China Just Became the World Leader in Nuclear Fusion Research

China announced last week a major breakthrough in the realm of nuclear fusion research. The Chinese Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), was able to heat hydrogen gas to a temperature of near 50 million degrees Celsius for an unprecedented 102 seconds. While this is nowhere near the hottest temperature that has ever been achieved in nuclear fusion research, that distinction belongs to the Large Hadron Collider which reached 4 trillion degrees Celsius, it is the longest amount of time one has been maintained.

Empathic rats spring each other from jail

You enter a room with two cages. One contains a friend, who is clearly distressed. The other contains a bar of chocolate, which clearly isn’t. What do you do? While a few people would probably go for the chocolate first (and you know who you are), most would choose to free the friend. And so, it seems, would a rat.

Antibiotic Resistance Research Ongoing at Kazan University

The workgroup is headed by Associate Professor Polina Galitskaya who recently received a RFBR grant for the project.

The research is dedicated to antibiotic resistance spread processes. The group tries to find out which antibiotics are prevalent in the environment, how many consumers of contaminated products actually acquire the resistance.

Linguistics and Rehabilitative Medicine Go Hand in Hand at Kazan University

Acting Chair of the Department of Russian Language and Applied Linguistics Yelena Gorobets speaks about the research.

The workgroup helps neurologists in their work with patients, specifically in creating questionnaires that research lexical patterns describing symptoms of different diseases. Another their important part of the work is creating questionnaires for alexithymic patients. Alexithymia is a personality construct describing inability to express emotions in the self. The questionnaires with prepared words and phrases help such individuals to search for the necessary phrasing in the list instead of trying to think of a des­cription. This kind of research is unique for Russia. Moreover, the interdisciplinary team now has its own research base at the Kazan University Clinic.

Towards a New Strategy of Science Development

During the latest meeting of the Council for Science and Education President of Russia Vladimir Putin said that it’s no use supporting ineffective science institutions because they consume funds that could better be allocated to someone more successful, “I would like to stress that the resources allocated to carry out research should go to strong research teams that are capable of creating breakthrough technology in areas especially important for the nation, and capable of competing with leading world centers. This is the logic we should proceed from in prioritizing funding for developing the country’s research. I would like the Government to develop efficient mechanisms, including those involving project financing”.