Dear editors! The General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences recently took place, and once again all ill-wishers were shown the constant attention of the country's leadership to the Academy. If our President honored the December meeting with his presence, then the Prime Minister honored the May meeting. It can be said that Russian statehood walked on the academic carpet with both tsar's boots. And the attention of the leadership, my dear academic colleagues, is obligatory.

In recent years, a lot of popular science literature began to appear in bookstores, which, of course, cannot but rejoice. But despite the growing assortment, the theme of the presented works remains quite narrow. Most of the books are devoted to physics (not least thanks to the reprint of the books of Stephen Hawking), astronomy is in second place, in the third - molecular biology and genetics.

View> Home / Science and Society / Mumu in "Pure Water" Mumu in "Clean Water" May 25, 2010 TRV No. 54, p. 5, Mikhail Gelfand Category: Science and Society There are no comments Rice. Yu. Bykova The fools are good is that they are stupid, greedy and lazy. This is what was worth unknown to the organizers of the campaign to discredit opposition politicians to put different girls to them?

On May 18, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke at the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The head of government touched on the topics of the topic topical for the Academy of Sciences - financing of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the construction of housing on its lands, and the effectiveness of research.

Room announcements The main topic of the issue is the results of the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences Putin visiting academicians (page 2) Vladimir Pokrovsky and Fyodor Kapitsa Two journalists write about their impressions of Vladimir Putin’s visit to the Academy and his speech. There were no sensations.

Yu. Osipov photo from the site http://premier.gov.ru RAS President Yuri Osipov, who repeatedly accused the media of the “persecution” of the academy, and his colleagues - in the absence of a sense of corporate solidarity, does not notice (or does not want to notice) an obvious thing. Allegedly, attacking the Russian Academy of Sciences, like internal criticism, are primarily aimed at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences and its administrative-organizational activity.

Writing collective letters “from scientists to the President” has already grown into a folk pastime. In my memory, over the past couple of years, scientists have been honored to write almost a dozen letters of varying degrees of collectiveness. One can recall the letter of ten academicians against the clericalization of society, and the appeals of the RAS trade unions to the authorities. But of the massive and decentralized actions, three are clearly etched in my memory.

On May 10, Plato Grigoryevich Kostyuk died. Despite the fact that it was known about his serious illness, the news of the death was sudden and tragic. A talented scientist, a brilliant experimenter, an outstanding organizer of science, a wonderful teacher, a kind and wise person passed away. In recent years, we did not meet often, but regularly enough, and Platon Grigoryevich spoke a lot about his past, about his teachers, unexpected turns of fate. It was good, calm and reliable with him.

TrV continues to ask famous Russian scientists about the popular science books that had the greatest influence on them. For answers from physicist Mikhail Katsnelson and sociologist Alexander Gofman, see the previous issue (TrV No. 53).

Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich! You, like other state leaders, have repeatedly spoken about the importance of science for creating a highly developed economy in our country. In recent years, more than once or twice, science has been named among the main government priorities. Many correct words are being said about the need to increase the efficiency of investing in science, holding open and fair competitions, abandoning “signboard financing,” etc.

View > Home / Genesis of Science / Murmuring at the Academy Murmur at the Academy May 25, 2010 TrV No. 54, p. 1, Boris Stern Category: Genesis of Science no comments The main topic of this issue of TRV was the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, held on May 18. The main attention of commentators was attracted by the appearance of the prime minister.

Craig Venter. PLOS photo Over the past two weeks, two important events that filled the news feeds have occurred in molecular biology. Firstly, the sequence of the Neanderthal genome was determined and it turned out ... Well, in general, this turned out ... But more on that another time, and now-about the second sensation, the “artificial bacterium” of Craig Venter (J. Craig Venter).

From the shackles in our archeology are not so often found, especially large ones. I decided to talk about two similar ones on the topic because the fact that they flared up in domestic archeology is an accident: they could erupt in any other science. Therefore, they should be interesting to everyone. Roman and death of Childe The first occurred in 1956.

Due to the increase in daylight hours in St. Petersburg, city crazy people have become more noticeable. One such person, for example, defaced the beautiful new sidewalk on the road to the paid clinic on Liteiny with stenciled inscriptions “abortion is murder.” I step over them and think about why, of all the annoying attempts to get into my head, it is the pro-life propaganda that irritates me the most, although, it would seem, where is the reproduction, and where is I.

Dear Colleagues! May 25, 2010 Boris Stern Category: “Trinity Option” online 10 comments 5966 views, 21 - today I would like to ask you, those who read and love the Trinity Option, to support the newspaper with a small donation, or to subscribe to it. At the moment, while the registration of the NPO for the newspaper is dragging on, we are in critical need of money and are already pretty much in debt.