Of course, scientists are trying to find it longer. Health and fitness scientists have explained how to prolong life and youth with the power of thought. How do birds navigate in flight?

Option No. 6145376

When completing tasks with a short answer, enter in the answer field the number that corresponds to the number of the correct answer, or a number, a word, a sequence of letters (words) or numbers. The answer should be written without spaces or any additional characters. The answers to tasks 1-26 are a figure (number) or a word (several words), a sequence of numbers (numbers).

If the option is specified by the teacher, you can enter or upload answers to tasks with a detailed answer into the system. The teacher will see the results of completing tasks with a short answer and will be able to evaluate the downloaded answers to tasks with a long answer. The scores assigned by the teacher will appear in your statistics. The volume of the essay is at least 150 words.

Indicate the numbers of sentences that correctly convey the MAIN information contained in the text. Write down the numbers of these sentences.

1) The neon, or fluorescent, lamp, which was invented by Arthur Compton in 1934, is more modern than the electric light bulb, and the halogen lamp is even brighter.

2) A variety of lighting devices: street lamps, special lighting for factories, schools and other premises, car headlights, home lamps - thanks to scientists and inventors, they are becoming increasingly brighter and more economical.

3) Scientists and inventors are creating more and more advanced lighting devices: a neon lamp consumes less energy than an electric lamp, and a halogen lamp is brighter and more economical than a neon lamp.

4) First, scientists and inventors came up with an electric lamp, then a halogen lamp and, finally, a neon lamp.

5) The result of the work of scientists and inventors in the field of improving lighting devices was first an electric lamp, then a more economical neon lamp and, finally, a brighter and more economical halogen lamp.

Answer:

Which of the following words or combinations of words should be missing in the second (2) sentence of the text?

Vice versa

Despite this

Unfortunately

Contrary to this

Answer:

About a fragment of a dictionary article in which the meaning of the word SCHOOL is given. Definition of the meaning in which this word is used in the sentence 1. You write the number with -answering this meaning in the given fragment of the dictionary article.

SCHOOL, -y, w.

1) You have gained experience in something, as well as what gives such knowledge and experience. School of Life.

2) Direction in the field of science and art. Create your own school in science.

3) Educational institution; the building of that institution. Comprehensive school.

4) System of mandatory exercises (in the figure). Leave school.

Answer:

In which word is there an error in the placement of stress: the letter denoting the stressed vowel sound is highlighted incorrectly? Write this word down.

kitchen

intention

Answer:

One of the sentences below uses the highlighted word incorrectly. Correct the lexical error by choosing a paronym for the highlighted word. Write down the chosen word.

This is a completely ill-mannered young man, rude, an absolute IGNORANT.

I was punished for a MISCONDUCT committed a week ago.

The MAJESTIC mountain landscape was awe-inspiring.

A letter of THANK YOU was solemnly presented to the school director.

Sergei was from the breed of LUCKY people to whom everything came easy.

Answer:

In one of the words below, there is an error in the formation of the word form. Correct the mistake and write the word right.

my beloved PRO-FES-SO-RA

more than SEVEN HUNDRED mill-li-o-new

BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

GO-THE-GO-THE-HOUSE

fashionable EARRINGS

Answer:

Establishment of correspondence between grammatical errors and prepositions, in which they are added: to each position of the first column under the corresponding position from second column.

Write down the numbers in response, placing them in a row, corresponding to the letter for you:

Answer:

Identify the word in which the unstressed alternating vowel of the root is missing. Write out this word by inserting the missing letter.

program..mm

g..horizontal

to..preserve

become a friend

Answer:

Identify the row in which the same letter is missing in both words. Write out these words by inserting the missing letter.

pr..believe, pos..last year;

pr..interesting, pr..breezy;

to..ride, start..south;

tactless, in..puff;

on..craft, oh..it's warm.

Answer:

kumach..vyy,

heat..heat

master

delicious..nice

Answer:

Write down the word in which the letter I is written in place of the gap.

meaning..my

comfort..my

gainful

Answer:

Definition of a sentence in which NOT is written with the word COLLECTED. Open the brackets and write this word.

His position is (not) better than ours.

We are walking on (un)mown grass.

I (not) have to explain myself to him.

She is (not) out of life.

(Not) read, but the book he had just bought distracted his attention from his non-in-the-res-work.

Answer:

Determine the sentence in which both highlighted words are written CONTINUOUSLY. Open the brackets and write down these two words.

(S)AFTER, I often went to that old public garden to immerse myself in my memories of my first love and again feel the sweet taste of happiness.

(B)DURING the day the rain did not subside, which is why the house became damp and chilly.

In many of Ostrovsky's plays, a separate city (often provincial) is depicted as NOT (SOME) specific, closed and self-sufficient place, the image of which is the embodiment of Russia (IN) WHOLE.

“(AND) SO, today we will sum up the results of our work,” the director said with a smile (AT) THE BEGINNING of the meeting.

Having been together for more than thirty years, the spouses (STILL) loved each other, treated each other with tenderness and respect.

Answer:

Indicate all the numbers in whose place NN is written.

The sun was golden in the east, behind the dim (1) blue of the distant (2) forests, behind the white snowy lowland (3) which the ancient Russian city looked at from the low bank.

Answer:

Place punctuation marks. List two sentences that require ONE comma. Write down the numbers of these sentences.

1) I loved to wander for a long time through the streets or in the park or along the seashore.

2) The dry and clean air smells of wormwood and compressed rye, buckwheat and wild cloves.

3) The saving light of the lighthouse then appeared, disappeared in the fog, then was seen again in the distance.

4) The grandmother read a fairy tale to the little ones and secretly examined the new guest.

5) The torn boots were sent to a workshop and they were repaired there.

Answer:

In the evening, Tom appeared to Aunt Polly (1) who was sitting by the open window in the (2) room that served both as a bedroom and a dining room (3) (4).

Answer:

Arrange all the not-to-one-hundred signs of pre-pi-na-tion: indicate the number(s), in place of which one(s) in the sentence there should be one hundredth place(s).

Mar-ga-ri-ta (1) to regret (2) couldn’t come to the evening meeting of the graduates (3) one-on-one (4) promised to visit their teachers immediately after the summer session.

Answer:

Place all punctuation marks: indicate the number(s) in whose place(s) there should be a comma(s) in the sentence.

In the 80s of the 19th century, Shishkin (1) created many paintings (2) in the subjects (3) of which (4) he still turned to the life of the Russian forest, Russian meadows and fields.

Answer:

Place all punctuation marks: indicate the number(s) in whose place(s) there should be a comma(s) in the sentence.

