [Wired]

At about 6,200 square miles, Vostok is nearly the size of Lake Ontario. Its temperature actually remains a few degrees below freezing, but the pressure on the water allows it to stay in liquid form. It’s the isolation, though, that has everyone so excited. There are more than 150 lakes beneath the Antarctic glaciers, but Vostok is the only one that’s entirely cut off.

(more…)

Share

January 7th, 2011 Tags: Antarctica, extremophiles, Lake Vostok, lakes, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Environment | 13 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Russia Will Spend $2 Billion on a Space Drone to Tidy up Orbit

space-junkYesterday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed news from last week that they are pursuing plans to spend $2 billion cleaning up space debris. In a striking contrast to the secrecy that once cloaked space programs, the confirmation came via an announcement on Roscosmos’s official Facebook page:

Russia will build a special orbital pod that would sweep up satellite debris from space around the Earth.The cleaning satellite would work on nuclear power and would be capable to work up to 15 years. Energia said in a statement that the company would complete the cleaning satellite assembly by 2020 and test the device no later than in 2023.

(more…)

Share

November 30th, 2010 Tags: Energia, Roscosmos, Russia, Russian space agency, satellites, space debris, space junk
by Jennifer Welsh in Space, Technology | 10 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Tiger Summit: World Leaders Gather to Save the Big Cat From Extinction

TigerThe buzzwords of the week in Moscow are tiger and conservation.

Sunday marked the opening of the worldwide tiger summit, which brought together high-level representatives from the 13 tiger-habitat countries, including Russia and China, to discuss the best plan to save the tigers. The meeting goes through Wednesday.

Only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild, and without help experts say populations will start to go extinct in less than 20 years.

“Here’s a species that’s literally on the brink of extinction,” said Jim Leape, director general of conservation group WWF. “This is the first time that world leaders have come together to focus on saving a single species, and this is a unique opportunity to mobilise the political will that’s required in saving the tiger.” [BBC News]

The working plan includes provisions to decrease poaching and smuggling of the tigers and calls for more protected habitats. Researchers say that if tigers are left alone and provided with enough habitat and prey, the population could double in 12 years.

(more…)

Share

November 22nd, 2010 Tags: asia, biodiversity, conservation, endangered species, environmental policy, extinction, poaching, Russia, tigers
by Jennifer Welsh in Environment, Living World | No Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Russian Company Plans to Open Orbital Space Hotel in 2016

spacehotelRussian company Orbital Technologies has announced its plans to build a commercial space station (to be named the commercial space station, if you can believe that), which would also serve as a “space-hotel” for visiting tourists. The company claims the venture will launch in 2016.

“Once launched and operational, the CSS will provide a unique destination for commercial, state and private spaceflight exploration missions,” said Sergey Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies. [Los Angeles Times]

The station will be able to host up to seven passengers in its homey capsule, free of extraneous scientific instruments and pesky astronauts and cosmonauts. It will be built by RSC Energia, the same company that builds the Soyuz passenger capsules and the Progress cargo ships used by the Russian space agency. It will follow the same orbit as the International Space Station, and will be able to dock with shuttles from around the world.

(more…)

Share

September 30th, 2010 Tags: Commercial space station, International Space Station, Orbital Technologies, private space companies, Russia, space hotel, space tourism
by Jennifer Welsh in Space | 11 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Unique Russian “Plant Bank” May Be Saved by Presidential Intervention

VavilovLast week, we described the plight of the Russian Pavlovsk Experimental Station: Plans for a housing complex threaten some 5,000 rare plants, including varieties found nowhere else on the planet. A court judgment last week meant that only the president or prime minister could save the plants, which scientists said would take years to relocate. Now government telegrams and a presidential tweet hint that the plants might have a chance.

