Scarier than an atomic war
Defense Magic News
Alexey Kupriyanov, <url>
On April 12, Sergey Ptichkin's article "Scarier than a bullet" was published in the online version of Rossiyskaya Gazeta (I didn't check the paper version). What new Russian weapons are there talks about today?" I wouldn't write anything specifically about this if it weren't for two circumstances. Firstly, the note talks about scientific developments, as it were. Secondly, Rossiyskaya Gazeta is the press organ of the Government of the Russian Federation.
I must admit, it's been a long time since I've seen such mediocre crafts in such serious publications. When I read Mr. Ptichkin's note for the first time, I decided to check if a belated April Fool's joke had caught my eye. However, checking with the means available to me showed that, by all indications, the article was published on cosmonautics Day, April 12.
Commenting on the possibility of creating "completely exotic" types of weapons allegedly included in the State Armament Program for 2011-2020. (radiation, physical, wave, genetic, psychophysical and "other" – I note that for some reason they are not mentioned in serious and boring analytics about the state program - there is more and more about budget overspending, under–delivery of weapons and their obsolescence), the author begins with "genetic engineering" and "genetic modification".
"Let's clarify right away: these types of weapons do not fall under any prohibitive conventions. Paradoxically, biological weapons are strictly prohibited, all their stocks and capacities for the production of pathogenic bacteria and viruses in the USA and even in the USSR were destroyed. And a much more terrible effect on the human genome, any living creature and plants is quite acceptable. Genetic engineering and genetic modification in order to improve plant varieties and animal species belong to scientific and applied activities. They are actively engaged in this in the USA and Western Europe. Meanwhile, from improving the breed of, for example, pigs to improving the breed of a person is one step. Why not fascism? And have outbreaks of SARS or swine flu become a side (or direct) effect of genetic engineering?"
This fragment alone already contains enough absurdities to write a small popular science article. Why is the "improvement of breeds" something more terrible in fact than the industrial production of anthrax bacillus? People have been trying for centuries to "improve the breeds" of animals and plants by all means available to them. The step that Sergey Ptichkin writes about has always been the same, regardless of what was at the heart of breeding measures – more or less conscious selection of "natural" hereditary deviations or strict methodical selection among the variants created by genetic engineering methods. Relying, I note, not on some unnatural, but on natural processes that have finally become clear to us. The only question has always been whether to take this step or not.
It is also not clear why the "improvement of human nature" is fascism. First of all, because it is completely unclear what exactly is hidden behind the well-worn stamp "improvement of nature". It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind will protest against the early diagnosis of hereditary diseases (and the right of parents to terminate pregnancy at the earliest stages in case of a sad positive test result). I believe that no one will object to the prospects of gene therapy for tumors or other supposed benefits either. If we are talking about the physical destruction or sterilization of people whom other people for some reason considered inferior, then it's not about genetic engineering, but about the structure of society that allows such decisions to be made. And, I must say, the most impressive "successes" in this regard were achieved in those years when no one dreamed of genetic engineering in the modern sense.
Ptichkin believes that Russia will not create a gene weapon because our country has hopelessly lagged behind the "USA and Western Europe" in the field of genetics. I can reassure the readers of Rossiyskaya Gazeta and everyone else. Firstly, although domestic genetics is going through hard times (like all high-tech science, it suffers from chronic underfunding in Russia), it is not far behind the world level. Russian scientists are quite successfully published in international journals and work safely both in Russia (to the extent possible) and in foreign laboratories. With a significant backlog, they simply could not do either.
Secondly, the creation of a gene weapon is impossible, because no one knows what it is. It seems that we are not talking about creating special pathogenic strains of microorganisms, since Ptichkin dismisses this possibility from the very beginning. At the same time, at least the technical problem is clear here (quite solvable by modern means, but, in a sense, completely uninteresting, for reasons that will become clearer below).
What does this mean? The creation of some types of weapons that would selectively act on certain human populations that differ from each other "genetically" (I omit detailed explanations of what is hidden under the not completely transparent term "genetic differences")? This is completely hopeless, since the borders (rather blurred due to migration and mestization) between what could be called relatively genetically homogeneous human populations do not even coincide with the borders of ethnic groups, not to mention nations (by nation I, like many, understand in this case the people of one country, delegating authority to the rulers in one way or another). Who will agree that as a result of the use of certain weapons by us, the enemy will lose 80% of manpower, and we will lose 70% (including civilians)? If we live to see the times when the command of the armed forces of the Russian Federation will be ready to make such decisions without hesitation, then, I assure you, genetic weapons will be far from the most terrible aspect of the reality surrounding us.