Everyone is so used to them (the clock) (1) that (2) if they disappeared (3) somehow miraculously from the wall (4) it would be sad, as if one’s own voice had died and nothing could fill the empty space. (Bulgakov)

Answer:

Which of the statements correspond to the content of the text? Please provide answer numbers.

Enter the numbers in ascending order.

1) Scientists call for abandoning the production of GMOs.

2) The goal of science is to fight evil in any of its manifestations, even the still unknown.

3) Scientists must be humanists and strive to make the world a better place.

4) There is a place for subjective assessment in science.

5) The development of science is closely related to the development of ethics.

public actions.

(According to E.P. Velikhov*)

* Evgeniy Pavlovich Velikhov

Answer:

Which of the following statements are true? Please provide answer numbers.

Enter the numbers in ascending order.

1) Proposition 3 presents the reasoning.

2) Sentence 18 contains a description.

3) Sentences 15–16 contain a narrative.

4) Sentence 10 presents the conclusion from the content of sentences 8–9.

5) Sentence 9 explains the content of sentence 8.

(1) The development of science has more than once raised the most important ethical problems for scientists. (2) Today they are associated with responsibility not only for what has already been done, but also for the choice of new areas of research - for example, in modern biology. (3) The possibility of manipulating the hereditary material of cells, which genetic engineering has provided, the extrauterine development of the human embryo, the problems of organ transplantation - these examples demonstrate situations where ethical problems are crucially intertwined with the planning and implementation of experimental research, with new ways of putting scientific discoveries into practice.

(4) It is no secret that among natural scientists the prevailing belief is that science does not have its own specific system of values. (5) But this, in my opinion, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes that ethics should develop certain moral standards that could guide researchers in the course of their work.

(6) It is hardly worth repeating that the main criterion for the scientific nature of a researcher’s conclusions is objectivity. (7) This is really so, and in science there is and cannot be a place for a subjective factor. (8) But science is not only new knowledge. (9) This is the area of ​​collective effort, the area of ​​doubts and value assessments, the area of ​​social preferences - in a word, everything that fills any human activity. (10) This means that science, too, plays an important role in the formation of that complex of universal human values ​​that make up the concept of “humanism.”

(11) Scientists cannot turn a blind eye to the danger of the destruction of human civilization; they cannot help but see the poverty, chronic hunger and illiteracy of hundreds and hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. (12) As researchers, as humanists, they can and should contribute to solving these most pressing problems of our time.

(13) John Bernal, an outstanding scientist and public figure, reflecting on the fate of science, wrote that the first and most difficult step is to use our knowledge against avoidable evil. (14) And the second step is to find means to combat evil, against which today we are still powerless. (15) Continuation and expansion of scientific research will open our eyes to the evil that we do not yet discern. (16) Therefore, scientists must tirelessly create new and useful things: new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective principles of organization

public actions.

(17) What John Bernal said actually means that the work of a scientist should ultimately lead to changing the world in the interests of man. (18) The combination of the power of knowledge with the principles of scientific humanism is the basis of true progress - progress that does not subjugate a person, but faithfully serves him.

(According to E.P. Velikhov*)

* Evgeniy Pavlovich Velikhov(born in 1935) - Russian scientist, theoretical physicist.

Text source: Unified State Exam 2013, Ural, version 7.

Answer:

From sentence 15, write down the phraseological unit

(1) The development of science has more than once raised the most important ethical problems for scientists. (2) Today they are associated with responsibility not only for what has already been done, but also for the choice of new areas of research - for example, in modern biology. (3) The possibility of manipulating the hereditary material of cells, which genetic engineering has provided, the extrauterine development of the human embryo, the problems of organ transplantation - these examples demonstrate situations where ethical problems are crucially intertwined with the planning and implementation of experimental research, with new ways of putting scientific discoveries into practice.

(4) It is no secret that among natural scientists the prevailing belief is that science does not have its own specific system of values. (5) But this, in my opinion, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes that ethics should develop certain moral standards that could guide researchers in the course of their work.

(6) It is hardly worth repeating that the main criterion for the scientific nature of a researcher’s conclusions is objectivity. (7) This is really so, and in science there is and cannot be a place for a subjective factor. (8) But science is not only new knowledge. (9) This is the area of ​​collective effort, the area of ​​doubts and value assessments, the area of ​​social preferences - in a word, everything that fills any human activity. (10) This means that science, too, plays an important role in the formation of that complex of universal human values ​​that make up the concept of “humanism.”

(11) Scientists cannot turn a blind eye to the danger of the destruction of human civilization; they cannot help but see the poverty, chronic hunger and illiteracy of hundreds and hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. (12) As researchers, as humanists, they can and should contribute to solving these most pressing problems of our time.

(13) John Bernal, an outstanding scientist and public figure, reflecting on the fate of science, wrote that the first and most difficult step is to use our knowledge against avoidable evil. (14) And the second step is to find means to combat evil, against which today we are still powerless. (15) Continuation and expansion of scientific research will open our eyes to the evil that we do not yet discern. (16) Therefore, scientists must tirelessly create new and useful things: new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective principles of organization

public actions.

(17) What John Bernal said actually means that the work of a scientist should ultimately lead to changing the world in the interests of man. (18) The combination of the power of knowledge with the principles of scientific humanism is the basis of true progress - progress that does not subjugate a person, but faithfully serves him.

(According to E.P. Velikhov*)

* Evgeniy Pavlovich Velikhov(born in 1935) - Russian scientist, theoretical physicist.

Text source: Unified State Exam 2013, Ural, version 7.

Answer:

Among sentences 11–14, find one(s) that is related to the previous one using a personal pronoun. Write the number(s) of this sentence(s).

(1) The development of science has more than once raised the most important ethical problems for scientists. (2) Today they are associated with responsibility not only for what has already been done, but also for the choice of new areas of research - for example, in modern biology. (3) The possibility of manipulating the hereditary material of cells, which genetic engineering has provided, the extrauterine development of the human embryo, the problems of organ transplantation - these examples demonstrate situations where ethical problems are crucially intertwined with the planning and implementation of experimental research, with new ways of putting scientific discoveries into practice.

(4) It is no secret that among natural scientists the prevailing belief is that science does not have its own specific system of values. (5) But this, in my opinion, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes that ethics should develop certain moral standards that could guide researchers in the course of their work.

(6) It is hardly worth repeating that the main criterion for the scientific nature of a researcher’s conclusions is objectivity. (7) This is really so, and in science there is and cannot be a place for a subjective factor. (8) But science is not only new knowledge. (9) This is the area of ​​collective effort, the area of ​​doubts and value assessments, the area of ​​social preferences - in a word, everything that fills any human activity. (10) This means that science, too, plays an important role in the formation of that complex of universal human values ​​that make up the concept of “humanism.”

