Ring for intellectuals

In the capital, the tradition of scientific battles is gradually taking root. They pass more than peacefully. A physicist with a laser gun does not aim at a chemist with a test tube full of malicious acid. No, just a few young scientists are popularly talking about their research, without resorting to the help of a projector with slides, and for a couple of minutes reincarnating in someone like Caviens. Alexei Ognev and photorepector Ignat Solovey visited the fifth battles under the auspices of the Polytechnic Museum, which took place on May 15 at the Fleet Design Wall.

This time the audience also took part in the battles: the guests were offered to quickly distribute to the teams and play in amateur “What? Where? When?". The first round was held before the show, while the last preparations were completed, the second round at the very end, during the vote count. The audience was distinguished by wit and vigor of the spirit: someone dubbed the Lisiy Pile team, someone-the Northern Deer, someone-“more than a sextet” (apparently an extra participant was flooded there).

Extremely tricky issues from different fields of knowledge were invented by the participants in the battles themselves. For example, do you know that in the body it can increase five times in one second? Our improvised team with the optimistic name “Lantern” decided to answer “The volume of the lungs” and was raised to laugh: it turned out that it was about the eye pupil. Literally everyone was stating the question: “In which sunshine will the shadow move counterclockwise?” The first thing that comes to mind is the sunny clock in the southern hemisphere, but it is clear that the sun is moving regularly from east to west; The extravagant option “on the moon” was also incorrect. As it turned out, the correct answer is vertical sunshine, for example, hanging on the wall. Other questions turned out to be simpler. Say, about one of the districts of Tver: according to the local folklore, its absolutely Soviet name appeared three hundred years ago, when Peter the Great explained to the locals how to build bridges; The area was named after two elements of the bridge. It took us less than a minute to answer: proletarian.

The first was Fedor Senatov, Cand. physical. Sciences that defended the dissertation at the Department of Physical Chemistry Misis. It was dedicated to composites based on ultra -high -high polyethylene, which was used in medicine. Fedor performed a whole ode of polyethylene, without which neither a trip to a grocery store or shipbuilding is impossible. The plain package usual for us is easily torn, because the molecules in it are randomly intertwined, but if they orient them, then durable ropes and cables can be weaved from polyethylene. It was precisely such cables that the victim crashed the “Costa Concordia” liner: the steel was not for the future. According to Fedor, they learned to increase almost 100 times in MISIS by polyethylene strength. It is even used for the manufacture of body armor, as well as for prosthetics. Polyethylene is the only polymer permissive for joint prosthetics. New technologies in this area are very in demand: every minute there are three operations on the joint in the world, in Russia - about 300 thousand operations per year. Most often, operations take place on the knee or on the hip joint.

Further on the stage appeared polyethylene molecules with his own person: Fedor invited the people from the hall to depict the carbon atoms and handed them apples - hydrogen molecules.

“If we extend this line for another ten thousand people, you will get ordinary polyethylene,” exclaimed the scientist. - If we extend one hundred thousand people, it will turn out super -high molecular polyethylene.

Fedor himself transformed into a quantum of radiation:

- I am dressed in blue - it means that I have a wavelength of 450 nanometers! I'm going to irradiate polyethylene! I would like to break off the connections - but I can’t, I am weak. Can you get an apple? It is forbidden? See, there is not enough strength.

Further, Fedor became a quantum of gamma radiation and in the manner of Rapour took the desired apples. Then the statists held hands: the structure of polyethylene became stitched. From such polyethylene, you can already make prostheses.

In Misis, they learned to increase the wear resistance of the prosthesis twice. Previously, the prostheses had to be changed every 10 years - they wear out for a whole millimeter, began to shatter. Now they can serve for 20 years.

Nikita Sushentsev, a student of Sechenovka, told how continuous study can increase the quality of life in old age. According to him, Alzheimer's disease is more difficult to take our own, the more we learn. During Alzheimer's disease, neurons of the cortex of the large hemispheres of the brain die. Partly the fault of the proteins is the fault: they turn into balls, like headphones in a pocket, thereby making it difficult to transmit nervous impulse in neural networks.

“The disease of Alzheimer is Kovarna and cunning, it presents scientists with many surprises every year, it is difficult to find methods of its treatment,” Nikita complained. - How can training help here? Roughly speaking, it complicates the neutron network. In a simple network, with the death of one neuron, the action of the action potential of the entire network is violated. In a complex network, even the death of many neurons does not interfere with a nervous impulse.

The thesis illustrated the blinking of light bulbs on the Christmas garland.

-Also, the death of neurons can occur due to lack of nutrition. They feed on blood vessels. Roughly speaking, the capillaries do not branch in the brain of an unheated person, the blockage of one of them leads to sad consequences. In the brain of the one who studies, turning off one vessel can compensate for others.

In Chenovka, training programs are created that could help patients at the clinical stage.

Nikita’s performance, apparently, hit many for the living, because it caused a hail of questions. The jury even asked if the wisdom of humanity will contribute to the disconnection of television on the whole planet. As a result, they came to the conclusion that such a measure will not be enough.

Marianna Ivanova, candidate of medical sciences, spoke about the genetic diagnosis of eye diseases. In her speech, apples were no longer hydrogen, but photons; At the same time, the auditorium turned into an eye retina: the first row is ganglion cells, the second and third - bipolar, fourth and fifth - photoreceptors, pigment cells are placed on the gallery that protect the retina from excessive light hit. To peppy music, spectators conveyed photons from the back rows to the front in the chain - so the information about the outside world enters our brain.

No less vividly, although Dmitry Fateev, a graduate of Baumanka (he told how to increase the efficiency of solar batteries) and Tatyana Fedorova, an employee of the Institute of Biology of the Gene of the Russian Academy of Sciences (she studies the regulation of the work of sexual chromosomes), performed somewhat exaltatedly.

Ayrat Bagautdinov, a graduate of the Kazan Architectural and Civil Engineering University, spoke about the Shukhov tower, who recently hit news tapes: as you know, the Ministry of Communications decided to "civilized to disassemble" and assemble it somewhere in a new place. According to Ayrat, the tower suffers from slit corrosion and is in a betrayal condition, but in the next 10 years it can still be restored, and then the chance will be missed. According to the author of the restoration of the tower, it will cost 400 million rubles. Disassembling costs 100 million rubles, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to spend less on assembly than restoration. Thus, the restoration is more profitable even from a mundane economic point of view, not to mention the fact that the tower recalls the heights of domestic engineering thought: Shukhov’s experience and build a hyperboloid tower outside Russia only in 1963 in the Japanese port of Kobe.

In the final, the audience filled on nanobletes, where the two most striking performances should be indicated: they recognized the story of Alzheimer's disease and the Shukhov tower. The finalist announced the jury: Nikita Sushentsev won from Sechenovka - by the way, the youngest participant.