Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko

Melal (nations) Cultural Center will be hosting the Russian engineer cosmonaut, Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko on Jan. 5-11 in Tehran.
According to the center’s Public Relations Office, Grechko is an active member of International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). He has published 28 scientific articles and taken part in many astronautic missions. Iranian historian of cosmonautics and owner of biggest astronautics complex, Sirous Borzou, will be accompanying Grechko during his visit to Iran.
According to a fax sent to Iran Daily, the main purpose for Grechko’s visit to Iran is to hold an expo of photos and objects that have been collected by Borzou over the past 20 years.
The photos and posters bear autographs of astronauts. Among other items to be displayed at the exhibition are foods consumed by astronauts in space stations and space shuttles.
Stamp collections, matches and medals are other items that would be on display for the first time in the Tehran exhibition.
A selection of Iranian objects that have traveled into space will also be featured in the exhibition.
For example, post cards by Maestro Mahmoud Farshchian that last year accompanied the Iranian space traveler, Anousheh Ansari in space in cooperation with Russian cosmonaut, Pavel Vino Gradov will be exhibited.

New technology could clean toxic messes from mines and create electricity at the same time.
Contaminated water seeping from coal and metal mines is a serious environmental hazard that endangers the safety of drinking water supplies and the health of plants and animals, LiveScience.com wrote.
This caustic pollution--loaded with metals such as arsenic, lead, copper, iron and cadmium--is currently difficult and costly to treat.
Environmental engineers at Pennsylvania State University are now developing a device that could both fight this environmental problem and provide a new source of energy.
The researchers tested a lab-scale version of their invention on fluids tainted with iron, similar to polluted water from mines. The device attacked the dissolved iron, removing electrons from it. This generated electricity while at the same time making the iron insoluble, thus efficiently pulling this contaminant from the water.
The iron that the device recovered could find use as a pigment for paints or other products, the researchers said. In principle, such a machine could also pull other metal contaminants from polluted water.
“We are also working, in other research projects, on removal of arsenic and other contaminants,“ researcher Brian Dempsey said.
So far the device only generates a modest amount of energy. A fridge-sized version “might light up a small incandescent bulb,“ researcher Bruce Logan told LiveScience.
Still, the researchers hope to significantly improve power output in future versions, as well as bring down costs. “It’s an exciting start,“ Dempsey said.

Any motorist who has had another car pull out in front of him or her will know about the split-second decisions needed to avoid an accident.
But now a team of British engineers wants to take such choices out of drivers’ hands. They are developing a “crash proof“ car that takes control if it senses danger, Telegraph.co.uk reported.
The engineers, working with DaimlerChrysler, have created a system that can sense when a car has pulled out at a junction or when traffic ahead has stopped suddenly.
The developers claim that the computer-controlled car will react faster than motorists and perform the maneuvers needed in emergencies far better.
But some motorists will find the idea of a computer grabbing control difficult to accept, and even dangerous, while road safety groups fear that such systems may be unable to react adequately.
Geraint Bevan, who is working on the system at Glasgow University’s Center for Systems and Control, insists that a computer can control a car far better than the average motorist.
He said, “If you have someone like Michael Schumacher driving your car, he will probably be able to maneuver the car at its limit, but most drivers will either swerve too fast or too hard, meaning they lose control.“
Major car manufacturers have been attempting to introduce crash avoidance in their vehicles for years, and systems such as anti-lock brakes are now standard on many vehicles.
The new collision avoidance controller, which is being developed as part of a Europe-wide project, combines braking with the ability to swerve to avoid an accident.
Bevan said that the system used collision avoidance technology similar to that found in aircraft.
Radar and cameras mounted on the front and sides of the vehicle detect obstacles while a global positioning system helps the on-board computer work out the layout of the road before taking evasive action.
The researchers now hope to test the system in a real Mercedes provided by DaimlerChrysler, the Mercedes parent company.
However, there are potential drawbacks. Bevan said, “If you were in town, for example, it might be better to hit the car that has just pulled out in front of you, rather than swerve into the crowd of people standing at the side of the road.“

Phones treated with invisible chemically bonded coating will be protected from moisture, rain and accidental immersion.

Soon there really will be no escape from mobile phones. They can be used on the world’s highest mountains, on planes and even underground, but phone manufacturers now want customers to use their products underwater.
Electronics companies plan to use military technology, developed to protect soldiers from chemical attack, to make mobile telephones and other equipment waterproof, Telegraph.co.uk wrote.
Phones treated with the coating will be protected from moisture, rain and accidental immersion, according to the experts behind the technology.
Tests have shown that treated phones can be used in wet environments without damage.
It could enable text addicts to use their devices in the shower. But it also means, of course, that you will have no excuse for refusing to take that early-morning call from your boss.
The technology involves an invisible coating that is chemically bonded to the surface of the instrument, repelling water and preventing it from seeping into the device where it could damage circuitry.
It has been developed by Ministry of Defense scientists at the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down, Wilts, England.
A spin-off company, P2i, is in discussions with three leading phone makers about using the coating, Ion-Mask, on their products.
“Mobile phones and MP3 players are too small to be fitted with seals to make them waterproof, so water inevitably can creep in,“ explained Ian Robins, a development director at P2i.
“By making the surface repel water, we have been able to take devices that fail the normalÉ shower tests, and make them pass.
“Obviously, how waterproof a device is depends on design, but we can ensure that water doesn’t seep through joins or small gaps.
“Some electronics companies want the individual components to be treated too, so they have a much greater level of protection.“
The technology works by bonding a protective layer to the device using a plasma--a gas that has been electronically charged. The chemical properties of the layer allow it to repel water and oil.
It was developed for treating soldiers’ uniforms, so they would repel toxic vapors and liquids in a chemical or biological attack.
While Ion-Mask coating is still used on military gear, it will soon appear in sports equipment for the first time. The shoe giant Hi-Tec has announced that it is launching a range of footwear that will be treated with the Ion-Mask technology.

