The natural climatic variations were caused by so-called Rossby waves. Natural variations in climate are the reason why extreme cold in North America is accompanied by an unusually warm winter in Central Europe and the European part of Russia.

Roscosmos considers the possibility of resumption of short-term ten-day flights to the ISS now when the new American spacecrafts have appeared. On the other hand, it is supposed to extend the term of long missions to the station up to nine months with the start of exploitation of the modernized “Soyuz” spacecrafts in 2015.

Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner established a third scientific award for mathematicians and awarded the new winners for scientific achievements in the fields of fundamental physics and science. Among the winners are the immigrant scientist from the USSR and Stephen Hawking’s successor.

Tomsk scientists created a power plant for charging gadgets in the forest. The development is a stove that can burn usual firewood, wood chips, sawdust, coals, peat and even sunflower husk.

Russian archaeologists have for years been studying the burial ground Mayachny Bugor situated near Krasnoyarskoe Mound in Astrakhan Region. Evgeny Pererva from Volgograd branch of the Russian Academy of Horticulture studied 84 female sculls and came to conclusion that the Golden Horde women used their teeth either to make fishing nets, or to weave cloths.

The 6th Festival of Science that took place between 7 and 9 October 2011 has once again drawn in massive crowds of people of all ages and walks of life, interested or involved in scientific research and academic studies. Russia-InfoCentre asked Elizaveta Arapova, an historian and staff member of the Museum of History of the MSU, to tell our readers what awaited the visitors of the Festival Fair. Turns out, it wasn't just food for thought...

Migration becomes more and more intense nowadays. Do we know why it happens and how to make use of these processes?

July 22 is the 189 anniversary of Gregor Mendel's birthday. Why should I bother, one may ask? That’s not the question to raise, because experiments of this talented scientist opened doors to one of the most wonderful sciences in the world – genetics.

Recently British newspapers announced another “end of the world” happening within the next 18 months, when extremely powerful solar flare would destroy the whole industry of power engineering and all electronic devices on our planet, as well as orbital space ships and satellites. Russian physicists advise to keep calm and do not believe these gloomy prophecies.

People in Germany keep dying after allegedly eating vegetables with E. coli bacteria on their surface. What is Escherichia coli, why does it kill, and what should we do with it?

Public opinion polls reveal how Russians feel among other people of the world, and where is Russia’s position in the world, compared to other countries.

Bombarding a tumor with a neutron beam is a promising technique of radiation therapy. However, this kind of therapy is not widely used, because it needs large-scale neutron accelerators, requiring separate buildings.

After the International space station stops its activities, Russian researchers suggest using it as a basis for a high-latitude orbital space station.

Participants of a famous simulation of manned mission to Mars, called “Mars-500”, are now at most interesting stage of the project – VIRTU technology guides six volunteers, isolated from any external influence possible, through a process of a future “landing” on the Red planet.

Former top manager of MannKind, an American biotechnological company, sues his employers for falsifying results of clinical trials of their anti-diabetes drug in Russia. Diabetes is a group of metabolic problems, due to which human body doesn't produce enough insulin to control blood sugar (Type I), or organism's cells do not adequately react to insulin produced (Type II).

Russian scientists claim that artificial reefs are extremely popular with marine inhabitants. Researchers from the Institute of Marine Biology (Far East branch of Russian academy of sciences) say that if Russian coastal shallow waters were filled with such reefs, catches of various commercial species of fish, invertebrates and algae will grow significantly.

It has been 30 days already, since participants of the Mars-500 project were locked in special flight-imitating facilities. There are only 490 days of Martian mission simulation left.

Today various nano-substances, created for medical purposes, attract attention of many medics, biologists and physicists. Studies of magnetically controlled precise drug delivery by means of magnetic nanoparticles are of specific interest to scientific and medical community.

When a standing person moves, any kind of motion changes body configuration, and centre of body’s mass shifts. In order to prevent a moving person from falling, a huge coordinated work of muscles, responsible for motion, and postural muscles, helping keep upright body position, is carried out. Russian scientists from the Institute of Information Processing (Russian Academy of Sciences) decided to find out how mentioned coordination was conducted

Darwin Museum of Moscow welcomes visitors – new exhibition “Disappearing World” tells them about extinct and endangered animals.