Correlation of radio and gamma emissions in lightning initiation.

The results of simultaneous radio and gamma emission measurements during thunderstorms are presented. A gamma detector situated at the height 3840 m and two radio detectors of Tien-Shan Mountain Scientific Station (altitude 3340 m) registered intensive gamma flashes and radio pulses during the time of lightning initiation. The radio-gamma correlation grows abruptly at the initial moment (a few hundred microseconds), and the correlation coefficient reaches 0.

Runaway breakdown and hydrometeors in lightning initiation.

The particular electric pulse discharges are observed in thunderclouds during the initiation stage of negative cloud-to-ground lightning. The discharges are quite different from conventional streamers or leaders. A detailed analysis reveals that the shape of the pulses is determined by the runaway breakdown of air in the thundercloud electric field initiated by extensive atmospheric showers (RB-EAS).

Observation of the avalanche of runaway electrons in air in a strong electric field.

The generation of an avalanche of runaway electrons is demonstrated for the first time in a laboratory experiment. Two flows of runaway electrons are formed sequentially in an extended air discharge gap at the stage of delay of a pulsed breakdown. The first, picosecond, runaway electron flow is emitted in the cathode region where the field is enhanced.

Strong flux of low-energy neutrons produced by thunderstorms.

We report here for the first time about the registration of an extraordinary high flux of low-energy neutrons generated during thunderstorms. The measured neutron count rate enhancements are directly connected with thunderstorm discharges. The low-energy neutron flux value obtained in our work is a challenge for the photonuclear channel of neutron generation in thunderstorm: the estimated value of the needed high-energy γ-ray flux is about 3 orders of magnitude higher than that one observed.

Lagrangian statistical theory of fully developed hydrodynamical turbulence.

The Lagrangian velocity structure functions in the inertial range of fully developed fluid turbulence are for the first time derived based on the Navier-Stokes equation. For time tau much smaller than the correlation time, the structure functions are shown to obey the scaling relations K_{n}(tau) proportional, varianttau;{zeta_{n}}. The scaling exponents zeta_{n} are calculated analytically without any fitting parameters.

[Stabilization of a conducting channel in lipid bilayer membranes by an electric field].

A strong transversal electric field is shown to stabilize a macroscopic conducting pore in a lipid membrane. The dependence of the pore radius on the applied voltage is obtained.

[Analysis of the spatial structure of proteins in terms of residue-residue contacts. II. Contact affinity].

The possibility of detecting the mutual amino acid residue affinity when protein three-dimensional structures are described in terms of residue-residue contact matrices is discussed. The hypothesis of the lack of affinity between amino acid residues is examined; the values of the pertinent elements of the overall residue-residue contact matrices prove not to be statistically different from random estimates in 91%; the chance hypothesis is rejected in 9% of cases, represented as a rule by residues with charged side groups, especially oppositely charged ones.