Young children who were exposed to cigarette smoke as babies may be more likely to suffer certain allergies, a new study suggests.
Experts have known that exposure to secondhand smoke either prenatally or early in life can raise a child’s risk of developing asthma symptoms. But the evidence regarding allergies in general has been mixed, Reuters wrote.
In the new study, Swedish researchers found that 4-year-olds who had been exposed to parents’ smoking during early infancy were at greater risk of allergies to indoor allergens like dust mites and cat dander. They were also at greater risk of food allergies.
It’s possible that secondhand smoke triggers inflammation in the lining of young children’s airways, which may sensitize them to allergy-triggering substances, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Eva Lannero of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
She and her colleagues report the findings in the medical journal Thorax.
The study included more than 4,000 families with infants born between 1994 and 1996. Parents were asked whether either of them smoked when the child was 2 months, 1 year or 2 years old.
At the age of 4, the children had their blood tested for antibodies to a range of common allergens, such as cat dander, dust mites and mold, as well as foods such as milk, eggs and wheat.
The researchers found that children who’d been exposed to cigarette smoke at the age of 2 months were 28 percent more likely to have antibodies to either an indoor air allergen or a food allergen.
In particular, their odds of being sensitized to cat dander were double that of children with no secondhand smoke exposure at 2 months of age. And they were nearly 50 percent more likely to have antibodies to food allergens.
The findings, according to Lannero’s team, support the theory that early damage to the mucous membranes lining the airways may make children more sensitive to allergens. They also offer parents yet another reason to keep their children away from secondhand smoke.

Laser surgery has been used to correct myopia since the early 1990s.

Laser surgery effectively and safely corrects severe myopia for at least a decade, new research suggests.
People with myopia, which is caused by excessive curving of the eye’s lens or cornea, are commonly referred to as nearsighted.
According to the American Optometric Association, almost one in three Americans suffers from some degree of nearsightedness, HealthDay said.
Laser surgery has been used to correct myopia since the early 1990s, although the long-term effects of the surgeries have not been documented.
Writing in the January issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers from the Miguel Hernandez University in Alicante, Spain, and the Ankara University School of Medicine in Turkey described the results of a 10-year study of 196 myopic eyes that received lasik surgery.
The researchers gathered data from 118 patients, who originally needed 10 diopter corrections to achieve 20/20 vision. A diopter is a measure of the curve of a lens, and a 10-diopter correction indicates severe nearsightedness.
The patients were evaluated 10 years after their surgeries. After treatment, most patients showed at least some vision improvement, with 40 percent avoiding the use of glasses completely.
After a decade, 61 percent of eyes operated on were within two diopters. Only 1 percent of eyes developed corneal ectasia, a weakening of the cornea that is a possible side effect of lasik surgery.
Almost one in three (27 percent) patients had to be retreated during the 10 years, the researchers said.
“This study has allowed us to demonstrate that, in spite of the prejudices about the limits of lasik technique, the results regarding predictability, efficacy and safety for high myopic patients are very good in the long term,“ lead investigator Jorge L. Ali said in a prepared statement.

When thoughts of death intrude, the human mind isn’t paralyzed with negativity or fear. Instead, the brain instinctively moves toward happier notions and images, a new study suggests.
The finding supports the notion that people are stronger, emotionally, when faced with their own or a loved one’s death than they may have ever thought possible, HealthDay reported.
“It again speaks of how resilient humans are and how this tendency to cope with threats is some sort of indicator of mental health,“ said study co-author Nathan DeWall, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky.
DeWall and co-researcher Roy Baumeister, of Florida State University, published their findings in a recent issue of Psychological Science.
Humans are the only animal known to have a clear understanding that their life will end.
DeWall and other scientists believe that as humans developed an awareness of death, they also evolved what’s been called the “psychological immune system“.
During crisis, this mechanism tilts thoughts and attitudes toward the positive-- even when the grimmest of events intervene. This mental shift is typically unconscious, DeWall said.
“That’s why, when you ask people to predict how they’ll respond to something negative, they usually say, ’Oh, it will be horrible, and it will last a long time,’ “ he said.
However, studies don’t bear that out--research involving people stricken with disease or disability show that people tend to bounce back emotionally much more rapidly than they would have expected.
In evolutionary terms, “how and when this came about, we don’t know for sure,“ DeWall said. “I suspect that this capacity to cope with potentially disastrous events in a relatively easy way really did aid our survival.“
In their latest experiments, DeWall and Baumeister first primed more than 100 healthy young adult volunteers to think about death as a reality.
They asked them to imagine the process of their own death, as well as what it might be like to be dead.
Another group of young adults was asked to think about an unpleasant event--a trip to the dentist’s office--but not death.
Immediately after the priming exercise, the researchers had all of the participants undergo standard word tests that tapped into unconscious emotional states.
In one test, participants were give a word stem--’jo-’ for example and asked to complete it to form a word (i.e., job, jog, joy).
According to the researchers, individuals primed to think about death were much more likely than the other participants to choose the word ’joy,’ compared to more neutral or negative words.