Announcement of the issue

Communication crisis (page 1)
Sergey Popov
Several materials in this issue are in one way or another related to the problem of the relationship between science and government in different countries. Therefore, it begins with a note in which a certain crisis in communication between scientists and high officials is stated, largely due to the fact that science (and not only) is not led by those with whom researchers could establish a productive dialogue.

The President and Science: Love and Hate (p. 2)
Irina Delyusina
Whether we like it or not, the world's largest scientific power is the United States. This is due to both good organization and high allocations, including government ones. How is that part of the budget associated with spending on science formed in the United States? The process is quite confusing. Many details are clarified by a note by Irina Delyusina , who works at the University of California at Davis.

The Role of Science in American Presidential Elections (page 3)
Egor Voronin
The topic of science in the United States is continued by an article that talks about the role that issues related to basic research play in the presidential race in America. No scientific or pseudo-scientific issues are included in the top 10 issues of interest to voters. Therefore, candidates do not devote much time to this topic. But they can say something inappropriate (for example, about their support for creationist views) if it helps attract votes.

Fifteen curious facts about the elections (page 4)
Maxim Pshenichnikov
A lot of materials were devoted to the topic of the December Duma elections in Russia, including on the pages of TrV-Nauka. This time we offer a selection of curiosities related mainly to voting statistics.

The story of one amendment (page 5)
Evgeniy Onishchenko
It details how young scientists fought to amend the law on public procurement; about what worked and what was not implemented; about who acted as opponents or even fierce opponents of the amendments, and who contributed to the promotion of reasonable ideas

Power and Reason (page 6)
Alexander Fradkov
Another “systemic” organization is going to represent scientists. But maybe it’s time to unite from below and create a society truly capable of defending the interests of active scientists?

ITEP: chronicle of the struggle for survival (p. 6)
Boris Stern
Recently, the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics has been making headlines, alas, not in connection with scientific achievements, but because its very existence as an effective scientific institution is under threat. We publish a selection of materials devoted to this topic.

Ten facts about the discovery of the dynamic Casimir effect (page 7)
Alexey Rubtsov
Highlighting the main discoveries of 2011, the journal Nature ranked first the discovery of the dynamic Casimir effect, which we described in the last issue. And in the current issue we present ten main facts regarding this significant scientific work.

Unknown Celebrity (page 8)
Alexey Paevsky
The traditional section, which talks about ancient Russian architecture, this time is dedicated to the most famous architectural monument of the country - St. Basil's Cathedral. From the article you can learn about some little-known facts to the general public.

"Radioastron" opens its petals (page 9)
Olga Zakutnyaya
We continue to talk about the stages of operation of the Spektr-R satellite, which is the basis of the Radioastron space interferometer. At the end of 2011, the project team successfully tested the observatory, including in interferometric mode. This article, as well as immediate plans, is discussed in the article.

Eleven stories about nuclear physics in medicine (p. 11)
Vladislav Syshchenko
Nuclear physics has many applications in medicine: both for diagnosis and treatment. You can learn about all this, as well as the physics behind practical applications, from the article.

Kantorovich's ideas and modernity (p. 12)
Semyon Kutateladze
January 19, 2012 marked one hundred years since the birth of Leonid Vitalievich Kantorovich, a world-famous mathematician and economist, winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Economics. We publish excerpts from a report dedicated to his life and work, which was read at the January anniversary conference at CEMI RAS.

We are equally concerned about the fear of shame and the thirst for glory (p. 13)
Natalia Reznik
Biologists conduct experiments not only on mice, but also on students. This time we studied the role of various stimuli influencing behavior. There were two incentives: shame and glory. It turned out that both work equally well. The fear of being publicly called the most greedy and the possibility of also being publicly recognized as the most generous changed the tactics of the subjects in the game proposed to them.

“An independent judiciary is the main task” (pp. 14-15)
Ernst Cherny
On January 11, 2012, a meeting of members of the Presidential Council of the Russian Federation for Human Rights with representatives of the Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists took place. After this event, Vera Vasilyeva interviewed the executive secretary of the committee, Ernst Cherny . The questions were mainly devoted to the fate of those who are called “spy” scientists.

AUTHOR'S COLUMNS:

Cartoons and the end of the world (page 10)
Anastasia Kazantseva

Viennese Art Nouveau (page 10)
Rebekah Frumkina

Would wear a quilted robe (page 12)
Irina Levontina

Where does Sakharov Avenue lead? (page 13)
Lev Klein

Morality and salary (page 15)
Ivan Ekonomov