Том 87, № 1 (2017)

Halophytes (galos, salt; phyton, a plant) are ecologically, physiologically, and biochemically specialized plants, which belong to various systemic and life forms capable of finishing their life cycle in a saline habitat (the soil solution’s electrical conductivity is 8–10 dS/m). Halophyte resources are an important source and reserve of the sustainable development of agriculture in arid parts of the world, including Russia. The importance of the world’s halophyte resources is shown for obtaining fodder, grass forage, and medicinal and oil raw materials, as well as biological agents for reclaiming degraded lands, especially in arid regions, where dire shortages of food are observable. Research results of introducing halophytes in crops as forage, oil, and medicinal plants in the conditions of irrigated and nonirrigated farming in arid regions of Central Asia and Russia are given. Prospects for the multipurpose use of halophytes in the sustainable development of viable agriculture are substantiated.

This article is dedicated to critical analysis of a work by O.V. Mikhailov on problems of citation, which compares works by representatives of natural science disciplines and the humanities. The invalidity of insisting that a fundamental difference exists between natural scientists and scholars in the humanities from the point of view of the freedom of creativity, the typology of scientific publications, and the search for scientific regularities is affirmed, and the lower citation indicators of scholars in the humanities are explained in detail by the example of historians in relation to several objective factors.

A geological fund may contain data from various sources that describe the same object, as well as from other arrays of information. Correct use of the fund data is secured by harmonization of the information. For effective functioning and satisfactory information service, a geological fund should be not only a library of digital data with information search but also a system of content-related information processing. A knowledge base in an information system is an integral part of a model of the surrounding world, which includes rules, algorithms, and their parameters that can be applied to the content of the database of the factual data on a subject area to solve special problems. This article discusses the concept of a knowledge base of a geological fund, its tasks, and ways of its organization and use. Two problems are considered in detail: control of information consistency and updating of derived data, particularly synthetic maps. A geodatabase of a project of large-scale geological mapping of Moscow, which contains over 90 000 drill logs of exploratory wells and digital map data of a structural-geodynamic map, four geological maps of various stratigraphic divisions, a hydrogeological map, and five synthetic maps of dangerous processes and engineering–geological zonation, is selected as an example.

To date, a unique set of conditions has developed in the Russian economy, ensuring the potential to increase annual GDP growth rates up to 3–5% in the next two-to-three years. This article, based on the report of the RAS Institute of Economic Forecasting presented at the RAS Presidium meeting on March 29, 2016, enumerates the factors related to the institutional imperatives and key macroeconomic and financial measures for recovery of production growth in the basic sectors of the economy in the short term, substantiates them, and discloses the characteristic features of economic development in the medium and long term.

The problem of invisible gold has acquired global importance because, in many countries, large deposits of disseminated sulfide ores with refractory properties are the main potential source of gold production. The involvement of new gold sulfide deposits with refractory “invisible” gold in operation, in the authors' opinion, will increase and stabilize the level of gold mining in Russia until the end of the current century, because it is possible to extract annually 5–25 t of gold at each deposit for decades.

The concept of radiation risk to human interplanetary flights is proposed and substantiated. As opposed to traditional approaches, which associate radiation risk to crews mostly with late development of tumor processes in the organism, the notion successful mission outcome probability is introduced. The probability of radiation damage under these conditions is considered mainly as a result of the action of heavy nuclei of galactic cosmic rays on structures of the central nervous system, which may lead to changes in the higher integrative functions of the brain, causing degradation of operator performance.

With the development of computer information technologies, humankind has begun to study actively the nanoworld of water as the evolutionary foundation of the “living matter” of the planet (V.I. Vernadsky). Water and water solutions are a continuously reproduced, inexhaustible, and essential natural condition of existence. It is hydrogen bonds that ensure the formation of DNA double helixes as the evolutionarily fixed method of biological information transfer, which largely determines the rate and inherited parameters of the development of the living organism. The author of this article is of the opinion that water as the primary nanostructure of the existence of nature is the foundation of human life and health. Special attention is paid to the contribution of scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences to the above topic.

The Pavlov Physiological Society, which will celebrate its centenary in 2017, has long enjoyed recognition among the scientific community and has always worked to consolidate the wide circle of specialists who are either directly or indirectly related to the study of physiological mechanisms. The current President of the society Academician M.A. Ostrovsky discusses the history of the creation of the Physiological Society, its goals and objectives, and its achievements and role in the development of Russian physiological science. He particularly emphasizes the significance of modern integrative physiology, which marks a new stage in the development of this science, opening broad horizons in understanding the mechanisms of the living organism and the phenomenon of life as a whole.