Room announcements

RFBR Charter: after the fight (page 1)
We describe the chronicle of events around the new charter of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and summarize some of the results. Another attack on the Russian Federal Property Fund has been repulsed, but we should not relax. Publicity and public reaction one way or another turn out to be effective tools in the fight for a just cause.

About termites, scientists and officials (page 2)
Igor Pshenichnov
The author discusses the role of self-organization and self-support in the functioning of the scientific community. Excessive centralization and constant decisions from above on important issues lead to an unhealthy situation in science. Underestimation of the ability of the decentralized scientific environment to develop important decisions leads to low efficiency of science in Russia as a whole.

Federal Target Program: competitions and “competitions” (page 3)
Evgeniy Onishchenko
The high importance of the price factor when assessing applications under the Federal Target Program for personnel led to dumping. As a result, the contracts concluded were on average less than half the maximum contract price. This has made it difficult to fully fund groups. I wonder what will happen to the financing of scientific and technological development forecasting activities? There, in contrast to REC competitions, the role of the contract price turned out to be reduced.

Sakharov and cosmology (pp. 4-5)
Valery Rubakov, Boris Stern
The authors plan to talk about two pioneering articles by Sakharov that influenced the development of cosmology. The first publication deals with the most famous work on the baryon asymmetry of the Universe.

Human rights physicist. To the 90th anniversary of the birth of A.D. Sakharov (p. 6)
Boris Bolotovsky
This article is devoted primarily not to scientific, but to the human rights and political activities of Academician Sakharov, based not on pragmatics, but on moral priorities.

Get published, or you won’t become a doctor (page 7)
Here is a selection of materials prepared by Natalia Demina dedicated to the new initiative of the Higher Attestation Commission to fix the requirements for the number of publications when defending dissertations. The opinions of scientists from different fields boil down to the fact that such measures cannot solve the problem of the quality of dissertations.

How to strengthen your brain (page 8)
Denis Tulinov
We all want to be smarter. They are trying to achieve this in a variety of ways: stimulation with eclectic impulses, pharmaceutical methods, etc. Sometimes there are reports of successes in this area. Some of these approaches, for which there is some hope, are described in the article.

Condensed Matter Physics: 10 Key Statements (page 9)
Mikhail Katsnelson
We continue to publish collections of key facts and concepts from various fields of science. This time we will talk about the physics of condensed matter, i.e. about the structure of matter and its properties.

Tunnel for Perelman (p. 10)
Recently a Russian translation of Masha Gessen’s book about Grigory Perelman “Perfect Severity. Grigory Perelman: genius and the task of the millennium." Here are the various responses to this book. Commentators include science journalists, professional mathematicians, and humanists interested in modern science.

But parasites never... (p. 11)
Mikhail Gelfand
We are publishing a review of Carl Zimmer’s book “Parasite: The Secret World.” The author of the review expresses complaints about the quality of translation and scientific editing. There were a lot of minor defects in the book, which, although they do not completely spoil an interesting book, nevertheless make it less attractive than it could be.

The first radio fan (page 12)
Alexey Levin
This is the second (final) part of a large article devoted to the history of radio communications and the role of Marconi. It covers a period of work and life of the inventor that is later than in the first part.

But Troy was not there (p. 13)
Lev Klein
What did Schliemann find? It turns out that this is still being debated. No doubt. that he found Ilion, but does that automatically mean that he found Troy?

Boris Stegman and his “Robinsonade” (p. 14)
Rebekah Frumkina
Does the note tell about the book... or more about its author? More about the author, but the note is about the book. Boris Stegman is the author of the book “In the Reeds of the Balkhash Region”. The book is interesting, as is the life of the author. And a note about them.

Don't hide behind other people's backs! (page 15)
Alexey Krushelnytskyi
The call is addressed to the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences, or more precisely, to the Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Nekipelov. “If you are so concerned about society’s attitude towards the Academy, why don’t you do anything about it yourself?” - asks the author of the note. The leadership of the Academy is not the whole Academy. Therefore, the “spells” look strange, that the need for science for Russia leads to the need to conserve the style and composition of the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Potemkin grandmother (page 16)
Valery Zhelyabovsky
A short story about the fact that our people do not understand their decorative happiness, falling on them from the leadership heights. Bosses are pleased to look at beautiful things. And the people behind the beautiful façade should have an easier life.

AUTHOR'S COLUMNS:
Let's look at the Slavs strictly (p. 9)
Anastasia Kazantseva

Analocysms and other poetic liberties (p. 14)
Irina Levontina

Hazing (p. 15)
Ivan Ekonomov

Scientists as termites
Igor Pshenichnov discusses the principles of self-organization in the scientific community - page 2

Sakharov's contribution to fundamental science
Valery Rubakov and Boris Stern open a series of publications about scientific articles by the great human rights activist - page 4

Tablets of Science: Condensed Matter Physics
As part of the project “10 basic facts about... ” we are publishing a selection from Mikhail Katsnelson - page 9

The book about Perelman: pro & contra
We are discussing the sensational biography of a brilliant mathematician written by Masha Gessen - page 10

Unfound Troy
Lev Klein shares his thoughts on what the romantic archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found and did not find - page 13