1. In the summer of 2022, the unique, world’s first ice-resistant platform “The North Pole” was put into operation.
The self-propelled platform “North Pole” is at the same time a transport, a home and a research center. There are 15 laboratories and a server system for storing the received data; Sensors are built into the hull of the ship to monitor the ice condition. Polar explorers have drones, meteorological buoys and guided underwater vehicles in their arsenal. Observations can be made within a radius of several tens of kilometers.
Currently, the platform is participating in the North Pole-41 expedition, which is now in its third month.
2. On September 20, 2022, the new president of the Russian Academy of Sciences was elected
Academician Gennady Krasnikov, Director General of the Molecular Electronics Research Institute, has been elected as the new president of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the next five years.
Past presidential elections were held according to new rules: now it takes a majority vote, not 2/3, to elect the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Just before the elections, the former president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeev, withdrew his candidacy, calling this decision forced.
The new head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Gennady Krasnikov, then plans to audit the results of scientific institutions and the effectiveness of their leaders “to seek new approaches with them.” Krasnikov mentioned this in a meeting with Vladimir Putin. According to Gennady Krasnikov, the main mechanism for implementing scientific achievements should be end-to-end projects of a complete innovation cycle, which can most effectively implement consortia – associations of scientific organizations of various nationalities and high-tech enterprises.
3. The world’s first cloned lamb with wild genes
Scientists from the Federal Center for Livestock Research named after academician LK Ernst have cloned a hybrid lamb whose mother is a prolific Romanov sheep and father is a wild Pamir argali.
The lamb Konguru, named after the highest peak of the Pamir Mountains, is now six months old. The idea of scientists was to combine the high fecundity of Romanov sheep and the strong backbone of the father in one animal. With the help of editing, a gene that inhibits muscle formation was disabled.
To date, this is the world’s first cloned hybrid lamb, created using the genes of wild animals.
4. National Center for Physics and Mathematics established in 2022
With the support of the state agency Rosatom, the new Physics and Mathematics Center opened at the end of 2022. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, physicist Alexander Sergeev became its supervisor. The center’s physicists and mathematicians face entirely new tasks, including extracting matter and antimatter from the vacuum, building collider factories to detect dark matter signals, and studying phenomena such as lightning in the lab, sonoluminescence and gas hydrates. Mathematicians will be engaged in the creation of a photonic computer and artificial intelligence as close to humans as possible.
For these tasks, it is planned to build three mega science facilities, a science institute with 2,000 employees and an academic campus with a population of 10,000 by 2030.
5. The first electron beams were obtained experimentally in the “SKIF” linear accelerator.
Although the launch of the Siberian Ringed Photon Source (SKIF) had to be delayed by a year due to the complexity of logistical plans, the first electron beams have already been obtained on a linear accelerator in the Institute’s laboratory. Nuclear Physics (INP) of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In parallel, the construction process continues at the construction site in the science city of Koltsovo (Novosibirsk region), where the installation will take place.
SKIF is one of the largest research infrastructure projects in Russia in recent years. 37.1 billion rubles were allocated for its construction.
SKIF will unlock new fundamental information about the structure of matter at the micro and nano levels, meaning it will be more efficient to solve problems faced by physicists, chemists, doctors and biologists. The resulting technologies will be used in the microelectronics and chemical industries, mechanical engineering, mining and processing enterprises, as well as in the military-industrial complex.