Announcement of the issue

The beginning of the war: Petrik against the academicians (p. 1)
Tatiana Kosinova
On June 17, 2011, a hearing was held in the Kirovsky District Court of St. Petersburg on the claim of Viktor Petrik against academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Petrik claims that members of the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience slandered him, and demands to recover from each defendant an amount of more than one and a half billion rubles. The editor of Kogita!ru talks about the process especially for the “Trinity Option - Science”.

Open Questions of War (pp. 2-4)
In TrV-Nauka No. 72 dated February 15, 2011, an article by Boris Sokolov “The History of the Great Patriotic War as a Science” was published, which caused heated discussions. We are publishing a polemical note on this topic by military historian Alexei Isaev , in which he explains why B. Sokolov’s calculations seem incorrect to him. The answer of B. Sokolov is also published, in which he answers A. Isaev and explains his calculation method. In addition, we present independent comments by historian Kirill Alexandrov from St. Petersburg State University and Moscow historian Nikita Sokolov on open scientific questions in the tragic history of the war.

A world without beginning or end (page 5)
Alexey Levin
According to the Big Bang theory, our Universe has a very specific age, which is now estimated at 13.7 billion years. Quite small for such a significant object as the Universe, isn’t it? One of the alternative theories discussed by scientists is described in the article.

Andrei Sakharov: “We need a flexible, pluralistic and tolerant society” (pp. 6-7)
TrV-N journalist Natalia Demina met with human rights activist Alexander Pavlovich Lavut and professor Alexei Semenov . Both interlocutors knew A.D. well. Sakharov. We publish some excerpts from this conversation.

Experiment to popularize science (p. 7)
Inna Cooper
From June 1 to June 5, 2011, the World Science Festival was held in New York. We offer a short story about the most interesting events of this event.

Those born to crawl can also fly (page 8)
Marina Golubeva, Nika Oparina
The article illustrates the thesis about the benefits of changing places.
The ragweed leaf beetle is a beetle introduced to Eurasia from North America to control the weed ragweed, on which it feeds exclusively. Quite quickly, this flightless insect moved forward, eating ragweed and... and sometimes snacking on other plants. This led to rapid evolutionary changes, as a result of which the beetle learned to fly.

Feel like a citizen of the world (page 9)
Alexander Artamonov
This spring, a group of museum workers from the Krasnoyarsk Territory visited several museums in Holland.
We are publishing a photo report by A. Artamonov about one of the leading museums in this country - Naturalis.

Eh, PR RAS... (p. 10)
Alexander Samokhin
At the end of June there will be a congress of the RAS workers' trade union. We bring to your attention an article dedicated to the questions. facing the trade union. The author is the chief researcher, member of the Council of the RAS Workers' Trade Union, chairman of the trade union committee of the Institute of General Physics of the RAS.

12 facts about volcanology (page 11)
Pavel Plechov
Continuing the publication of key facts and concepts from various fields of science, we present 12 facts about the science of volcanoes.

Congratulations with reservations (pp. 12-14)
Lev Klein
In the note, the author discusses the problems and features of domestic book publishing in the field of non-fiction.
The topic is continued by two comments taken by Natalia Demina from Nikita Maksimov (Eksmo publishing house), Vladimir Vaksman (Vek-2 publishing house), as well as from the famous popularizer Alexander Markov .

The long list of the Enlightenment Prize has been announced (page 13)
Natalia Demina
On June 9, 2011, the founder of the Dynasty Foundation and the Enlightener Prize, Dmitry Zimin , and the co-chairs of the award: book publisher Alexander Gavrilov and writer, TV presenter Alexander Arkhangelsky announced the names of the authors and titles of 25 books included in the longlist for this year’s award. The shortlist will be announced in September.

Gulliver vs. Alice (page 15)
Denis Tulinov
How do we perceive how the world appears before our eyes? The note talks about a very interesting experiment in the field of neuropsychology of vision, which examined how a person perceives the world depending on changes in the size of his body.

How many monsters live in Loch Ness? (page 16)
Egor Zadereev
The article talks about an amusing study published almost 40 years ago, in which ecologists tried to analyze, based on the known properties of the fauna of Loch Ness, how many monsters there might be there.

AUTHOR'S COLUMNS:
At least as a carcass, at least as a stuffed animal? (page 11)
Anastasia Kazantseva

Healthy Indifference (page 14)
Irina Levontina

The case is a pipe (p. 15)
Ivan Ekonomov

Open questions of war
Historians Alexey Isaev, Boris Sokolov, Kirill Alexandrov discuss the number of deaths in the Great Patriotic War - pp. 2-4

Infinite Universe
Scientific journalist Alexey Levin about alternative theories of the birth of the Universe – page 5

“We need a flexible, pluralistic and tolerant society”
In memory of Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner – pp. 6-7

Those born to crawl can fly
Biologists Marina Golubeva and Nika Oparina about the great migration of beetles to Eurasia – page 8

Volcanology is a rare specialty
Professor Pavel Plechov of Moscow State University on 12 facts of volcanology - page 11

Author - publisher - reader
Historian Lev Klein , paleontologist Alexander Markov , publishers Vladimir Vaksman and Nikita Maksimov discuss the problems of publishing scientific books - page 12

We look at the world through Gulliver's eyes
Scientific journalist Denis Tulinov about experiments in the field of neuropsychology of vision – page 15