(11) Scientists cannot turn a blind eye to the danger of the destruction of human civilization; they cannot help but see the poverty, chronic hunger and illiteracy of hundreds and hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. (12) As researchers, as humanists, they can and should contribute to solving these most pressing problems of our time.

(13) John Bernal, an outstanding scientist and public figure, reflecting on the fate of science, wrote that the first and most difficult step is to use our knowledge against avoidable evil. (14) And the second step is to find means to combat evil, against which today we are still powerless. (15) Continuation and expansion of scientific research will open our eyes to the evil that we do not yet discern. (16) Therefore, scientists must tirelessly create new and useful things: new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective principles of organization

public actions.

(17) What John Bernal said actually means that the work of a scientist should ultimately lead to changing the world in the interests of man. (18) The combination of the power of knowledge with the principles of scientific humanism is the basis of true progress - progress that does not subjugate a person, but faithfully serves him.

(According to E.P. Velikhov*)

* Evgeniy Pavlovich Velikhov(born in 1935) - Russian scientist, theoretical physicist.

Text source: Unified State Exam 2013, Ural, version 7.

Answer:

Read an excerpt from the review. It examines the linguistic features of the text. Some terms used in the review are missing. Fill in the blanks with numbers corresponding to the number of the term from the list.

“The author precisely, logically and emotionally substantiates his position, using a syntactic means of expression - (A)_____ (in sentences 9, 16), technique - (B)_____ (“new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective foundations organization of social actions"), lexical device - (B)_____ (“excludes” - “assumes” in sentence 5). A (D)_____ (“extrauterine development”, “human embryo”, “organ transplantation”) help the author to emphasize the particular relevance of the issues raised for a number of modern scientific areas.”

List of terms:

3) contextual antonyms

4) terms

5) parcellation

6) rhetorical appeal

7) rows of homogeneous members

8) dialectism

9) lexical repetition

Write down the numbers in your answer, arranging them in the order corresponding to the letters:

(1) The development of science has more than once raised the most important ethical problems for scientists. (2) Today they are associated with responsibility not only for what has already been done, but also for the choice of new areas of research - for example, in modern biology. (3) The possibility of manipulating the hereditary material of cells, which genetic engineering has provided, the extrauterine development of the human embryo, the problems of organ transplantation - these examples demonstrate situations where ethical problems are crucially intertwined with the planning and implementation of experimental research, with new ways of putting scientific discoveries into practice.

(4) It is no secret that among natural scientists the prevailing belief is that science does not have its own specific system of values. (5) But this, in my opinion, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes that ethics should develop certain moral standards that could guide researchers in the course of their work.

(6) It is hardly worth repeating that the main criterion for the scientific nature of a researcher’s conclusions is objectivity. (7) This is really so, and in science there is and cannot be a place for a subjective factor. (8) But science is not only new knowledge. (9) This is the area of ​​collective effort, the area of ​​doubts and value assessments, the area of ​​social preferences - in a word, everything that fills any human activity. (10) This means that science, too, plays an important role in the formation of that complex of universal human values ​​that make up the concept of “humanism.”

(11) Scientists cannot turn a blind eye to the danger of the destruction of human civilization; they cannot help but see the poverty, chronic hunger and illiteracy of hundreds and hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. (12) As researchers, as humanists, they can and should contribute to solving these most pressing problems of our time.

(13) John Bernal, an outstanding scientist and public figure, reflecting on the fate of science, wrote that the first and most difficult step is to use our knowledge against avoidable evil. (14) And the second step is to find means to combat evil, against which today we are still powerless. (15) Continuation and expansion of scientific research will open our eyes to the evil that we do not yet discern. (16) Therefore, scientists must tirelessly create new and useful things: new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective principles of organization

Write an essay based on the text you read.

Formulate one of the problems posed by the author of the text.

Comment on the formulated problem. Include in your comment two illustrative examples from the text you read that you think are important for understanding the problem in the source text (avoid excessive quoting). Explain the meaning of each example and indicate the semantic connection between them.

The volume of the essay is at least 150 words.

Work written without reference to the text read (not based on this text) is not graded. If the essay is a retelling or a complete rewrite of the original text without any comments, then such work is graded 0 points.

Write an essay carefully, legible handwriting.

(1) The development of science has more than once raised the most important ethical problems for scientists. (2) Today they are associated with responsibility not only for what has already been done, but also for the choice of new areas of research - for example, in modern biology. (3) The possibility of manipulating the hereditary material of cells, which genetic engineering has provided, the extrauterine development of the human embryo, the problems of organ transplantation - these examples demonstrate situations where ethical problems are crucially intertwined with the planning and implementation of experimental research, with new ways of putting scientific discoveries into practice.

(4) It is no secret that among natural scientists the prevailing belief is that science does not have its own specific system of values. (5) But this, in my opinion, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes that ethics should develop certain moral standards that could guide researchers in the course of their work.

(6) It is hardly worth repeating that the main criterion for the scientific nature of a researcher’s conclusions is objectivity. (7) This is really so, and in science there is and cannot be a place for a subjective factor. (8) But science is not only new knowledge. (9) This is the area of ​​collective effort, the area of ​​doubts and value assessments, the area of ​​social preferences - in a word, everything that fills any human activity. (10) This means that science, too, plays an important role in the formation of that complex of universal human values ​​that make up the concept of “humanism.”

(11) Scientists cannot turn a blind eye to the danger of the destruction of human civilization; they cannot help but see the poverty, chronic hunger and illiteracy of hundreds and hundreds of millions of inhabitants of our planet. (12) As researchers, as humanists, they can and should contribute to solving these most pressing problems of our time.

(13) John Bernal, an outstanding scientist and public figure, reflecting on the fate of science, wrote that the first and most difficult step is to use our knowledge against avoidable evil. (14) And the second step is to find means to combat evil, against which today we are still powerless. (15) Continuation and expansion of scientific research will open our eyes to the evil that we do not yet discern. (16) Therefore, scientists must tirelessly create new and useful things: new materials, new technological processes and, above all, new effective principles of organization

public actions.

(17) What John Bernal said actually means that the work of a scientist should ultimately lead to changing the world in the interests of man. (18) The combination of the power of knowledge with the principles of scientific humanism is the basis of true progress - progress that does not subjugate a person, but faithfully serves him.

Our world is full of mysteries, and people will always strive to unravel them. And while scientists in different countries are puzzling over the most mysterious and enigmatic phenomena, science has already found answers to some of them.

