In their opinion, nature conservation and biological education of schoolchildren are closely interrelated.

Now the people have calmed down, but all the same they flock to the coveted house in the morning, fortunately, waiting for the doctor is a pleasure: the beanbag chairs in the waiting room are the softest, the music plays quietly, for the bored – books are placed on the shelves. And most importantly, right before the eyes of honest people, magic is born: a gloomy, stooped, evil person enters, and comes out – light and refreshed, perhaps not singing.

SCIENTIFIC COMMENTATOR"And with one bullet he killed both …"Reznik N.L.Smoking and obesity are not the least of the problems that weigh heavily on modern healthcare. Physicians, biologists, psychologists and other specialists, including economists and politicians, are fighting them to the best of their ability. They raise the price of tobacco, which, according to statistics, helps to reduce the number of cigarettes consumed. Another measure, even less popular, is the so-called fat tax, that is, an increase in the price of unhealthy foods. It is not yet very effective, because there is no agreement on this issue in different countries.

INTERVIEWLess thorns on the way to the starsPopov S.B.We have not once turned to the topic of teaching natural sciences at school in general and specifically – to the issue of a promising textbook for teaching. This time we will focus on astronomy. Our questions were answered by SB Popov, astrophysicist, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an active popularizer of his science.

DISCUSSIONWho has Hirsch moreFedorov P.P., Popov A.I.The Hirsch Index is one of the most fashionable ways to measure the scientific productivity of a scientist, expressed in the number and popularity of his publications. It is clear that quantity and popularity are different things, but I would like to have some generalized parameter. This parameter was proposed in 2005 by the Argentine-American physicist Jorge Hirsch; now it is called the "Hirsch index", or simply "Hirsch", and is denoted by h.

INVESTIGATIONSixteen percent of the Russian genomeMarkina N.V.The medical genetic company Genotech presented an “ethnic argumentative essay outline portrait of a Russian” and received amazing results: “the average Russian inherited only 16.2% of his genome from residents of Central Russia, 19.2% from Ukrainians and Belarusians, 13.1% from Finns , 6.3% of Hungarians ", etc. The colorful" ethnic portrait "appeared as a result of a study conducted by Genoteka specialists among residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Simferopol and Kiev. The sample included about 2,000 people, all of them clients of the company who are interested in their origins. Let’s say right away that in the scientific community, the results reported by Genotech received a sharply negative assessment. Let’s try to figure out why.

MEMOIRS OF IGNOBELPredator bunchKomarov S.M.A person speaks thanks to the presence of an air bag – the lungs. The air escaping from them vibrates the vocal cords – the folds of the laryngeal mucosa, which generates sound. These ligaments are very flexible and resilient, so a person can make sounds over a wide range of frequencies. However, not everyone has such useful devices. For example, most fish have neither lungs nor vocal cords, and they are deservedly considered the most silent animals. But there are exceptions among them. For the discovery of an original way of communication in fish that are able to let air out of their lungs, two research teams received the Ignobel Prize in Biology in 2004. Surprisingly, in 2003, both scientific groups published articles on how herring communicate using bubbles released from the anus.

DIARY OF OBSERVATIONSHiking pigeonsAnina N.Bird collision with air and land transport is a serious problem. Experts in this field tend to believe that birds do not perceive machines as a source of danger. Indeed, a car is not a cat that sneaks up to grab and eat; chasing a pigeon in a car is a rarity. On the other hand, birds raised in a city or near busy highways might learn to avoid cars. Some researchers believe they are indeed learning.

HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARYActive love for natureSavinov I.A., Rupasov S.V.The authors of this article, botanist Ivan Alekseevich Savinov and zoologist Sergei Valerievich Rupasov, are teachers and travelers with extensive experience in teaching and expeditionary work, members of the Russian Geographical Society. In their opinion, nature conservation and biological education of schoolchildren are closely interrelated. If not for nature reserves and national parks, teenagers interested in biology could not get acquainted with the wild nature, remember how beautiful it can and should be. And if new generations of enthusiasts do not come to biology and conservation, who will take care of nature in the new millennium?

HISTORY PAGES"To make red planes fly faster than black ones …"Bagotsky S.V.May 14, 2017 marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Roberto Oros di Bartini (1897-1974), an outstanding Soviet physicist, aircraft designer and philosopher. Roberto, or Robert Ludwigovich, Bartini, an Italian by birth, worked for many years in the USSR and in questionnaires, in the column "nationality", wrote "Russian".

