The article discusses the problems associated with metrological support of equipment for geophysical research, issues of ensuring the uniformity of well measurements, the creation of Russian standards for calibrating well equipment when determining the porosity coefficients and oil, gas, water saturation, determining the parameters of defects during well cementing and technical condition of casing strings and the water-oil-gas flow. The problems of creating full-fledged methods for measuring the parameters of oil and gas fields with conventional and hard-to-recover reserves have been investigated. The key directions of development of the Russian metrological support of geophysical well measurements were determined. The tasks that need to be solved to create metrological support for geophysical well logging as an industry that meet international standards are indicated. The expediency of creating a Russian Geophysical Center for Metrology and Certification, the need to develop a new and update the existing regulatory framework, which will allow Russian geophysics to reach the level of world leaders in the field of geophysical research, are substantiated.

Folate metabolism in mammalian cells is essential for multiple vital processes, including purine and pyrimidine synthesis, histidine catabolism, methionine recycling, and utilization of formic acid. It remains unknown, however, whether these processes affect each other via folate metabolism or can function independently based on cellular needs. We addressed this question using a quantitative mathematical model of folate metabolism in rat liver cytoplasm. Variation in the rates of metabolic processes associated with folate metabolism (i.e., purine and pyrimidine synthesis, histidine catabolism, and influxes of formate and methionine) in the model revealed that folate metabolism is organized in a striking manner that enables activation or inhibition of each individual process independently of the metabolic fluxes in others. In mechanistic terms, this independence is based on the high activities of a group of enzymes involved in folate metabolism, which efficiently maintain close-to-equilibrium ratios between substrates and products of enzymatic reactions.

Microtubules are essential cytoskeletal polymers that exhibit stochastic switches between tubulin assembly and disassembly. Here, we examine possible mechanisms for these switches, called catastrophes and rescues. We formulate a four-state Monte Carlo model, explicitly considering two biochemical and two conformational states of tubulin, based on a recently conceived view of microtubule assembly with flared ends. The model predicts that high activation energy barriers for lateral tubulin interactions can cause lagging of curled protofilaments, leading to a ragged appearance of the growing tip. Changes in the extent of tip raggedness explain some important but poorly understood features of microtubule catastrophe: weak dependence on tubulin concentration and an increase in its probability over time, known as aging. The model predicts a vanishingly rare frequency of spontaneous rescue unless patches of guanosine triphosphate tubulin are artificially embedded into microtubule lattice. To test our model, we used in vitro reconstitution, designed to minimize artifacts induced by microtubule interaction with nearby surfaces. Microtubules were assembled from seeds overhanging from microfabricated pedestals and thus well separated from the coverslip. This geometry reduced the rescue frequency and the incorporation of tubulins into the microtubule shaft compared with the conventional assay, producing data consistent with the model. Moreover, the rescue positions of microtubules nucleated from coverslip-immobilized seeds displayed a nonexponential distribution, confirming that coverslips can affect microtubule dynamics. Overall, our study establishes a unified theory accounting for microtubule assembly with flared ends, a tip structure–dependent catastrophe frequency, and a microtubule rescue frequency dependent on lattice damage and repair.

Optical nanofibersvery thin, tapered optical fibers where the waist diameter is less than the propagating light wavelengthhave been shown to be very useful tools for atom-light interactions. Their small size and relative ease of integration into optical fiber-based experimental setups, in addition to their minimal perturbation on magneto-optically trapped cold atoms, have ensured their adoption into cold atom physics. Here, we will discuss some recent applications of optical nanofibers to manipulate, trap, and control cold 87 Rb atoms in ground or Rydberg states. We will present some recent experimental and theoretical results related to the interactions between the atoms and the optical nanofiber field and introduce some of the limitations observed.

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