10. How birds navigate in flight

Birds make some of the most stunning flights in terms of scale and never go astray. The answer to the question of how they do this has always been one of the most difficult mysteries that has haunted the minds of scientists and ornithologists for a long time.
A team of scientists from Peking University (China) seems to have found out. As it turns out, the answer lies in proteins.
We have always believed that birds fly, guided by the Earth's magnetic field, but until now we have not been able to find an organ of magnetic sense. Therefore, Chinese scientists, based on this theory, conducted studies of bird proteins for orientation. They found that the protein complex of pigeons and monarch butterflies actually matches the Earth's magnetic field, changing every time they take a wrong turn or go in the wrong direction.
For the first time in history, research has identified anatomical structures that allow birds to find their way home. This is a huge step towards understanding the navigation of birds and other animals.

9. Where does the penis come from?

Although many species reproduce sexually, and it seems to be one of mankind's favorite pastimes, the evolution of the penis has been a mystery to science for a long time.
The evolutionary path of development is different for all animals, depending on the structure of the skeleton and tissues that characterize different species. However, a team of biologists studied the early embryonic stages of various animals that have a penis and finally came to some conclusions.
In all animals, a special cavity called the cloaca (the cavity from which the back of the intestine is formed) later becomes the site of formation of the penis. The position of the cloaca obviously determines the location of the penis, which in humans is located in the pelvic region. To confirm this, the scientists transplanted cloacal cells into an area of ​​the chick embryo where a penis does not normally grow, and found that it began to form there.
While this discovery resolves a long-standing question that has plagued evolutionary biologists, it nevertheless raises an even more puzzling question: where does the clitoris come from in women? The same muscle that forms the penis diverges into the clitoris at a later stage, so it will take us a little while to understand this.

8. How birds lost their teeth

Birds, direct descendants of dinosaurs, went through several evolutionary paths to reach their current structure. However, there is a lot that we do not know about birds. For example, why don't they have teeth?
Although birds once had teeth, at some point they sacrificed them for a beak. We had no idea how or when this happened until scientists began studying the genome of birds.
Scientists studied genes involved in tooth formation in 48 different bird species and identified their common ancestor, which lived almost 116 million years ago. Part dinosaur, part bird, it ate with both its beak and teeth because a half-formed beak alone was not enough to survive. Over time, this ancestor evolved into almost all the birds we see today.

7. What rids the oceans of harmful ammonia

The ocean is a beautiful part of our planet, full of different plants and animals that call it home. However, these living beings also die. Considering the enormous size of the world's oceans, this must be a huge pile of corpses. If we assume that the mortality rate among aquatic inhabitants is comparable to ours, then the oceans on Earth should look like huge puddles of rotting fish corpses.
For a long time, scientists were not sure what was happening. They suggested that some type of organism feeds on harmful ammonia from dead bodies, turning it into nitrous oxide, which abounds in the world's oceans.
These microbes are called archaea and are different from all known organisms. We can't study them because they can't be grown in a laboratory for scientific research.
Then the scientists accidentally left 4 bottles of sea water in the refrigerator for 1.5 years. The cold killed all organisms in the water except archaea.
When scientists compared the composition of nitrous oxide produced by archaea in bottled water and ocean water, it was found to be largely similar. By the way, this was the first time that archaea were studied in an observable environment.

6. How aquatic mammals retain oxygen underwater

A long time ago, some aquatic animals that lived on Earth decided to move to land. As they developed limbs and other features to adapt to survival in new environments, they evolved into the mammals we see today.
However, some mammals returned back to the water, becoming underwater mammals such as whales and dolphins. However, why they returned back to the water is unknown. But an even bigger mystery is how they breathe. For example, whales can remain underwater for long periods of time, but in order to survive, they must swim to the surface and inhale oxygen from the air.
Scientists from the University of Liverpool studied the effect of myoglobin, a protein present in the body of swimming mammals and responsible for oxygenating muscles. Researchers have discovered that myoglobin has a special property that helps these animals stay underwater for longer periods of time.
Myoglobin is a positively charged protein. This repels other proteins, thereby preventing them from sticking together, which allows the myoglobin to be filled with significant amounts of oxygen. These oxygen reserves allow swimming mammals to remain underwater for up to one hour, something that land mammals cannot do.

4. Where did water come from on Earth?

Water is the key to life on Earth, but its origin on our planet has until now remained a mystery. Until recently, we had no idea whether water came to Earth with a meteorite or formed on the planet independently. Finally, some newer research has settled this debate. Water has always been here and contributed to the emergence of the first organisms.
In one study, scientists examined some meteorites and found that water on Earth appeared when the solar system was in the early stages of planet formation. This is much earlier than previously thought, and suggests that water arose along with the planet.
Another study conducted on lava in Canada yielded similar results. These studies led to the conclusion that water on Earth has an even more ancient origin than the Sun. Although scientists are still debating the new findings, we seem to have a working answer to this question.

3. How giraffes got their long necks

Giraffes, with their long necks, have always been a favorite topic of debate among evolutionary biologists. Charles Darwin certainly had a lot to say about this. However, the long-standing theory that giraffes were naturally selected for their ability to reach higher leaves appears to be incorrect.
The giraffe's neck is a unique feature in nature, yet we had no idea how it evolved over a long period of time.
Everything changed when scientists paid closer attention to the fossilized remains of giraffes. They discovered something no one expected: giraffes' necks did not suddenly evolve, as we previously thought. Instead, it happened in stages and actually happened before giraffes even existed.
A new study of fossil cervical vertebrae shows that evolution occurred in several stages: one of the giraffe's neck vertebrae first stretched towards the head and then, several million years later, towards the tail.
According to scientists, the study demonstrates for the first time the specifics of evolutionary transformation in extinct species of the giraffe family.
The vertebrae evolved at different times, resulting in the giraffe's neck becoming what we see today. And while we still don’t know why giraffes developed such a long neck, now we know how.

2. How flightless birds evolved

From an evolutionary point of view, flightless birds are one of nature's biggest mysteries.
Even if we ignore the question of why they ever gave up flight, the mystery of how they crossed continents without the ability to fly has occupied the minds of scientists for more than 150 years. The separation of continents from each other had already begun when birds evolved, so it was impossible to cross the ocean without flying over it.
However, according to a recent report, all flightless birds (i.e. ratites) evolved from a single bird that flew almost 60 million years ago. It was previously thought that birds evolved separately after the continents began to move away from each other, but before large mammals evolved.
Scientists then proved that there was a close relationship between two seemingly separate species of ratites - the kiwi and the apiornithidae, an extinct family of flightless birds native to Madagascar.
This is not the first time that scientists have discovered genetic relationships among various families of ratites. Research conducted in the 1990s showed that emus were also close relatives of the kiwi bird.