To this it remains only to add that the maximum effect (i.e., the optimal ratio of losses) during military operations of this kind can be achieved only in the fight against some small, relatively genetically homogeneous and significantly different from any of the very diverse populations of Russia tribe. For example, with the aborigines of Tierra del Fuego or some other small isolated tribes of South America, South Africa or Australia and Oceania. However, none of them, apparently, will be able in the foreseeable future (until 2020) to claim the role of a strategic enemy of Russia, for which it would be worth deploying these dubious and expensive developments.
After this relatively innocent introduction, which could be attributed to uncritical abuse of yellow press stamps, unsteady mastering of the school curriculum in biology and a complete inability to find and understand at least popular scientific texts on the topic of interest to the author, outright nonsense begins about "radiation, wave and psychophysical weapons" in the development of which "for a number of reasons "until recently, our specialists were far ahead of the Americans."
When explaining the principle of operation of "different types of radiation", Mr. Spichkin delves into dangerous details. From the article we learn that "a cell of a living organism has two electric poles: "+" and "–", representing a typical oscillatory circuit capable of emitting and capturing electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency according to the laws of physics."
Here again, you can open a school (preferably, of course, university) textbook and look at the chapter on the transmission of a nerve impulse (since it is in nerve and muscle cells that bioelectric effects reach their maximum expression). The potential difference is created not between the "poles" of the cell, but between the outer and inner sides of the cell membrane. It is not at all clear what kind of oscillatory circuit we are talking about, since not every oscillatory system is suitable for "receiving" electromagnetic field oscillations. If we can find at least an analogue of a capacitor in the cell, then there is definitely no inductor there.
Maintaining the polarization of the cell membrane (resting potential), as well as its depolarization (action potential – "capacitor discharge") are associated with the operation of the so-called ion channels. Ion channels are complexes of specialized protein molecules embedded in an ion–impermeable membrane that selectively pass potassium and sodium ions in such a way that an excess negative charge accumulates on the inner surface of the cell membrane at rest, and an excess positive charge accumulates on the outer surface. Signal transmission from cell to cell occurs with the help of rather complicated intercellular contacts (so-called synapses). Although the transmission of excitation in the synapse is associated with the depolarization of the membrane of the "transmitting" cell, the mechanism is far from what underlies the reception of a radio signal. Neither chemical nor electrical synapses (they are arranged differently, but both work on the basis of ion channels) are not able to perceive radio waves.
The human body, of course, interacts with electromagnetic waves in different ranges of the spectrum. It reflects and absorbs visible light (light is therefore called "visible" because the photoreceptors of our eye are able to perceive it), heats up from infrared radiation, "tans" from ultraviolet, different tissues are able to delay X-rays to varying degrees (ultraviolet, X-ray and harsher gamma radiation can significantly increase the frequency of mutations or even kill living cells). It should not be placed in the microwave. He reacts sensitively to electric shock, which causes serious disturbance in the work of nerve and muscle cells. A rare series about doctors dispenses with a demonstration of a defibrillator, which stops the disordered activity of the heart muscle with a powerful discharge in order to give it the opportunity to restore its natural rhythm. Impressive results can be achieved by implanting electrodes. Implantable pacemakers have been working successfully for more than half a century. Relatively recently, devices that restore hearing and vision have appeared. However, all this has nothing to do with the mythical psychotronic weapons and the reception of radio transmissions (on the waves of any mysterious radiation) by the cells of the body, and when the enemy gets close to you at a distance sufficient for the use of a stun gun or implantation of electrodes, grandfather's methods, I'm afraid, will be cheaper and more effective.
A significant part of Ptichkin's note is devoted to a top secret weapon, in which the more or less sophisticated reader will easily recognize "torsion fields".
"The USSR became the first country where, especially without advertising and without claiming the Nobel Prizes, they were able to practically apply the "unified field theory" that Albert Einstein seemed to understand, but never realized, and based on which Nikola Tesla worked his energy miracles. The work on the field systems, which combined what had been discussed separately recently – radiation, wave and psychophysical, were classified. Not only because, in case of implementation, they ensured complete superiority over the enemy, but also because they entered into a critical contradiction with official science, for which such a concept as ethereal space was only a poetic allegory, and not a physical reality."
The weapons created on this basis had truly miraculous power.
"Field generators were able to clean huge water areas, and even the earth, from any pollution. At the same time, they could make the cleanest water source undrinkable. The water did not become poisoned, retained visible physico-chemical properties, but was simply not absorbed by living organisms. Interesting experiments were conducted and recorded with petroleum products. Diesel fuel, for example, after irradiation could increase energy output, which led to an increase in engine power and significant fuel savings. And it could, after irradiation, but already with a changed frequency of the field, lose the ability to burn at all."
