Vol 93, No 2 (2023)

This article reviews the main properties of the modular design of small nuclear power plants (SNPPs), shows the possibility of reducing the cost and construction time of this class of plants through factory production, the effect of serialization, and the reduction of redundant safety systems. The prospects for significant expansion of the field of application of nuclear technologies due to their modularity and the possibility to ensure high safety performance are presented. Possible areas of SNPP use for power supply of remote territories including the Arctic area, production of high-potential heat and hydrogen for industrial consumers, and other applications are analyzed. It shows the need to develop and implement a new nuclear energy technology platform based on SNPPs to solve the problems of global decarbonization of the world economy by significantly expanding the scope of nuclear energy technologies in addition to the currently developed technological platform of a closed nuclear fuel cycle with fast neutron reactors and the technological platform of controlled thermonuclear fusion. The authors propose to create a pilot site for testing technologies for captive production of hydrogen (heat) for an industrial consumer, as well as other technologies for the utilitarian use of SNPPs based on a pilot demonstration of a nuclear power plant with a high-temperature (about 1100C) fast neutron reactor with a gas coolant. 

Based on the sociological surveys “Scientific Policy of Russia,” conducted in 2021 and 2022, widespread opinions in the scientific community regarding the external openness of Russian civil science are analyzed. It is noted that the sustainable vector of state policy to maintain a high level of integration of domestic science into the international scientific space was suddenly called into question after the start of the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. The decades-long Western-oriented course of Russian science has formed strong support among researchers, which, as it turned out, is very difficult for scientists to abandon abruptly even in the new conditions. It has been established that the sanctions imposed against Russian science turned out to be quite painful, and their consequences can only be overcome in the long term. 

It is well known that in recent decades the scale of migration processes has been increasing, covering almost all continents. The article attempts to assess migration in Africa in the Sahel and sub-Saharan countries, both legal and illegal, to identify its causes, and to establish the connection between conflicts and their consequences. In addition, the task was set to analyze the main migration routes. The authors studied migration processes in countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, and others. These countries are united by the weakness of state security forces, which are not yet capable of independently solving national security problems. Extremist organizations such as Boko Haram, terrorizing the local population, complicate the situation. The former metropolises cannot solve the security problem either. The novelty of the study lies in the establishment of the relationship between conflicts and migrations. The conclusion is formulated that the problem of migration can be solved only under the condition of the political and economic strengthening of the countries of the region, when external assistance will be directed not to armaments, but to development purposes. An important role in ensuring the security of borders and civilians should belong to internationally supported national security forces. According to the authors, in the near future, while the unstable military-political and economic situation in a number of states continues, migration on the continent will only intensify.

Among the land-dominated natural formations, like forests and grasslands, the attention of  humanity is drawn at present primarily to the former. It is the forests of temperate and tropical zones that are  supposed to play an important role in the regulation of biosphere processes on Earth, including the current  climate. This almost completely ignores the importance of herbaceous systems widely represented by steppes and  meadows. The overwhelming superiority of forests over grass ecosystems in productivity and phytomass stock  is recognized. A comparative analysis of production estimates (t/ha/year) and of organic material stocks  (t/ha) in the underground and aboveground parts of herbaceous and forest ecosystems accumulated in the scientific  literature has shown that meadows and steppes are not inferior (and often even superior) to forests both in the  mass of accumulated organic matter and in annual growth of phytomass. The only difference is that organic  production is localized in forest communities mainly in the aboveground part as considerable wood (trunk)  mass while it is equally or more shifted underground in herbaceous communities in the form of soil organic matter.  The leaf (photosynthesizing) masses of herbaceous and forest communities are close in quantity, respectively, and  their synthesis of organic products and carbon exchange with the atmosphere are also similar. The author  argues that the steppe and meadow ecosystems do not lag behind forests in organic mass and participation  in biosphere processes, thus deserving no less effort for their preservation.

This article is dedicated to the study of a brightly glowing spherical formation called a plasmoid,  which occurs with a special type of pulsed electric discharge above the water surface. The lifespan of a luminous  ball is quite long; therefore, it is considered as an analogue of ball lightning, the nature of which has not  yet received an exhaustive scientific explanation. An attempt is made to find out whether or not an aerosol is  present in a plasmoid and what its chemical and dispersed compositions are. It is shown that when a laser  beam passes through a plasmoid, the scattering of laser radiation on aerosol particles of different sizes is  clearly observed. It has been established that the interior of a plasmoid is filled with an aqueous aerosol, which  includes two fractions: one of them consists of particles of the submillimeter range, while the other contains  a medium-dispersed aerosol. The total volume of the particles is estimated at several cubic centimeters.  Hopefully, the results obtained will make it possible to advance in understanding the processes occurring  during the formation of not only plasmoids but also natural ball lightning.  

Recently, a small, undeservedly forgotten article by Academician M.I. Rostovtsev was discovered in the newspaper Svobodnyi Narod (Free People) of the Cadet Party (Petrograd) under the title “New System and Science.” It was published in August 1917. Its leitmotif is that only firm state power can guarantee the preservation and development of culture and science in Russia. The weakening of the state as a result of powerful revolutionary upheavals, according to the scientist, is the main danger to the scientific life of the country. This publication is interesting even now, during the difficult period of reforming science and education in modern Russia.

The book formulates a reasonable conclusion that the process of integration in Russia of migrants from Armenia (as, indeed, any migrants in any country) is a continuum and does not imply complete assimilation.

Yu.A. Bubeev, Dr. Sci. (Med.), was awarded the 2022 Bekhterev Gold Medal. E. M. Romanov, Dr. Sci. (Med.), was awarded the 2022 Morozov Gold Medal. RAS Professor S.I. Bezrodnykh, Dr. Sci. (Phys,–Math,), was awarded the 2021 Lavrent’ev Prize. O.F. Kudryavtsev, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), was awarded the 2021 Kareev Prize.