1. How life originated on Earth

How the first organisms appeared on Earth has always been a big question mark. In the first half of the last century, Soviet biologist Alexander Ivanovich Oparin put forward the theory of the “primary soup” - the emergence of life on Earth through the transformation of hydrogen-containing molecules as a result of gradual chemical evolution into a primordial broth, which is believed to have existed in shallow bodies of water and probably served an incubation center for the first living molecules.
However, there have always been problems with this theory. For example, it is widely known that the ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule was the first form of life on Earth. But RNA can only reproduce with complex protein molecules that it forms later. So how did it appear in the first place?
After studying the conditions that existed on Earth at the time of the origin of life, British researchers proved that everything necessary for the formation of RNA was already present in the environment at that time.
Scientists artificially created 50 nucleic acids - the building blocks of RNA - from hydrogen sulfide, ultraviolet light and hydrogen. All three components were present on Earth when life began. Although scientists had previously suggested that RNA formed before proteins, this is the first time it has been proven that RNA can exist without them.

How owls fly without making a sound

Scientists have always been fascinated by the ability of owls to fly without making a sound. To understand how they do this, they recently studied owl feathers under high-resolution microscopes.
It turns out that owl feathers have at least three different characteristics that combine to produce silent flight: a stiff ridge on the leading edge, an elastic fringe on the trailing edge, and a soft material that is evenly distributed across the top of the feathers.
No other bird has such a complex wing structure. This discovery has already inspired the development of a material that could one day help produce silent aircraft.

Sochi. We are the only residents of the Olympic village, abandoned by people after the Games. The sea was fenced off from the coastline with an impenetrable fence (probably in case terrorists crawled out of the depths of the sea), but there was no attraction to the beach. Here I want only one thing - to listen again and again and ask those gathered how to prolong our youth.

Who else, if not them, should know this - the conference “Genetics of Aging and Longevity” brought together 200 scientists from 31 countries who devoted themselves to studying aging, trying to slow it down, and if possible, stop it and even reverse it. It turns out that they are quite good at it: they have learned to extend the life of simple organisms like yeast and worms by 10 times.

With laboratory mice, which are always the first to try what is later in store for humans, the successes are much more modest: so far their lives have only been extended twice. However, if my life were extended twice as long, I would call this achievement not modest, but the greatest in history. But in humans, everything is much more complicated - first, many years of preclinical preparation of therapy, then no less lengthy clinical trials.

Are we really going to be the last generation destined to die without even surviving a measly hundred years? Or is there still a chance?

How nature does it

There is a round table.

Aging is the development of endogenous pathologies in late life, which intensifies over time, says David Gems from the Institute of Healthy Aging at University College London.

Other participants have their own definitions, no worse, but no one argues that aging is a pathology, and not the norm. There is no such thing as healthy aging. Until recently there was no such unanimity.

The only reason people try to find something positive about aging is out of desperation, says Jan Weig of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to applause.

A debate begins about the main mechanisms of aging. It seems clear that Darwin and his evolutionary theory are to blame for everything. The variability of species is accelerated as a result of the rapid change of generations; this is beneficial to evolution. It is not clear exactly what mechanism triggers aging. Maybe it's a simple accumulation of errors in the body? But up to a certain point, breakdowns are successfully repaired, cells are renewed, and the life expectancy of different species varies within too wide limits.

Maybe there is a slow suicide program? “We carry within us the seeds of death,” said the evolutionist who put forward this hypothesis, August Weismann. Or maybe we grow old and die from the work of the same mechanisms that ensured our growth and development in our youth? It’s just that evolution didn’t take care to turn them off in time, and they begin to work towards destruction.

For me, the key question is not so much what aging is, but how nature generally regulates life expectancy,” Vadim Gladyshev, a professor at Harvard Medical School, explains to me. - After all, the life span of different animals is not the same, from several days to several centuries. The shrew and the whale are mammals and have a common ancestor, but the shrew lives for a year, and the whale lives for more than 200 years. It is believed that the lifespan of mammals is related to the rate of maturation of the organism and body weight. The greater the mass, the longer the organism lives. But the mouse and the naked mole rat are about the same size, and the mole rat manages to live 10 times longer than the mouse - more than 30 years. We are trying to study such pairs of species that are as close as possible to each other evolutionarily. For example, the common bat and Brandt's bat - this is one of them, found also in Russia and lives for more than 40 years, at least no less.

In the world of anti-aging fighters, Gladyshev became famous for deciphering and being the first to study the genomes of two major celebrities: the naked mole rat and Brandt's bat.

The bat is one of the smallest mammals, weighing about 4–8 grams. And at the same time it flies, which is generally unique in terms of life expectancy, because flying consumes a huge amount of resources. How does nature do this? How can we do the same? We studied her genome and found two surprising changes. One is the growth hormone receptor, the second is the insulin factor receptor. These two genes are very well known in connection with the study of aging. If you influence these areas and turn them off, the organisms become smaller and live longer. A mouse whose growth hormone receptor gene was blocked became dwarfed but lived twice as long.

Old People's Planet

Meanwhile, the conference continues.

Thanks to the development of medicine and an improvement in the quality of life, the proportion of people over sixty years of age will constantly increase. If nothing is done, it will be a disaster, even from an economic point of view, says Brian Kennedy, director of the California-based Buck Institute.

People over 65 are the fastest-growing age group in the United States, and the United Nations predicts that in some developed countries they will make up about a third of all adults in 20 years. There is only one way out: to make older people healthy and active. Governments, corporations, and public organizations are advocating for this, but for some reason no one has money for research. Our conference was organized by the private charitable foundation Science for Life Extension. Its head, Mikhail Batin, has been financing, organizing and finding money for research aimed at combating aging for many years with rare stubbornness.

The main cause of people's suffering is old age and death, he convinces with the energy of an evangelist. - But science brings good news: human aging can be slowed down. But one piece of news is not enough - something else needs to be done to make it come true! In the field of scientific research on life extension, only a thousandth of what should be done is being done. Meanwhile, now radical life extension is a solvable technical problem, like space flight after the work of Tsiolkovsky.

Old age is like a false melody

Among the scientists at the conference there are many Russian professors working at the best universities in the world, mainly in the USA. It’s like you’re attending a meeting of a secret society of progressors, whose members in different parts of the planet serve a common goal. They gathered in Sochi largely thanks to the efforts of the conference program director Alexei Moskalev, head of the laboratory of genetics of life expectancy and aging at MIPT.

Would you say that you are fighting aging?

I am more of a researcher, an observer of nature, rather than a fighter. But to fight aging, you need to have a weapon, and I am one of those who creates it. You could say that our weapon is the scientific method.

What is aging from the point of view of modern science?

If you ask a biologist what life is, he will probably get lost in words. It’s roughly the same with aging, although there is, of course, a classic definition from textbooks that aging is a progressive decrease in the vitality of the body with age. Scientists are trying to identify criteria that make it possible to judge the degree of aging regardless of age - for example, by the amount of DNA damage. If we list these criteria, it seems that aging is a set of completely different processes occurring at different levels of organization of living matter: molecular, cellular, at the level of cellular interactions, at the level of functional systems such as the respiratory or circulatory system.

