Russian engineer cosmonaut, Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko (c) at the first astronautic exhibition in Tehran-based Center for Sciences and Astronomy, Jan. 8.

Russian Cosmonaut Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko visited Tehran from January 5 to 11 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the launching of the first satellite into space and the first astronautic exhibition in Tehran-based Center for Sciences and Astronomy at the invitation of Melal (nations) Cultural Center.
Grechko is a veteran Russian cosmonaut who has spent most of his life in space. He has scored numerous scientific successes in space technology.
He has undertaken three journeys into outer space as engineer aboard Soyuz and Salyut spacecrafts. He undertook space walks while conducting technical repair jobs. He viewed the beauties of the earth from outer space and is very interested in visiting Persepolis. He spoke to Iran Daily before leaving for Shiraz.
Grechko is born in Leningrad in 1931.
Commenting on his space missions, he noted that his first space trip, which lasted one month, was in 1975.
“I went on my second space mission for 96 days in 1978. I managed to break an earlier record by an American astronaut for the duration of stay in space. I achieved a total of 16 international records in a single space mission. My third space mission lasted 10 days and it was in 1985. However, this mission was very important for me since I myself prepared the itinerary,“ Grechko added.
He pointed out that before his third space mission; scientists thought that the earth’s atmosphere is a single-layer.
“However, we proved that the atmosphere has many different layers. In a research paper, I wrote about this and they conferred an honorary PhD in mathematical physics on me for the research paper,“ he recalled.
Commenting on the medals of honors that he received for scientific research, he noted that once when he listed the medals that he had won, the list went on for one and a half pages.
“The highest award in former Soviet Union was Lenin Medal and the highest medal in the Russian Federation is the Golden Star. I have received one Lenin Medal and two Golden Star medals so far,“ he added.
He reiterated that US astronauts are far behind their Russian counterparts in terms of duration of stay in outer space.
“We have an astronaut in Russia who stayed 18 months in space at a stretch. Another astronaut was sent to the space six times and he logged a total of 803 days of stay,“ Grechko noted.
Asked why he became a cosmonaut, he said that he read a lot of science fiction books in his childhood. “I was always interested in traveling to space like the heroes of these books. Hence, I took part in the entrance exam for missile technology course,“ he added.
He said that his visit to an exhibition on space and astronomy resulted in his determination to take up missile technology course at university.
Exhibitions, like the one organized by Melal Cultural Center can help youngsters realize their dreams. “That is why I agreed to come to Iran for the exhibition on space and astronomy when Melal Cultural Center invited me,“ he further said.
Commenting on the views of astronauts about the planet earth, Grechko pointed out that all astronauts believe that earth is very beautiful and attractive, but at the same time small from outer space.
“We see how humans destroy the earth and its atmosphere. Hence the astronauts are more concerned about the earth’s fate than others,“ he added.
He said that he is deeply interested in Iran’s ancient civilization and that is the main reason why he wants to visit Persepolis.

American researchers have made a very small research tool that may one day help scientists probe the activity of genes and proteins in a single cell, they said, opening the door to a new realm of genetic research.
The tool is designed to do the work of current gene chip systems used to examine thousands of genes at the same time for mutations or to uncover clues to disease, Reuters said.
But it is made on the nano-scale--which involves objects tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair.
“We have made little chips that are like the gene chips but instead of being lab scale they are molecular scale,“ said Stuart Lindsay, a physics professor and researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute.
“They have the potential to be used all the way down into analyzing single cells,“ said Lindsay, whose research appears in the journal Science.
Current gene chips analyze entire batches of cells. This technology would allow for much more refined analysis that could detect genetic changes from one cell to another, for instance.
The work, led by Hao Yan of the institute’s Center for Single Molecule Biophysics, draws on a type of nanotechnology known as DNA origami, a method of folding a single long strand of DNA into a complex structure that is bound by short synthetic staples.
The nano probes assemble themselves in a water soluble solution and can be made at very low cost, Lindsay said.
“You end with 10,000 billion items in the test tube,“ he said.
On the surface of each DNA probe is a dangling single strand of DNA that can bind to the target ribonucleic acid or RNA, the chemical messengers of genes.
Lindsay said the new system is one of the first practical applications of structural DNA nanotechnology, which uses the properties of DNA to create different nanostructures.
“I think there is huge potential to come from nanotechnology,“ Lindsay said in a telephone interview. “This array is our first baby step in that direction.“