Twitter campaigns and a petition led by The Global Crop Diversity Trust appear to have caught the attention of the Russian Civic Chamber which monitors parliament and the government. As The Guardian reports, the Civic Chamber sent a telegram to President Dimitry Medvedev to request a protective appeal and Medvedev updated the world via Twitter:

[N]umerous supporters of the research station have made their feelings felt on Twitter (using the #pavlovsk hashtag). On Friday, following a week of lobbying Medvedev tweeted back: “Received the Civic Chamber’s appeal over the Pavlov Experimental Station. Gave the instruction for this issue to be scrutinised.” [The Guardian]

The outcome of the Medvedev-ordered investigation is far from certain, but advocates for the botanical gene bank have promised to keep up the pressure and say they hope Pavlovsk station will yet be saved. For all the details on the station and its valuable collection, check out Andrew Moseman’s previous 80beats post.

Related content:
80beat: “Living Library” of Fruit Plants May Fall to Russian Bulldozers
DISCOVER: The Numbers on Seeds, From the Largest to the Oldest to the Safest
DISCOVER: The “Doomsday Vault” Stores Seeds for a Global Agricultural Reboot
DISCOVER: The Banks That Prevent–Rather Than Cause–Global Crises
DISCOVER: Beautiful Images of Strange Fruits (photo gallery)

Image: Wikimedia Commons (N.I. Vavilov, institute founder)

Share

August 19th, 2010 Tags: agriculture, botany, endangered species, Pavlovsk, Russia, unusual organisms
by Joseph Calamia in Environment, Living World | 5 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

“Living Library” of Fruit Plants May Fall to Russian Bulldozers

VavilovThe Pavlovsk Experimental Station, near St. Petersburg, Russia, was founded in the 1920s. About 90 percent of the plants grown there occur nowhere else, making the collection an island of agricultural biodiversity. And the station soon may be knocked over to make way for a housing development.

The station’s operators at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry lost a court ruling this week, so the land upon which all those plants sit will be given to the Russian Housing Development Foundation. The plant scientists bought themselves an extra month with an instant appeal, but the situation looks grim.

“We expected to lose,” agrees Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, who has spent months campaigning against the station’s destruction. “Our real hope lies with President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, who could both override the decision of the courts. At least the higher appeal will give us time to mobilize more people and hopefully get through the gates of the Kremlin,” he adds [Nature].

(more…)

Share

August 12th, 2010 Tags: agriculture, biodiversity, botany, fruits, Pavlovsk, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Living World | 10 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Russia’s Fires & Pakistan’s Floods: The Result of a Stagnant Jet Stream?

Russia FiresThe fires in western Russia continue to burn. Though the overall area now ablaze has shrunk, the number of individual fires has actually risen today. The death rate in Moscow has doubled, and Russia is racing to stop the flames from spreading to areas still affected by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster a quarter-century ago.

While firefighting goes on, attention turns to the “why?” Russia‘s fire explosion has people wondering if there’s a bigger reason behind it. The topic seems particularly urgent because another major natural disaster is happening not so far away: in northern Pakistan, where exceptionally heavy monsoon rains have caused crushing floods. The big question–whether global warming is responsible–is still unanswered, but scientists do agree that a large weather pattern links the events.

According to meteorologists monitoring the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere, unusual holding patterns in the jet stream are to blame. As a result, weather systems sat still. Temperatures rocketed and rainfall reached extremes [New Scientist].

You’ve probably seen diagrams of the jet stream on weather charts, where a thick band represents its air currents that surge from west to east. However, New Scientist reports, a “blocking event” caused by west-pushing Rossby waves has slowed the jet stream’s flow. This happens from time to time, and it sets the stage for extreme conditions when weather systems hover over the same area.

(more…)

Share

August 11th, 2010 Tags: climate change, floods, global warming, natural disasters, Pakistan, Russia, weather, wildfires
by Andrew Moseman in Environment | 19 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Brilliant & Reclusive Russian Mathematician Doesn’t Need Your Prize Money

perelmanGrigori Perelman isn’t much for prizes. This week Perelman, one of the world best and strangest mathematicians, proved it again by turning down a $1 million dollar prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize for solving one of the most troubling math problems of the last century.