For example?

For example, with age, an increasing proportion of cells lose their ability to divide, and tissue regeneration is impaired. Some cells go on a suicide program. Evolution has provided that if the DNA is severely damaged, a cell self-destruction program is launched so that its descendants do not degenerate into a cancerous tumor. Communication between cells is also disrupted. If a cell receives the wrong signals, it either begins to divide at an accelerated rate, or stops dividing, or gives rise to the wrong type of cell. And at the level of the circulatory system, changes such as thrombosis, atherosclerosis are already occurring, blood supply to the heart muscles and brain is disrupted, strokes, and heart attacks.

It turns out that these are some disparate processes, but something unites them?

We can say that the main thing in aging is a violation of the internal balance in a living system, when self-regulation mechanisms break down, which normally compensate and repair all failures in the functioning of the body. The cell's DNA, its "brain center", is damaged and errors accumulate in it. Cells send incorrect chemical signals to each other, and enzymes that regulate gene activity stop working correctly. DNA is like a piano, and enzymes play music on this piano - this is how the life of a cell proceeds. But as you age, the melody becomes more and more false.

What exactly do you do?

I study the effects of stressors such as radiation on life expectancy. I was able to show that radiation in small doses does not reduce, but increases life expectancy. This does not mean that everyone needs to run to get irradiated. You shouldn’t play with radiation; it is unpredictable even in small doses and can lead to cancer.

And what is this mechanism?

I was able to show that, most likely, a small dose of radiation leads to the selection of cells that are resistant to radiation. And these are the very cells that will be resistant to other stress factors. They will age slowly, and the entire body will age more slowly. Then I began to try other stress factors, and it turned out that moderate short-term overloads prolong life. For example, exposure to high or low temperatures encourages cells to repair damage. And most importantly, if the stress was moderate, the system not only recovers successfully, but also moves to a higher level of protection. It's like hardening. It is easy for some organisms to extend their lifespan by restricting caloric intake or subjecting them to regular temperature influences - this is how we turn on the mechanism of combating stress.

Long-lived people often drink and smoke quite well - is this also about moderate stress?

There are lucky people with lucky genes who can live to be a hundred years old without leading a healthy lifestyle, simply because their stress-fighting enzymes work better. This is a phenomenon of family longevity, passed on from generation to generation. But this does not concern most of humanity.

Genes - sounds like a sentence.

Only until gene therapy really took off. For example, we are very interested in stress-resistant animals - such amazing long-lived animals as the naked mole rat and Brandt's bat, the gray and bowhead whales. We study their genomes to use this knowledge to create new drugs. Someday, their stress resistance genes in the form of additional copies will be integrated into the human genome and prolong our life. This year, the Chinese made a virus that injected mice with one of these genes, and their life expectancy increased by 20%.

What funds should we hope for in the near future?

One leading model is that aging is a chronic inflammatory process. And one of the most promising drugs that counteract inflammatory processes are now considered. But the problem is not only inflammation - there are different, relatively independent mechanisms of aging. Therefore, we began to look for combinations so that one substance would affect one mechanism, another would affect another, and indeed, sometimes we are able to achieve a more pronounced anti-aging effect.

I asked various researchers whether they themselves take any “medicines for old age.” They have already called me rapamycin, metformin, small doses of soluble aspirin, melatonin. What do you think about it?

All of these substances can have serious side effects. For example, aspirin does not suit me: asthmatic syndrome develops. And regarding melatonin, it is known for sure that in some people it can cause tumor formations. Therefore, for now I limit myself to hormetins - substances that stimulate stress resistance. They are found in green tea, turmeric, some berries, fruits, and herbs.

That is, you simply consume certain foods.

Yes, and besides, I know what foods to limit. There are a large number of experimental studies showing that excess methionine reduces life expectancy. And this is red meat, tuna, egg, milk, rice. I also switched from sunflower oil to olive oil: there are fewer polyunsaturated fatty acids.

How do you feel about fasting? For some animals, calorie restriction allows them to live longer.

The effects of fasting are largely due to the fact that an overeating person limits the consumption of foods that are not that healthy anyway. Fasting itself does not prolong people's lives.

How important is sleep schedule? For example, I often go to bed closer to three or four in the morning, and everything somehow comes out on its own. It is harmful?

Probably yes. The peak release of the hormone melatonin is reached around eleven in the evening, and if you sit out this time, then for the next two hours it will be difficult for you to fall asleep. Then a new peak, and so on every two hours. If you do not sleep at this time, desynchronization of internal rhythms occurs. When you sleep, stem cells come out of their niches and begin to look for damaged areas of your body - where what needs to be regenerated. This only happens during sleep. Sleep rhythms are very important, but with aging they are destroyed, and this may be one of the causes of diseases of aging. Therefore, by artificially disrupting your rhythms, you can speed up aging. But this topic has not yet been sufficiently studied.

How do psychological factors influence the rate of aging?

Hormonal levels largely depend on our mood. For example, stress hormones such as cortisol play a very important role in aging: they cause diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis. If we constantly keep cortisol at high levels, then, in fact, we simulate the processes of accelerated aging.

You are fighting aging as a scientist, and can we, ordinary people, somehow help you with this?

It is very important to create a public opinion that aging is not normal, that it can and should be gotten rid of. Public opinion influences decision makers about which areas of science to fund.

A question of focus

It’s the fifth day of the conference, I’m about to fly out, but I can’t tear myself away from the reports. In Moscow, the usual objections from friends await me. From one flank one most often hears: “But if they learn to prolong life, then Putin is forever!” For some reason, people care much less about their own fate. From another comes: “God did not intend us to be like this, man has his due date.” And from both flanks there was a friendly chorus: “What about overpopulation? After all, if people live long, there will be no room left.” You might think that overpopulation is the main Russian problem.

I finally leave the conference venue, but in the corridor I meet Pyotr Fedichev, head of the systems biology laboratory of the MIPT pharmaceutical cluster, scientific director of Quantum Pharmaceuticals. This is exactly the person who is developing and bringing to market new “anti-aging” drugs. Fedichev, as always, is surrounded by a team of guys, buried in computers, wherever they are.

What are they doing?

Data on all kinds of age-dependent genomes are analyzed to find effective markers of aging. We can't give a person a pill and wait fifty years to see how it slows down aging. To shorten the period of clinical trials, we need to find markers that would quickly show how a particular drug affected the aging process. I think this problem will be solved quite quickly: such things always depend on practical necessity. Once humanity really wants to start testing life-extending drugs, a lot of smart people will get together and make a normal biomarker.