As wind forces sand to scrape over Earth's surface friction causes the sand particles to pick up loose electrons from the ground.

Sweeping sands across the Sahara and other dune expanses are blown by more than just wind, scientists have discovered. Powerful electric fields spring up near the desert floor and propel sand grains into the air.
By accounting for this electricity, researchers say they can design better climate change models, and even explain features of the dust on Mars, according to LiveScience.com.
Scientists have long been at a loss to explain why sand sweeping across the desert doesn’t bounce higher when the wind gets stronger.
But when researchers at the University of Michigan made the first calculations of electricity’s role in this dance of particles, they were finally able to match their models with observations.
As wind forces sand to scrape over Earth’s surface in a process called saltation, the friction causes the sand particles to pick up loose electrons from the ground, giving them a negative charge and leaving the surface with a positive charge, the researchers found.
“It’s sort of like when you stroke your cat and feel little sparks, or run a balloon on your head to make your hair stand up,“ said Jasper Kok, a graduate student in applied physics at the University of Michigan, who led the study with his advisor, Michigan atmospheric scientist Nilton Renno.
The separation of charges creates an electric field that can reach strengths of 100,000 to 200,000 volts per meter at a centimeter from the surface.
This field in turn draws even more sand up into the air because the positively charged ground particles are attracted to the floating negative ones.
The electric field also explains why the skipping particles do not reach greater heights when the wind blows faster.
“Now we think that as the wind speed increases, so does the electricity, and they sort of cancel each other out,“ Kok said. “The bouncing sand is electrically attracted to the surface. We were very excited when we plotted that graph and it all matched up.“
Saltation is the force that forms sand dunes, sculpts rocks and causes erosion.
“This finding could potentially shed more light on the physics of all these processes,“ Kok said.
The discovery is particularly important to climate science. When the sand grains bounce on the desert soil, they kick up fine bits of dust that seed clouds. Existing climate models can’t accurately describe how dust gets released into the atmosphere.
“We discovered another piece of the puzzle of the physics of emission of dust into the atmosphere,“ Kok told LiveScience. “This increased understanding should allow us to better model how this dust is being emitted. It should ultimately lead to better climate models, he added.“

Meat and milk from cloned animals is probably safe for humans, the European Union’s food safety agency said in a preliminary report released on Jan. 11. The report, by the European Food Safety Authority, seems likely to fuel new debate over whether the EU should allow cloned animals to enter the food chain.
The 47-page draft cautioned, however, that there was “only limited data available“ on animal cloning. It urged consultation with scientists and consumer groups, which have in the past objected to allowing such products onto the market, AP wrote.
The EU’s Food Safety Authority, which is based in Italy, was directed by the EU’s executive office in Brussels last year to investigate what risks were involved in making projects for human consumption from cloned animals.
The 27-nation union currently has no laws regulating animal cloning and food. The European Commission is trying to decide whether legislation is needed, said Nina Papadoulaki, spokeswoman for EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
“Based on current knowledge, there is no expectation that clones or their progeny would introduce any new food safety risks compared with conventionally bred animals,“ the preliminary report said.
Papadoulaki said the commission hoped the report would help EU officials determine whether there is public support for allowing cloned food onto supermarket shelves.
She said the commission would seek further advice from an ethics group specializing in science and new technologies, which includes 15 scientists, philosophers, theologians and lawyers.
That group is scheduled to issue its own report on the “ethical aspects of animal cloning for food supply“ on Jan. 16.
Some countries outside the EU are moving to permit cloned animals to enter the food chain.