The Poincaré conjecture, named after prominent French mathematician Henri Poincaré, involves a complex problem in the field of topology — an important area of math that studies the enduring properties of objects that are stretched or otherwise deformed, but not torn or otherwise reconstituted. Scores of prominent mathematicians tried to solve it over decades but failed, leading to its characterization as the Mount Everest of math [Washington Post].

In 2003 Perelman put forth his solution to the conjecture, but not in the traditional way of putting it through the peer review process. Instead, he simply emerged from the shadows and threw his work up on the Internet with in a rebellious, “ta-da,” and waited for the world to catch up.

After a brief barnstorming tour in the United States, during which he refused interviews, Dr. Perelman returned to Russia, leaving the world’s mathematicians to pick up the pieces and decide whether he had really done it. A worldwide race to retrace, explicate and check Dr. Perelman’s proof ensued. In the meantime, Dr. Perelman quit his post at the Steklov Mathematical Institute, moved in with his mother and ceased communicating with the outside world [The New York Times].

(more…)

Share

July 2nd, 2010 Tags: Fields Medal, Grigori Perelman, math, Poincare conjecture, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Physics & Math | 24 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Six “Astronauts” Prepare for 17 Months in Isolation to Simulate Mars Mission

mars500These boys are all dressed up with no place to go.

Two weeks from today, a team—made of three Russians, two Europeans, and one Chinese (with a Russian as an alternate)—will begin the longest trip to nowhere any of them has ever taken. These men will be locked in isolation for 520 days to simulate what astronauts would endure on a trip to Mars, part of a project called Mars500. It follows a 105-day test that the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) ran last year.

“The biggest risk of such an isolation is psychological,” said researcher Alexander Suvorov who is leading the experiment at the IBMP. “Of course relations between the crew will not always be harmonious, some will get on with others, others will not. But the priority is to be able to carry out tasks in spite of this” [AFP].

(more…)

Share

May 20th, 2010 Tags: Mars, Mars-500, mental health, Russia, space flight
by Andrew Moseman in Mind & Brain, Space | 5 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Found on the Moon: A Soviet Laser Reflector That Was Lost for 40 Years

SovietRoverFour decades ago, the Soviet Union put a reflector on the moon able to bounce laser signals back to the Earth. There was just one problem: They lost it.

But now the marooned reflector has been found, thanks to the determined hunting of University of California, San Diego researchers. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, in orbit around the moon, photographed the landing area where the USSR’s Luna 17 mission dropped off the missing reflector, Lunokhod 1, in 1970. The photos turned up a faint reflective dot, and the team thought that was it.

(more…)

Share

April 27th, 2010 Tags: lasers, LRO, moon, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Space, Technology | No Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Did Russia Use the Baltic Sea as a Nuclear Sewer in the ’90s?

balticseaThere’s more bad news for the Baltic Sea. Reports had already indicated that it was one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world, and now a report from a Swedish TV station alleges that Russia dumped nuclear and other toxic waste into Swedish waters in the Baltic in the early 1990s.

According to a report by the SVT network, Russian boats sailed out at night to dump barrels of radioactive material, from a military base in Latvia, into Swedish waters. And even though the Swedish government at the time reportedly knew this, no action was taken to find the waste [BBC News]. These accusations—particularly that the Swedish government knew about the dumping and did nothing—aren’t sitting well with current Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. But Carl Bildt, who was the country’s prime minister during the alleged dumping, says he never heard about it.