Aren't people now busy creating such drugs?

You see, no matter what spiritual practice a person follows - a health system, diet or gymnastics - he will not even live to be one hundred and fifty years old. All we can try to do is push our time from sixty to one hundred. At our company, we conditionally differentiate all potential drugs into strong and weak protectors. Those that are weak improve your condition within that forty-year interval when everyone ages. We try not to deal with them.

Why? After all, this is also good...

These types of therapies do not work to radically prolong healthy longevity, but rather to slow down the aging regime. But a world in which old age lasts twenty years longer will not be able to sustain itself purely economically. The pension systems of many countries are already bursting at the seams. The number of visits to the doctor increases rapidly with age, as does the cost of treatment, while people stop working. The last year of a person’s life in developed countries now involves the same expenses as his entire previous life, and the result is negligible. The only practical way is to turn off aging mode so that medical costs stop rising with age and the person remains productive.

When else will we be able to turn it off... We should somehow hold out for that. For starters, it would be nice to live for a hundred years on weak geroprotectors.

It seems to me that this is primarily a matter of focus of effort. If the whale and the mole rat, our close mammalian relatives, managed to switch the aging mode, then for humans this is an engineering problem that must be solved. It is necessary for a sufficient number of intelligent people to understand that a significant extension of life is possible. And then we thought and did it. It is likely that a preclinical drug that seriously changes the lifespan of mammals already exists - at least some of the reports at the conference gave me such hope.

The New Year has already been marked by natural disasters around the world. And not only by climatic conditions - severe frosts and snowfalls, but also by destructive earthquakes.

Here are just a few news from this “seismic report”:

January 18 - a series of destructive earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 5 in the central regions of Italy;

January 30 - more than 50 tremors were recorded in the area of ​​Mount Etna in Sicily, magnitude 3 - 3.5.

Photo: Flickr

For many years now, seismologists from different countries have been studying the nature of earthquakes and trying to understand the cause and progression of this destructive natural phenomenon. During this time, scientists have made many discoveries that can serve humanity: to warn and protect it from natural disasters.

Yes, people can build cities in areas that are not considered seismically dangerous. But what to do if microdistricts are already rising in dangerous areas and people live a calm, measured life?

Not long ago, Russian scientists proposed and tested a technology that would prevent an earthquake in a place where there is an accumulation of powerful tectonic energy. Seismologists have suggested that one large source can be crushed by a series of numerous charges. Thus, in the area of ​​Lake Baikal, at the site of a large fault, mini-fuses were planted. After the charges detonated, the sensors recorded the result of the experiment, which confirmed the scientists’ theory.

Of course, the test will serve peaceful purposes. But the atom was also peaceful at first. The military often used scientific discoveries for their own purposes. This was the case with the first airplane that the Wright brothers built: the engineers hoped that aviation would be peaceful. This was the case with the discovery of viruses, which can now be used as biological weapons. Old Churchill was right: “The Stone Age can return on the shining wings of science.”

Let's imagine a situation: the enemy, using a special installation, destroys a city and its enterprises, disrupts communications and control. All this will cause panic among civilians, and then troops can safely enter the physically and morally destroyed city.

Photo: GNS Science/ GEOD0/ Global Look

It turns out that such an installation becomes a seismic weapon, and a weapon of mass destruction. The question arises: does such a weapon exist?

In 1964, an earthquake of unprecedented magnitude occurred off the coast of Alaska. The power of the natural disaster was comparable to 1200 Hiroshimas. The intelligence services then reported to the Soviet government that strong earth tremors in Alaska were the result of an experiment within the framework of the secret American program “Prime Argus”. Is this true or just speculation by Soviet intelligence officers?

And some more food for thought. In the 1980s In the USA, there was a radio mast in almost every state. According to the official version of the American government, the towers were built to organize communications with the military in case of war. But supporters of the “conspiracy theory” claimed that these radio towers were capable of causing earthquakes by generating low-frequency pulses.

Later, another object appeared in America, intended for the study of natural phenomena. It consisted of an antenna field (about 300 radio transmitters and about 200 radio antennas) and was placed over a large area.

These installations were remembered when major natural disasters occurred on the planet. The US military was blamed for earthquakes in Colombia (1999), Iran (2003), Indonesia (2004), and Haiti (2010).

In Russia they began to talk about a similar “conspiracy” in the early 1990s: earthquakes in Georgia (1991, 2002), Abkhazia (1993, 1999) and Yugoslavia (1999) are on the conscience of Russian intelligence services The question is, where is our secret weapon hidden?

It is clear that such conversations and rumors do not arise out of nowhere. After all, in the 1990s. Our seismologists actually tested installations that can have an impact on the earth's crust. The experiments took place at testing sites in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Photo: Ivan Damanik/ZUMA/Global Look

It is important to note that the tests were open and aimed at suppressing tremors, and not at provoking earthquakes. Installation information can be found in open sources. This “seismic weapon” was developed in 1970-1980. and was an installation that could easily fit into the back of a truck.

The generator, which had no analogues in the world, generated a powerful pulse of several thousand amperes and was directed with the help of electrodes to the part of the earth's crust where a potential earthquake source was observed. Imagine a huge electric plug that is immersed in the ground (the electrodes are located at a distance of up to 5 kilometers). The pulse from the generator penetrated to a depth of 5 to 10 kilometers.

Using receiving devices, scientists studied the response to vibrations created in the earth's crust. The test results of the installation showed that it was able to suppress strong vibrations in the depths of the earth, but at the same time generated frequent harmless tremors around the test area.

According to Russian scientists, to cause an earthquake, firstly, enormous energy is needed - an explosion of hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives. But there are not so many nuclear warheads in the world!

Even the power of the most powerful seismic vibrators, which are used for technical exploration of oil and gas, is not enough to use them as seismic weapons.

Secondly, it is possible to “push” an earthquake only where the Earth has “prepared” it. And this is a time factor and a spatial one. And the global scientific community today does not have sufficiently accurate methods for determining the power, location and time of an earthquake. In just one year, specialists from the vaunted GSHAP program “missed” about 60 earthquakes in various parts of the globe.

Thirdly, to provoke tremors, it is necessary to know the area of ​​the tectonic fault and imperceptibly produce a strong impact on it. It is impossible to produce it unnoticed, but we have already talked about the power of impact.

Finally, from 1990 until today, tectonic tests with a generator have not been carried out in our country. At least, Russian “minds” have nothing to do with the disasters that occurred later.

Photo: Flickr

Therefore, rumors about some kind of “seismic weapon” are politics. And the media for politicians is a tasty morsel, in the wide information space of which they can give free rein to various wild ideas.

