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- The centrifuge of the world: time management and the mystery of the stones on the back side of the Moon
The centrifuge of the world: time management and the mystery of the stones on the back side of the Moon
Russian scientists have created a patch that will restore the correct rhythm of the heart muscle, and domestic physicists have launched the first fusion reactor in the former Soviet Union. At the same time, an American startup conducted fire tests of a revolutionary aircraft engine that will be able to switch between subsonic and supersonic modes. In turn, Chinese scientists have built the most powerful centrifuge on the planet. With its help, they will get gravity 500 times greater than the Earth's. Another group from the PRC presented to the world the first results of the study of samples from the back side of the Moon. About these and other most interesting news of science read in the rating prepared by "Izvestia".
Biopatches on the heart will restore the correct rhythm
Scientists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and ITMO University have created a biopolymer film with specialized cells - pacemakers, which set, maintain and transmit to other cells vibrations that create the rhythm of the heart.
The relevance of the development is that simple injections of such cells into the heart muscle lead to tissue injury and inflammation. In addition, they are washed out of the body. According to the idea of scientists, the substrate is attached to the walls of the myocardium and helps to hold the cells-stimulators.
As explained by the developers, the operation uses pacemakers at the stage before their transformation from stem cells into specialized ones. The cells are activated by light of a certain wavelength. The technology has been tested on animals.
- During a surgical procedure, we stitched a patch onto the heart of a pig. After illumination, we were able to fix the rhythm we imposed on the heart. The implantation itself took about half an hour - this is the time required to form a primary connection between the animal's heart tissue and the patch," said Elena Turchaninova, one of the authors of the development, an engineer at the Laboratory of Experimental and Cellular Medicine at MIPT and a researcher at the Advanced Engineering School of ITMO.
After practicing on animals, similar operations will be performed on the human heart, the scientists said. In the future, biopatterns will be able to replace artificial pacemakers.
Training reactor will accelerate the study of high-temperature plasma
Specialists at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI have physically launched the first training tokamak in the post-Soviet space. This is an installation designed to hold high-temperature plasma with the help of magnetic fields. The complex was named "Mifist".
The tokamak is connected to an infrastructure that allows experiments to be conducted remotely. This gives an opportunity to a wide range of scientists, students, and teachers in Russia and abroad to become participants in thermonuclear research.
- The facility is structurally simple and is not designed to produce record-breaking results. The significance of the training reactor is that hundreds of young specialists will use it to master the theory and practice of experiments with plasma," explained Stepan Krat, a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Physical and Chemical Processes of the Institute of Laser and Plasma Technologies (LaPlaz) at MEPhI.
According to the scientist, "Mifist" will help to study the modes that will later be launched at large reactors. In addition, the installation is used to work out technologies for creating the next generation tokamaks. In the future, as experts expect, industrial installations of this type will provide the world with cheap energy obtained as a result of thermonuclear reaction.
Stones from the back side of the Moon told about ancient volcanoes
Scientists from China for the first time presented to the world the results of the study of soil and hard rocks, delivered six months ago by the mission "Chane-6" from the back side of the Moon. These samples were taken in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a giant crater and one of the oldest geologic formations on the satellite.
The scientific work was carried out simultaneously by two independent teams, which eventually came to similar results. Thus, the first group found particles formed by lava, which erupted from the lunar interior to the surface about 2.83 billion years ago. The other identified similar compounds up to 4.2 billion years old.
These studies helped confirm that active volcanism has been taking place on the back side of the Moon, as well as on the visible side, for billions of years. Previously, such conclusions were based on speculative inferences.
However, scientists now have a chance to better understand the differences that exist between the Moon's hemispheres. For example, why there are virtually no lunar seas - lowlands filled with solidified lava - on the back side. Or why the Earth's satellite's crust is on average 10 kilometers thicker on the back side than on the visible side.
A new engine will help turn supersonic on and off
In the U.S. startup team Astro Mechanica conducted fire tests of a revolutionary aircraft engine, which is equally effective in subsonic and supersonic modes.
As explained by the creators, the power unit has a unique design, where the turbine generator feeds electric motors that independently drive the compressor and fan. Thus, a symbiosis of a direct-flow aircraft engine with an electric drive is obtained.
Conventional turbojet power units, which are commonly found on supersonic aircraft, use exhaust gases to rotate the compressor fan. The more gases, the greater the speed. Accordingly, such engines are useful at high speeds, while at low speeds they are inefficient and consume a lot of fuel.
In the development of Astro Mechanica assume the use of three modes. First, electric drive - for taxiing and subsonic flight. This will provide fuel savings. Second, a combined mode - it will allow the aircraft to reach supersonic. Thirdly, the inclusion of a purely straight-through engine will enable the aircraft to reach speeds of up to Mach 3.
As a test sample, aircraft manufacturers plan to build an airplane with four new engines for supersonic transatlantic flights.
Hypergravity machine will allow to "warp" space and time
Scientists and engineers at Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) have built the world's most powerful centrifuge. It will be able to create an acceleration that is 500 times greater than the gravitational force on Earth. The installation is more than three times the power of the previous record holder - a similar device in the center of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project has been dubbed CHIEF.
According to an official press release, the giant centrifuge could be launched as early as this year. It will help simulate physical conditions that are unavailable in a conventional environment. The device includes six specialized experimental chambers. They will be focused each on a different area of research.
In particular, the installation will allow in a short time to simulate geological processes that occur over thousands of years. It will also make it possible to test complex technical structures (artificial slopes, dams, underwater objects) for extreme overloads.
In addition, scientists will be able to reproduce gravitational effects observed in space. This includes "warping" time and space. Special attention will be paid by specialists to practical tasks. For example, testing technologies to extract gas hydrates - solid accumulations of natural gas that form on the seabed under high pressure.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
