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on 30 November 2024, the five-year agreement between the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Russian Federation will end. T-invariant recalls how dramatically CERN and Russia have severed their relations over the past years and publishes an interview with a witness to these events - scientist Andrei Seriakov from St Petersburg.
Moscow State University has announced the creation of the "world's second or third most powerful" supercomputer, having purchased components for it through a Chinese firm trading on AliExpress. T-invariant tells us how, under conditions of total sanctions on Sparrow Hills, they managed to assemble a classified computing complex and what Vladimir Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova and her Institute of Artificial Intelligence have to do with it.
The harsh sentence for the scientist is not an exception to the rule, but the current norm. It was not by chance that the prosecution asked to give Shiplyuk the maximum possible 20 years: the cruelty of the repressions is directly related to the war in Ukraine. Moreover, in the summer of 2023, amendments were made according to which life imprisonment can be given for high treason.
The full-fledged work of the YouTube video service in Russia is gradually ceasing. What do scientists, leading million-viewer channels, and bloggers who popularize science think about this? Astrophysicists Sergey Popov, Vladimir Surdin, historian Mikhail Rodin, popularizers of science Vlad Goncharuk, Evgenia Timonova and Vitaly Egorov answer.
The DEI ideology is diversity, equity, inclusion. What will happen to science if DEI principles win? T-invariant talked about this with one of the authors of the article “Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge”, professor of biomedicine at Northwestern University in Chicago Igor Efimov.
The FSB has been persecuting members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Abramov and Oleg Kabov for several years now. Their criminal cases are so unprecedented that the American Physical Society, one of the largest in the scientific world, is worried about their fate. Its representatives are sending letters to the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
In the spring of 2022, major publishers of scientific periodicals stopped collaborating with Russian organizations. In response, the Russian authorities initiated a “white list” of publications in which publication would be the basis for grant reporting. About 500 journals recently disappeared from the list - and returned with a recommendation to refrain from paying for open access in journals of the publishing house Elsevier, which announced that payments would be sent to support Ukraine. Scientists who do not follow this advice risk facing criminal charges article about treason.
Academicians turned to Vladimir Putin with a proposal to head a new body of the Russian Academy of Sciences - the Board of Trustees. But not everyone was able to vote for this decision. FSO employees blacklisted more than twenty scientists and did not allow them to attend the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In Novosibirsk, they are considering the criminal case of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Kabov, which was initiated by the FSB. This is the first case in Russia when a scientist is being tried for his allegedly unsatisfactory work, and scientific and technical expertise forms the basic part of the charge. The very fact that you can go to prison for poorly conducted research is a new page both in the history of Russian science and in the history of domestic jurisprudence. Kabov's case is a challenge to the entire scientific community. It will show whether science in Russia can defend its right to exist.
The FSB completed investigative actions in the case of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Abramov a year later: the materials were transferred to the court, which must set a date for the hearing. According to T-invariant, Abramov’s case involves seven donations of 1,000 rubles each. The scientist himself has repeatedly denied his guilt, including denying that he made these translations.
The past year brought a series of weather anomalies: extreme heat and drought, high precipitation and flooding. This spring began with a heat wave in Spain. We asked climate experts Alexander Chernokulsky and Olga Dobrovidova about weather anomalies and asked them to assess the development of global warming as well as how Russia's position on international cooperation on a variety of climate-related issues affects the global environmental agenda.
The head of Tesla and SpaceX Ilon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and more than a thousand experts signed an open letter calling for a halt in the development of a «giant artificial intelligence.» The text of the letter was published by Future of Life Institute. T-Invariant asked experts and AI to comment on this open letter.
An international boycott of scientists for their government's war? Even anti-war-minded people are divided over such measures. Many do not risk speaking out about it. So in addition to the scientists' answers, we asked questions to the artificial intelligence. At least it doesn't have emotions to suppress.
Ukrainian scientists have appealed to the international community to boycott their Russian colleagues. However, such a boycott conflicts with a number of important legal and ethical principles, and in practical terms may do more harm than good in countering Russian aggression.
T-invariant survey: how the war affected Russian science and scientists themselves. Historical rhymes with the scientific emigration of the 1920s, relations with Ukrainian colleagues, isolation of Russian universities, faint hopes and gloomy predictions.
The T-invariant is a media with the mission to constantly remind us of timeless civilizational invariants, and to unite the community of people who hold them as living values.