Now scientists continue to work on creating a machine that would control the output of tectonic energy and, therefore, prevent large earthquakes. I walked this setup over a possible fire, shook it a little, and averted the threat for many years.

Unfortunately, scientists have not yet fully learned how to influence the earth’s crust and are doing it very carefully so as not to provoke a disaster. The principle of “do no harm” is always relevant. Scientists have failed in their ability to control earthquakes for military purposes, but have not given up trying to harness the power and energy of the Earth: climate change, causing tsunamis, and the like. But that's a completely different story.

MOSCOW, September 30— RIA News. Brian Kennedy, one of the leading experts in the study of human aging, talked about whether there is a limit to human life, and explained why the fight against aging is today the main task for all countries in the world.

Professor Kennedy has been studying the various processes that cause the human body and cells to age for almost three decades, and is trying to understand how this process can be stopped by experimenting on animals and volunteers.

Two years ago, his team was able to discover two hundred genes possibly linked to aging by experimenting in yeast with some human DNA. These experiments served as the basis for the first experimental anti-aging therapies, which will soon begin clinical trials in volunteers at the Kennedy Laboratory at the National University of Singapore.

Last week, he gave a public lecture at the PhystechBioMed conference, organized by MIPT, during which he spoke about what his laboratory had achieved, how alcohol affects the rate of aging of the body, and why the governments of Singapore and the United States are fighting the aging population of the entire Earth. , the “gray tsunami,” to one of the first places among their national interests.

— Brian, in recent years, your colleagues have often argued about whether there is a limit in a person’s life that cannot be crossed. Does he exist or not?

“This debate has been revived in recent years because colleagues recently conducted several studies on the life expectancy of the oldest people on Earth. They showed that the average life expectancy on the planet has continued to increase in recent years, but its maximum values ​​have not changed.

I look at this problem from a slightly different angle, since I work mainly not with people, but with animals. Whatever organism we worked with, in all cases we managed to increase the maximum life expectancy. There is no reason to believe that this cannot be done for humans.

On the other hand, this question, in fact, is somewhat different: we do not yet know for what reasons the maximum life expectancy previously increased, whether it was some natural factors or some actions of the person himself. In the future, when we begin to use drugs that prolong life, I am sure that they will work on the longest living people.

— Many of your colleagues in Russia believe that there is a genetic “aging program” that forces animals to become decrepit and give way to a new generation. Do you agree with them?

— Two different issues are raised here. On the one hand, the data that we have today indicates that such a program does not exist and that the decrepitude of the body occurs on its own.

The reason for this is natural selection - its influence on how the human and animal body works weakens after they have already left offspring and stopped reproducing. From an evolutionary point of view, a person's life ends at 30-40 years old, and this was true for most of human history, since almost all of our ancestors rarely lived to this point.

For this reason, those errors in DNA that affect our lives after the end of this period were practically not corrected during our evolution, which began to interfere with humanity only in the last 200 years, after the advent of medicine and the beginning of a sharp increase in life expectancy. Chronic diseases have appeared, claiming the lives of an increasing number of people.

On the other hand, even if this program does not exist, it cannot be said that influencing single genes or groups of genes cannot affect the rate of aging. Although the aging of the body is largely a random process, some of its features are common to humans and many other animals, and this can be exploited.

For example, calorie restriction prolongs the life of many animals not because it directly slows aging, but because the lack of energy turns on sets of genes associated with stress and lack of food. These genes appeared in our DNA and in the genomes of animals not because they are associated with aging, but because they helped them survive in difficult situations. This same defense against stress has been shown to help the body better resist aging.

— Speaking of animals, today scientists are trying to find the key to aging, experimenting on a variety of creatures, from yeast to naked mole rats. Which one will bring us closest to solving this riddle?

“In fact, there is no answer to this question, since each animal makes its own contribution to the study of aging. For example, yeast and fruit flies are completely different from humans, but their short life cycles allow us to quickly study the operation of individual genes in their DNA. As it turns out, many of these genes associated with aging have their counterparts in the DNA of mice and, possibly, humans.

On the other hand, truly long-lived creatures, such as naked mole rats, help us study other processes that are extremely difficult to capture or notice in experiments with yeast or flies. In general, we must conduct research on all model organisms, taking advantage of the differences in their life activities.

— Have you achieved new successes in studying aging genes using the example of your yeast with human genes?

“We have been studying yeast for a long time, and now we can say that these fungi have played a key role in the study of aging, as they helped us find the SIRT2 and mTOR genes, the impact of which helped us significantly extend the life of mice and other animals.

We're now trying to piece together a complete picture of aging—how the process is affected by not just one, but all 230 genes we discovered two years ago, and how they interact with each other. This is a very long process, but we hope that yeast will help us, for the first time, fully describe what happens when the human body deteriorates.

— If you manage to slow down aging, will this not lead to the fact that the cells of the body of such an “immortal” person will eventually lose the ability to divide or become predisposed to the development of cancer?

“It seems to me that such a problem will not arise, since cell rejuvenation should also lead to the fact that they retain their normal ability to divide. So far, our experiments show that all experimental methods of life extension not only increase the life span of animals, but also allow them to remain healthy much longer than usual.

This is the main goal of all my work - I don’t care if I can make a person immortal, but at the same time infinitely sick. I would like people to stay healthy for as long as possible, and if they manage to live longer, that would be a nice, but added bonus.

— Relatively recently, your colleagues from California were able to rejuvenate mice by temporarily turning on genes associated with stem cell function in their cells. Will such “extreme” forms of fighting old age cause protests from politicians and the public, and will it be possible to put them into practice in the foreseeable future?

“It seems to me that this approach and many other rejuvenation methods need to be tested in experiments on volunteers, but most of them are not yet ready to work with humans. In addition to ethical reasons, there are a number of technical problems that make the results of tests on mice and other rodents extremely difficult to translate to humans.

There are already medications, as well as various diets and lifestyles, that should greatly influence the rate of human aging. And if we can prove that these simple and relatively safe measures actually prolong life, then, it seems to me, the public will be ready for more bold steps.

Of course, some may not like the manipulation of genes and cell function, but how, in fact, is the difference between treating cancer and fighting aging? From a medical point of view, age and aging are the main risk factors in the development of malignant tumors and a number of chronic diseases, and therefore victory over aging will mean victory over them.

In essence, the anti-aging drug would also work to prevent cancer, heart disease and other health problems that claim the lives of most older people today. It is unlikely that anyone will have ethical complaints against us if they understand this connection.

Moreover, the fight against aging will help us solve or delay the main problem of the future, the “gray tsunami”, the real economic end of the world, generated by the fact that today there are fewer and fewer young people on Earth and more and more elderly people who need to pay pensions and who need care. care.