Zatsepin celebrates 90 years

George Zatsepin, pioneer of cosmic-ray physics and neutrino astrophysics, celebrates his 90th birthday on 28 May. He is probably best known for the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin effect, published in the 1970s, which is the subject of many experimental and theoretical studies throughout the world.

Zatsepin

In the early 1950s, in work on the nuclear nature of extensive air showers, Zatsepin created the equations for particle propagation through the atmosphere. His "next-generation principle" assumes that the characteristics of secondary particles produced in nucleon–air nucleus interactions depend only on the portion of energy taken away by a secondary particle – an effect found later in experiments on accelerators and named "scaling".

Many experiments have realized Zatsepin's ideas in neutrino physics and astrophysics. He is a leader of the Russian–American gallium germanium experiment, SAGE, which has studied the solar neutrino flux for 15 years at the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. He was the first to suggest measuring the neutrino flux from collapsing stars and was a leading figure in the Baksan neutrino telescope, the 100 tonne scintillator detector in Artyomovsk, and the Italian–Russian Liquid Scintillator Detector under Mont Blanc. He remains a head of the Large-Volume Detector experiment in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory.

Zatsepin has long held the cosmic-ray chair of the physics department of Moscow State University, where he helped to create the emulsion detector group and the international Pamir Collaboration. As head of the neutrino physics and neutrino astrophysics department of the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences he created an important school of physicists working on cosmic-ray and neutrino physics.

Dubna symposium honours the memory of Norair Sissakian

The III International Symposium "Problems of Biochemistry, Radiation and Space Biology" took place on 24–28 January in Dubna. This year the symposium was dedicated to the centenary of Norair Martirosovich Sissakian (1907–1966), an eminent researcher and biochemist, one of the founders of space biology, and an outstanding organizer of global scientific cooperation.

Sissakian

For a number of years Sissakian was chief scientific secretary of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and academician-secretary of the Department of Biological Sciences. On the global scene he was vice-president of the International Academy of Astronautics, and chair of the committee on bioastronautics of the International Astronautics Federation. In 1964 he was unanimously elected president of the 13th session of the UNESCO General Conference; some 40 years later, the 33rd session decided that the centenary of his birth should be included in the list of anniversaries associated with UNESCO in 2006–2007. He was also an active member of the Pugwash movement of scientists for peace.

About 150 scientists, not only from Russia but also from Italy, Canada, the US and CIS countries (Armenia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine), attended the symposium. The opening ceremony took place on 25 January at the President Hall of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), with talks from many outstanding scientists and researchers.

• The symposium was organized by the RAS, the RAS Department of Biological Sciences, the Bach Institute of Biochemistry of RAS, the RF State Scientific Centre (SSC) – Institute of Biomedical Problems, the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Yerevan State University, the Dubna International University of Nature, Society and Man and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.