I am ready to believe that we will have many people who, despite all the revelations of "torsion" scams, will accept these ridiculous tales at face value. There are also many places where such a note would be accepted "with a bang". However, the publication of this text in Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a slap in the face to all sane people in Russia.
We are given to understand that the press organ of the government of the Russian Federation is quite tolerant of journalists who even know the school curriculum very poorly. What, pray tell, are the visible physico-chemical properties of water? Be at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure a transparent liquid without color and odor? By what such fields can they be changed so that water ceases to be absorbed by living organisms?
Water, indeed, is an amazing liquid. Each of its molecules is a dipole. The hydrogen atoms that make up the molecule carry an excess positive charge, and the oxygen atom has an excess negative charge. Speaking somewhat simplistically, this is due to the fact that the electron densities of molecular orbitals are shifted in the molecule towards the nucleus of an oxygen atom, which has a much larger positive charge (+8) than the nuclei of hydrogen atoms (+1 for each) and, as a result, "pulls" the common electrons towards itself. As a result, water molecules take a more or less ordered arrangement, orienting themselves relative to each other: a hydrogen atom of one molecule is attracted to an oxygen atom of another, forming a so-called "hydrogen bond". The same fate awaits in the water any ions or macromolecules with an excess charge accumulating in certain areas. This is the basis for the ability to mix some substances with water (for example, alcohol or vinegar) and the inability to mix others (for example, vegetable oil). In living systems, this property of water molecules is extremely important, since the shape of many macromolecules is determined by their interaction with the surrounding liquid.
A lot has already been said about the utter absurdity of all the arguments about the "memory" of water, but it seems that it is still not enough. The following should be clear to any sane person. Yes, indeed, water molecules are oriented in a certain way around an ion or a polar macromolecule. However, as soon as it is possible to remove this ion or macromolecule from the solution in one way or another, their solvation shell (the so-called layer of water molecules surrounding an ion or macromolecule) is pulled apart, because other water molecules, other ions and macromolecules suspended in water are "crowding" around, which urgently require "attention" to their excessive negative and positive charges. This makes it physically impossible to store the memory of anything in the water.
It only remains to add that the electrostatic interactions underlying the formation of hydrogen bonds are in constant opposition to thermal motion. The higher the temperature, the more difficult it is for the molecules to maintain their mutual orientation.
With all the complexity of the real picture (to any specialist in the field of physical chemistry, my brief explanations will seem a monstrous simplification), there are no unknown miracles in aqueous solutions and suspensions, no "fields" and forces known to science (except for banal heating or slightly less banal electrolysis or centrifugation, the physical foundations of which are clear) nothing can be done about all this. It is possible to make clean water unsuitable for "assimilation by living organisms" only for a while. For example, it is possible to keep water heated to unacceptably high temperatures – not every living organism is able to withstand immersion in water boiling at normal atmospheric pressure (heated to 100 degrees Celsius), not to mention the fact that only a few extreme bacteria are able to lead an "active lifestyle" in such conditions. You can, on the contrary, freeze the water and it will again become unsuitable for direct "use". However, as soon as the boiling water cools down to an acceptable temperature, and the ice melts, the water will be freely absorbed by living organisms.
Stories about changing the properties of fuel under the influence of mysterious radiation in a country sitting on an oil pipe already sound like a form of mockery.
It would seem that it is impossible to fall further. Starting with illiterate, but having some claims to be connected with the reality of reasoning about genetics, the author has come to miracles with torsion fields. However, the final chord is still ahead – we are waiting for a collision with the laboratory... combat parapsychology.
"It seems incredible, but the specialists who mastered the secrets of the system, which was later called the combat Russian, abbreviated COLLECTION, could, for example, evade enemy "death rays", but they themselves were able to willpower to disable someone else's control system, even built on the latest digital technologies."
It is impossible to comment on this nonsense in detail. I'll just ask any combat parapsychologist to give me a couple of seconds personally and disable my laptop or at least my mobile phone. I will not be offended, on the contrary, I will sprinkle ashes on my head and publish a refutation of my skeptical notes. I suspect. however, it will take a long time to wait for an answer to this call.
In conclusion, I would like to express the hope that these and similar delusional ideas will not form the basis of secret developments of the Russian defense industry. Ranting about genetic, psychotronic or torsion weapons, vindictive water, incombustible diesel fuel and combat parapsychology is nothing more than a cover for plundering taxpayers' money taken away for the sake of "secret military developments" from a real military industrial complex, real science, quality education, real health care and social security system.
Materials of this level have no place in government publications. It makes no sense to demand that Rossiyskaya Gazeta publish a "debriefing" and refute all this nonsense, but you can at least advise Sergey Ptichkin to write about something more harmless: new tanks, military aircraft and missile systems, without touching on topics related to the need to recall the school curriculum in chemistry, physics or biology.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru16.04.2012