(more…)

Share

February 5th, 2010 Tags: nuclear waste, ocean, pollution, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Environment | 4 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

Russia Is Developing a Secret Plan to Divert a Non-Threatening Asteroid

apophis_orbitYou may remember back in October that NASA scientists downgraded the threat of the asteroid Apophis slamming into the Earth from remote to even more remote. Thanks to refined computation of the object’s motion, astronomers changed their estimate of the chances for a 2036 collision from an already unlikely 1 in 45,000 chance to a further long shot of 1 in 250,000. Well, that wasn’t enough to ease the head of Russia’s space program, Anatoly Perminov, who today said his nation would plan an ambitious space program to spare the Earth from certain doom, and would eventually ask other world powers to join Russia on this quest.

Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. “I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032,” Perminov said [AP]. Truly, Perminov didn’t remember exactly: Apophis makes a close but harmless pass of our planet in 2029, when it could come within 20,000 miles of Earth, and then swings by again in 2036 (the visit for which NASA downgraded the danger to the remote four-in-a-million).

(more…)

Share

December 30th, 2009 Tags: asteroids, NASA, Russia
by Andrew Moseman in Space | 26 Comments » | RSS feed | Trackback >

« Older Entries




    • 80beats Daily Newsletter

      Enter your email address:

    • Twitter

      Follow @discovermag
    • Facebook

    • RSS Feed

      The RSS feed for 80beats is here RSS.

    • Sci News in 140

      rockahn.net
    • on 80beats

      Recent Comments

      Comments

      • Pat Thompson on Watch Ants Sip Grenadine, Spheres of Algae Spin, and Other Small-Scale Spectacles in These Movies
      • amphiox on Study: Americas + Europe + Asia Will Form Amasia, a Supercontinent in the Arctic
      • JD on Zebra Stripes: Fashion Statement or Fly Repellant?
      • Old Geezer on Zebra Stripes: Fashion Statement or Fly Repellant?
      • Bryan Bremner on Zebra Stripes: Fashion Statement or Fly Repellant?
      • Tony Mach on What’s Causing the Bizarre Plague of Tics in Upstate New York?
      RSS Recent Posts

      Posts

      • Zebra Stripes: Fashion Statement or Fly Repellant?
      • Study: Americas + Europe + Asia Will Form Amasia, a Supercontinent in the Arctic
      • Video: Coral’s Dramatic Yet Slo-Mo Emergence From the Sea Floor
      • It’s a Shark-Eating Shark–Eating–Shark World
      • Solar Panels Sometimes Pit Global Warming Against Local Ecosystems
      Categories

      Categories

      • Environment
      • Feature
      • Health & Medicine
      • Human Origins
      • Journal Roundup
      • Living World
      • Mind & Brain
      • News Roundup
      • Photo Gallery
      • Physics & Math
      • Space
      • Technology
      • Top Posts
      • Uncategorized
      Archives

      Archives

      • February 2012
      • January 2012
      • December 2011
      • November 2011
      • October 2011
      • September 2011
      • August 2011
      • July 2011
      • June 2011
      • May 2011
      • April 2011
      • March 2011
      • February 2011
      • January 2011
      • December 2010
      • November 2010
      • October 2010
      • September 2010
      • August 2010
      • July 2010
      • June 2010
      • May 2010
      • April 2010
      • March 2010
      • February 2010
      • January 2010
      • December 2009
      • November 2009
      • October 2009
      • September 2009
      • August 2009
      • July 2009
      • June 2009
      • May 2009
      • April 2009
      • March 2009
      • February 2009
      • January 2009
      • December 2008
      • November 2008
      • October 2008
      • September 2008
      • August 2008
      • July 2008
      • June 2008
      • May 2008
    • About 80beats

      80beats is DISCOVER's news aggregator, weaving together the choicest tidbits from the best articles on the day's most compelling topics.

      80beats is written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. This team darts through each day's science news faster than the ruby-throated hummingbird that beats its wings 80 times per second. Send ideas, tips, suggestions, and complaints to [azeeberg at discovermagazine dot com].



  • Kalmbach Publishing Co.

    Copyright © 2012, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

    Privacy - Terms - Reader Services - Subscribe Today - Advertise - About Us