News
Heavy metals suppress enzyme activity in the soil by 3-3.5 times and have especially prominent effect on the enzymes that support carbon and sulfur circulation. This was discovered by a soil scientist from RUDN together with his colleagues from Chile, Germany, the UK and Venezuela. The data obtained by the team can lead to more efficient use and fertilization of agricultural lands.
The RUDN University Academic Council Commission on Foreign Languages held its June research seminar in cooperation with international community of language teachers who became part of the international pro-bono project on challenges and solutions to foreign languages training during COVID-19.
Biologists from RUDN University described the role of tropical rainforests in the production of methane, the second most harmful greenhouse gas after CO2. It turned out that some areas of rainforests not only consumed methane but also emitted it.
A team of chemists from RUDN University and Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds (INEOS) synthesized two heterometallic clusters with almost 100% efficiency. These compounds can be used as catalysts in pharma, production of polymers, and other branches of the chemical industry.
A soil scientist from RUDN University studied soil samples collected at the Tibetan Plateau and discovered that high soil moisture content (caused by the melting of permafrost and glaciers) leads to further temperature increase. Therefore, the rate of soil bogging should be held back in order to slow down global warming.
A researcher from RUDN University suggested that Xanthomonas bacteria that are harmful to plants might have developed from a nonpathogenic related species by receiving virulence genes from other species of bacteria.
Many substances with different chemical and physical properties, from diamonds to graphite, are made up of carbon atoms. Amorphous forms of solid carbon do not have a fixed crystal structure and consist of structural units—nanosized graphene particles. A team of physicists from RUDN University studied the structure of amorphous carbon and suggested classifying it as a separate type of amorphous solid bodies: a molecular amorphic with enforced fragmentation.
A team of linguists from RUDN University established that a person’s ability to accurately differentiate between vowel sounds of a foreign language correlates with the size of their vocabulary in said language.
A geneticist from RUDN University studied the effect of Bifidobacterium (intestinal bacteria) on the inflammatory process and discovered that their surface protein is capable of stopping excessive or uncontrollable inflammation, like the one observed in COVID-19 patients. A fragment of this protein can be used as an anti-inflammatory medication when treating coronavirus and other diseases.
A chemist from RUDN University together with colleagues created a new type of two-dimensional nanofilm from an organic material called calixarene. The invention can be used as a protective coating in electronics and as a part of molecular filters. They also suggested a way of increasing the durability of such films with UV radiation.
A biologist from RUDN University confirmed that selenium nanoparticles and garlic extract can effectively reduce the negative impact of stress on the health of grass carp in the breeding industry.
A team of mathematicians from RUDN University found a way to reduce the size of a trained neural network six times without spending additional resources on re-training it. The approach is based on finding a correlation between the weights of neural connections in the initial system and its simplified version.