Announcement of the issue

Captivated by the absurd (p. 1)
The editorial of the issue is devoted to the catastrophic situation that has developed with the receipt of funds for a number of grant programs. In this case, everything, as usual, must be spent by the end of the year and reported. Of course, there is no talk of any effective work anymore. It is necessary to finally give scientists the opportunity to carry forward the expenditure of funds to the next calendar year.

On the topic of the day (p. 2)
We continue to publish responses related to the opening of the Department of Theology at MEPhI. In this issue we present comments from our regular authors Alexey Gilyarov, Valery Adzhiev and Andrey Rostovtsev . They draw attention to the fact that the community perceives this undertaking as an aggressive missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, and MEPhI has a lot of other problems that should be addressed first.

Russian science and scientific collections (page 3)
Dmitry Geltman
The author describes the almost catastrophic situation in which many large Russian scientific collections find themselves. This is due, first of all, to a lack of funding. And this is already connected with the way we organize material support for science. Large collections find themselves outside the main financial flows. This may result in the loss of important storage items. And the nature of most of them is such that it is simply impossible to restore or recreate them.

Scientists – “great” and real (pp. 4-5)
Olga Petrova, Natalya Koroleva
In October, Dr. biol. Sciences Nadezhda Konstantinova submitted a statement of resignation from the scientific council of the Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute (PABSI) of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This is due to the fact that without an open discussion, the scientific council made an important decision that the project for the construction of a highway through the Umbozersky Pass “can be considered as an optimal solution to the problem of locating the transport infrastructure of the Northwestern Federal District.” The article examines in detail the problem that caused the conflict.

Fairy-tale mol_a_vedi (p. 5)
M.P.
The results of the competition mol_a_ved have been announced. The very announcement of the competition in the summer raised questions. Now, looking at the results, you can set new ones. . .

Imaginary threats of GMOs (p. 6)
Ruslana Radchuk
Essentially, the debate over the article by Séralini and colleagues on rats and transgenic corn is over. The results were declared unreliable. Official organizations commented on this episode. Against this background, the situation in Russia looks strange, where the chief sanitary doctor Onishchenko announced a ban on the import of transgenic corn, and RIA Novosti hosted a press conference of the notorious “GMO alarmist” Irina Ermakova.
The topic is continued by Alexander Panchin’s note “This text contains GMOs!”

Science owes pseudoscience nothing (p. 7)
Semyon Kutateladze
Again about Sergeev’s grossuan. The author believes that this is another example of a pseudoscientific concept that has gained some popularity. But this is also a good reason to speculate about the relationship between science and pseudoscience. Semyon Kutateladze defends the thesis that scientific seminars are not a place for discussing obviously pseudoscientific concepts, and therefore the complaints of “alternatively gifted” figures about the fact that “scientists do not want to discuss with us” are unfounded.
We also provide a commentary by Alexander Shen on the same topic.

Nature of Tajikistan: Kondara (page 8)
Pavel Kvartalnov
The first illustrated page spread is dedicated to the flora and fauna of the Kondara Gorge. Did you know that hazel grouse are not only the last food of the bourgeoisie, but also wonderful flowers? Even if you knew, look at the photographs: it’s very beautiful.

Mars rover at the bottom of an ancient lake (page 9)
Boris Stern
The second illustrated strip depicts the rover's new adventures on Mars. While the rover is moving to the point where drilling will be carried out, the task of which, of course, is to search for traces of life.

Fuer Haeckel (page 10)
Sergey Glagolev
At the center of the controversy is Haeckel’s law, its interpretation today and understanding of its role in the history of science. Sergei Glagolev criticizes some of the theses formulated by Lev Klein and Mikhail Gelfand in their articles in TrV-Nauka. A good comparison is given: from the fact that the orbits in the Copernican system are circular (which is false - in reality they are elliptical), it does not follow that the Copernican system is a “dark spot” in the history of science. And some people call Haeckel’s law exactly that, although it played an important role in the development of science, and its creator himself, the author of the article believes, well understood the limitations of the law.

Cascade effect in ecosystems (page 11)
Alexey Gilyarov
Ecosystems have very interesting interactions between species that use different food sources. The “predator-prey” situation in reality can look much more interesting than in a simple model. For example, the “blooming” of a reservoir can be reduced by introducing predatory fish into it. Quite a non-trivial thing! Kozma Prutkov would be pleased.

In memory of Alexander Kibrik (pp. 12-13)
On October 31, the famous linguist Alexander Evgenievich Kibrik , the founder of a new scientific school in linguistic typology, died. We publish responses from his colleagues.

“The abyss full of stars has opened” (p. 14)
Alexander Khokhlov
This page is dedicated to reviews. The first is dedicated to the book “Why the Sky is Dark” by Vladimir Reshetnikov . The book is a finalist for the Enlightenment Prize.
The second review, written by Igor Pavlov , discusses Jill Taylor's book My Stroke Was a Science to Me.

Snails in chocolate (page 15)
Natalia Reznik
We know from reading Harry Potter (and from personal experience) that dark chocolate is a good remedy for mild depression. But it also has other useful properties. Studies on snails have shown that one of the components of chocolate promotes the formation of long-term memory.

Science Inspector (page 16)
Alexander Kharitonov
An instructive story about how one institute suffered from the nagging of inspectors, and the institute’s lawyer did not help solve the problem, but rather aggravated it. The author believes that the absurd situation in which the institute finds itself is not accidental, but artificially organized. The result is that conducting research is becoming increasingly difficult.

AUTHOR'S COLUMNS:

Helping society within our means (p. 11)
Sergey Belkov

Elusive Object (page 13)
Irina Levontina

Grants, grants (page 15)
Ivan Ekonomov