WHAT WE WILL EATBlue-green algaeRuchkina N.In the middle of the last century, people began to think that they needed an additional source of protein. And on Earth it will not hurt, and in space it will come in handy. Industrial cultivation of blue-green algae began several decades ago.

FANTASYStrangers don’t count“Come on one more time, Pudge,” Fangs said wearily. – Everything is in order.- He called me on the street when I was driving by. I stopped and asked: what do you need? He said: let’s go into the house. I got out of the carriage and entered. He said: all Tafidians are freaks. I got angry and hit him. A vase. There was a vase on his bedside table. He fell and died. I got scared and ran outside to the cart. The guard noticed me, called, but I did not stop. I got into the carriage and drove off very quickly.- Is that all?- And that’s all.

CHEMISTS AND LYRICSMockery of the imaginationBorisov Vladimir, Lukashin AlexanderPhilologist Tatiana Chernysheva in her monograph “The Nature of Science Fiction” writes: “It is well known that in their views on the world and possible forms of mind in the Universe, science fiction writers, following scientists, adhere to two directly opposite points of view: some (anthropomorphists), referring to the law of convergence , argue that the highest forms of life in the Universe should be close to those forms that have developed on Earth, and an intelligent being should be, in any case, human-like; others (relativists), proceeding from the infinite variety of conditions in the Universe, suggest the possibility of other, not the same as on Earth, forms of life and mind. " Indeed, analyzing the literature on life in the Universe, we find that scientists and popularizers of science have put forward many hypotheses about the existence of planets in space with a completely different life chemistry than on Earth.

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INVESTIGATIONHoles in the tundraKomarov S.M.A crater or gas explosive funnel in Yamal, which was first noticed three years ago, excites not only enthusiasts, but also specialists. Indeed, as the events of 2017 showed, similar holes in the ground arise with enviable constancy and, formed in the immediate vicinity of a village or a gas infrastructure facility, can lead to trouble. Geologists and geophysicists are studying this new phenomenon with great enthusiasm and have achieved some success, although there is no consensus on the mechanism of the formation of giant holes in the earth.

HYPOTHESESWhere do the rings on Earth come from?Miskinova N.A., Shvilkin B.N.At the very beginning of the space age, when man got the opportunity to look at the Earth from space, a huge ring structure with a diameter of about 50 kilometers was discovered in the Sahara. It was called the "Eye of the Sahara" or "the Rishat structure". Subsequently, similar ring structures were discovered, not only on Earth, but also on other planets with an atmosphere in the solar system, and on the moons of Jupiter. The origin of these ring structures has not been precisely established, therefore there are several groups of hypotheses. This article lists the main ones.

THINGS AND SUBSTANCESHow to replace silicon?Kuramshin A.I.Of course, we are not talking about the fact that the reserves of silicon on Earth are running out. In the crust of our iron-stone planet, silicon will not end, it will always be enough for the manufacture of glass, building materials and other products of large-scale chemistry. Only one well-known area is actively looking for a replacement for silicon – sooner or later, integrated silicon microcircuits and processors will not be able to provide sufficient computing speed. Let’s try to look into the future and guess what element the analogue of Silicon Valley will be named after in the second half of the 21st century.

CHEMOSCOPEThe new definition of the moleKuramshin A.I.One of the first decisions of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), adopted in 2018, will not go unnoticed – thanks to it, a huge number of school and university textbooks on chemistry and physics will have to be republished. By an overwhelming majority, although not unanimously, IUPAC approved a new version of the definition of the unit of quantity of a substance – the mole.

CHEMOSCOPECatalyst removes nitrates from waterKuramshin A.I.Chemists from the American Rice University have developed a catalyst that removes nitrates from drinking water, converting them into a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen.

CHEMOSCOPEThe strangest lithium batteryKuramshin A.I.At first glance, it seems that the new battery, developed by the group of Christopher Wolverton from Northwestern University in the United States, will not work – the chemistry is so unusual in it. But it works, and quite well.

HALF A CENTURY FORWARD "And you scratch him …"Grigoriev F.Starting with this issue, we publish the works of the winners of the "Half a Century Ahead" competition, announced a year ago. Popular science reports from 2067 participated in this competition. This is the work in second place.