An idea for a portable device which troops can carry in war zones to “see through“ camouflage has won cash from the Ministry of Defense (MoD).
The idea, put forward by the University of the West of England (UWE), will now be developed into a prototype, BBC reported.
It detects and enhances indistinct or concealed objects by amplifying their 3D shape.
The equipment can also automatically compare and recognize threatening objects or people.
UWE’s team of machine vision experts, led by Dr Melvyn Smith, submitted the plans under the MoD’s Competition of Ideas scheme.
They will receive about 120,000 pounds for one year’s work.
“The system, based on our expertise in photometric stereo techniques, reveals and enhances subtle shapes and surface details that may not be apparent or are deliberately concealed,“ said Dr Smith.
“For example, it could ’see through’ camouflage or the pattern of a scarf used to cover the face, or enhance bulges in clothing caused by concealed weapons.“
The MoD received 467 entries for its competition of ideas, more than half of which came from universities and small or medium enterprises.

One of the ways in which mutualism breaks down is that ants become more antagonistic towards plants by increasing their tending of these parasitic scale insects.

Call it the rule of unintended consequences--drop your guard because one threat goes away and an unexpected menace jumps up and smacks you. And new research shows it even applies to African acacia trees.
For thousands of years these thorny shrubs have provided food and shelter to aggressive biting ants, which protect the trees by attacking animals that try and eat the acacia leaves, AP reported.
Called mutualism, it’s a good deal for both the trees and the ants.
Scientists studying the decline in large animals in Africa wondered what would happen if they no longer were eating the leaves. So they fenced off some of the acacias, so elephants, giraffes and other animals couldn’t get to them.
Surprisingly, after a few years the fenced-in trees began looking sickly and grew slower than their unfenced relatives.
It turns out that without animals eating their leaves the trees no longer bothered to take care of their ants--they reduced nectar production and made fewer swollen thorns that the ants could live in.
The result: The protective ants either began damaging the plant or were replaced by other insects that ate holes in the bark.
“Although this mutualism between ants and plants has likely evolved over very long time-scales, it falls apart very, very rapidly,“ said Todd Palmer, an assistant professor of zoology at the University of Florida.
“Over the course of only 10 years, we found that when mammals could not eat plants, the plants began to have less use for the ants, and therefore began to reduce their ’payments’ to the ants, in the form of nectar,“ Palmer, who is currently in Kenya, explained in an interview via e-mail. Palmer’s findings are reported in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.
“If you had asked me 10 years ago ’what would happen if you took large mammals out of the system,’ I would have answered ’I’ll bet the trees would be really happy!’“ he said.
But instead, because the browsing animals are the driving force behind the tree paying out benefits to the ants, when the payments diminish, the ants that protect the tree begin to starve and its colonies become smaller.
Some ants reduced their defensive behavior and began tending colonies of scale insects that bore into the plants and extract sugars.

Consuming too much sorbitol, a sweetener widely used in “sugar-free“ chewing gum and sweets, can cause serious bowel problems, German doctors said.
The warning follows the cases of two patients who suffered chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain and severe weight loss after ingesting large amounts of sorbitol, Reuters said.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, the doctors from Berlin said the patients--a man and a woman--had consumed some 15 to 20 sticks of chewing gum a day. When they kicked the habit, both regained normal bowel function.
Sorbitol, also known as E420, is poorly absorbed by the small intestine and is known to have laxative properties. But Dr Juergen Bauditz and colleagues of the University of Berlin said many consumers might fail to link it with their gastrointestinal problems.
“Our cases demonstrate that sorbitol consumption can cause not only chronic diarrhea and functional bowel complaints but also considerable unintended weight loss--about 20 percent of usual body weight,“ they wrote.