Here comes Christmas. And again there is a crisis. But different. Back then, our houses were hardly heated, salaries were paid occasionally, food was not bought, but obtained. Some had already left, but all close friends were alive. I won’t say that “we were young,” but the continuation of this cliché corresponds to the reality of that time - we “were full of hope.” In many ways, these hopes were justified - all that remains is to get used to the fact that not everyone is.

Lev Klein We publish an article by our permanent author, the famous Russian archaeologist, historian Lev Samuilovich Klein , dedicated to the ongoing scientific dispute about what role the Varangians played in the development of the Russian state. One of my books, written almost half a century ago, is published for the first time now. This rarely happens with scientific books, in archeology - especially. After all, in it sources double for every 30 years. But not outdated!

Matz /Noaa /Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute: Giant amoeba: primitive, but strong. The giant amoeba leaves unusual traces on the seabed, which can be attributed to a completely different animal, the article published by American researchers in the journal Current Biology says. Specialists from the Oceanographic Institute in Florida studied the giant marine amoebu Gromia Sphaerica, reaching three centimeters in diameter.

We present to your attention a selection of scientific and near -scientific New Year's news In every house - faster than the speed of light Scientists calculated that due to the time difference in different parts of the Earth, Santa Claus has 31 hours to visit at least 100 million families. Thus, he must look at 896 houses every second! To do this, he needs to move at a speed of 1655 kilometers per second, which is 5000 times higher than the sound speed.

Overview of Yana Voitskhovskaya about the events of the year in the field of biology In the field of biology, the reading of animal and plant genomes continued. In particular, the genomes of corn, soybean, papaya, platypus, pandas, turkey, kangaroos, Branchiostoma Floridae, the first Tribolium Castaneum, trichoplax, and the columinoclaigella, and parasite -parasite beetle were deciphered.

On December 20, 2008, the brilliant scientist Tatyana Maksimovna Birshtein was 80 years old-Dr. Fiz.-Mat. sciences, the chief scientific employee of the Institute of High Molecular Compounds, professor of the Faculty of Physics of St. Petersburg State University, laureate of the award of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after Acad. V.A. Kargina 2008, the first Russian woman awarded the prestigious international L'Oreal-Yesko Award “For Women in Science”.

Announcement of the issue Vladimir Arnold on the benefits of proving theorems – pp. 1-3 Evgeniy Onishchenko: about the miracle Foresight method – pp. 3-4 New Year in the expectations of scientists and journalists – pp.

Dear editors! At times I think about how quickly our government is becoming effectively working, and it even takes me aback: we blamed officials for their red tape and inability to work, and now we are getting a completely different calico.

Our colleague Sergei Popov, Ph.D., S.N.S. State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg answers the questions of the TRV about the newsletter of astrophysical news, which this year celebrated its first serious anniversary. - Sergey, when did the first newsletter issue appear? Who came to mind the idea of ​​its creation? - As you know, the morning of many scientists begins with the viewing of articles placed in the archive of electronic preprints ( http: // arxiv.org ).

1. In the traditional December list of the 10 most outstanding scientific achievements of 2008, Science magazine (www.sciencemag.org) put research on the first place, which allowing the cells of the human body, changing their specialization, thus making cell lines “on an individual order”.

We publish an article by a researcher at the Physical Institute. P.N. Lebedeva RAS, one of the organizers of the interdisciplinary site Scientific.ru Evgeny Onishchenko, who continues his journey through the country of state lots in the field of science and education. This time the author’s attention was attracted by the “country of Forsythia”.

Sociologist Denis Volkov talks about the results of the latest Levada Center study on the question of what the reading preferences of Russians are. Judging by the results of a survey conducted by our center in September 2008, almost half of Russians (46%) today do not read books, about two-fifths (37%) do not read newspapers, and more than half (56%) never read magazines.

We continue to present to readers of the TRV leading Russian scientific and popular publications and those who make them. The general director of the magazine “Knowledge-Power” (www.znanie-sila.ru) Igor Kharichev answers the questions. - What is the path of a journalist and scientist to scientific popularization, according to your observations, is the most typical? How did you come to scientific popularization? - I think that a universal answer to this question does not exist.

Comments by Yegor Zadereev on the Time magazine rating It should be noted that most of the results included in the ranking of the main scientific events of the year are the work of American scientists. I’ll try to comment on this top ten from the point of view of a “boring scientist”. Number one. The Large Hadron Collider. I wouldn’t rush here: the collider, roughly speaking, “flew” at launch - let’s wait until next year, and then we’ll put it in the ratings.

Alexander Grosberg , Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor of Physics and Mathematics at the Faculty of Physics and the Center for Research in the Liquid State of Matter at New York University, on the eve of T.M. Birshtein’s anniversary , wrote the following about her: Science is, by nature, a joyful business. It’s hard to compare with anything the feeling you experience every time you understand something new that you didn’t understand before.