HUNDRED CHEMICAL MYTHSCosmetics and other synthetics: is there a danger?Leenson I.A.Only a very small fraction of synthetic compounds entering our bodies have ever been tested for health hazards, including carcinogenicity, effects on reproductive function, intrauterine development, the immune system, and so on. Those who study – study with experimental animals; it is unethical to do it in public. In addition, the effect of individual substances is usually studied, whereas in real life their mixture acts on us. At the same time, up to 1800 new chemical compounds appear on the market every year.

PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF SCIENCEGet to know your catReznik N.L.A cat is a personality, which has been proven experimentally. However, the personality is underexamined – the throughput of laboratories is not enough to comprehend all its complexity and depth. And without this, people cannot understand domestic cats and provide them with suitable living conditions. Fortunately, scientists are aware of the problem and are working steadily to solve it. Even a new discipline has emerged, anthrozoology, which studies the relationship between animals and humans. So typing the feline personality has been at the forefront of science.

DIARY OF OBSERVATIONSDefaunization fruitsAnina N.Times are not chosen, but they are given names. Perhaps this century will go down in history as an era of accountability. Even naturalists no longer walk through the woods looking around enthusiastically, but sit in their office, extracting data from previously published sources. And now forests are being cut down, roads are being laid through them, and they are hunted there. Animals, naturally, suffer from this, and first of all large ones. This process, called defaunization, affects plant ecosystems, and we are not quite sure how exactly.

LIVE LABORATORIESWhat do plants smell about?Inna GutermanThe variety of herbal scents created by nature seems inexhaustible. To designate substances that are not directly involved in the growth, development and reproduction of individual cells, the term "secondary metabolites" was proposed more than 200 years ago. Despite the disrespectful name, these substances play an important role in plant life, participate in the interaction of plants with each other and with the environment. To date, more than 100,000 such substances have been identified. Many of them are highly volatile, and people perceive them as the smell of a plant. In this article, the author will talk about some of the features of odorous plants, a little about how the biosynthesis of volatile secondary metabolites is studied, as well as the prospects for applying this knowledge in practice.

NANOFANTASTICCleaning lady NinaJeanne DanLand of the Future. A three-meter hairy werewolf sits at the table in his office. The clawed paw diligently holds the handle, the mane is smoothly combed, the huge fangs are revealed by a generally friendly smile.On the other side of the table is a frail, brown-haired girl nervously fiddling with a white purse.- Welcome to our employment office. My name is Gresenberg Clawtail. So … Let’s fill out the primary questionnaire. Are you a vampire?

VICTIMS OF SCIENCEPigs: a history with transplantsYastrebova S.Thinking about the role of pigs in medicine – remembering organ transplantation. Say, the internal structure of these animals is very similar to ours. This is indeed the case. It is only in the study of porcine organs as objects for transplantation over the past two decades, there have been significant shifts. It’s time to refresh your ideas, and at the same time remember in what other areas of biomedicine pigs have shown their professional suitability.

MEMOIRS OF IGNOBELThe power of music and loveKomarov S.M.What controls a person’s immunity? Oddly enough, modern science cannot give an unambiguous answer to this question – the defense of our body consists of too many components. Therefore, many answers can be found. In particular, from a group of similar scientific works that were awarded the Ignobel Prizes in Medicine for 1997, 2013 and 2015, such exotic answers follow as a good mood, the rhythms of music, and even love itself.

ReflectionsEcology paradoxesBagotsky S.V.The term "ecology" has become very popular these days. And all and sundry remember the ecology. The confusion occurs due to the fact that in our country the word "ecology" is used in two different meanings: "ecology-1" is a discipline that studies biological systems, and "ecology-2" is a set of practical problems related to the preservation of the environment. Wednesday. The relationship between ecology-1 and ecology-2 is somewhat similar to the relationship between physiology and medicine. Without knowledge of physiology, competent treatment of a patient is impossible.

HISTORY PAGESTravel to Mangazeya and LukomoryeVekhov N.V.Ancient geographical maps are full of mysteries. For example, the land of Lukomoria is indicated on the map of the present western Siberia. Is it really the same one – "Near the curvaceous sea a green oak, a golden chain on that oak …"? What is this curved sea near Pushkin, a bend of a river, a bay of the sea (both of these versions of the dictionaries derive from the Old Russian "bow", a bend) or a distant country like a distant kingdom? And here is another half-myth-half reality – Mangazeya.