Editor-in-chief of the magazine "Chemistry and Life" - about science for the masses, grants and documentaries

From June 18 to 20 in Kazan, the Rusnano project “Innovation Workshops” was launched at several sites, dedicated to the popularization of science in the provincial cities of Russia. Over the course of three days, local universities hosted master classes, lectures, an exhibition “Look, this is nano”, and in the center of modern culture “Smena” there were screenings of films from the program of the festival of contemporary scientific films “360 degrees”. The BUSINESS Online correspondent spoke with one of the lecturers, Candidate of Chemical Sciences, editor-in-chief of the Chemistry and Life magazine Lyubov Strelnikova about the project program, scientific myths, problems of scientific journalism in Russia, the relationship between the concepts of “innovation” and “ scientific discovery", and also learned why the grant system is detrimental to fundamental science.

.

“WE WANT TO CREATE A CLUB OF PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN POPULARIZING SCIENCE”

- Please tell us about the program of the Innovation Workshops project.

- “Innovation Workshops” is a project that originated in the fund for infrastructure and educational programs"Rusnano". His idea is to develop a regional infrastructure for the popularization of science and technology. However, it does not consist in simply coming to the region, saying something about science, how it is done, and leaving. More than expected long history, because the project is planned for two years. We have just launched this program and are starting by coming to different regions, talking about our support opportunities, about different formats of scientific communication, such as films, lectures, master classes, designed for both a wide audience and young scientists , who may have already decided to throw in their lot with science. Our task is to tell in more detail and professionally how scientists can build a dialogue with society. We want to create a club of people who are interested in popularizing science, with whom we will continue to work closely, these will be special master classes, training events, and so on.

- What events are planned in Kazan? I heard about summer and winter schools.

They take place not specifically in Kazan, but on a federal scale. We will invite people from different regions who passed the preliminary competition. The first summer school is planned in Moscow, it will be a five-day intensive course in which we will tell you how to write and talk about science, how to visualize scientific results how to organize events. The school program also includes competitions, for example, a competition of ideas in the field of popularizing science: an event, a startup, a film, and so on. We plan to support the best.

IDEAL DIALOGUE OF SCIENTIST AND SOCIETY

You say that you will tell how to build a dialogue between a scientist and society. What form of dialogue seems ideal to you?

The ideal dialogue in my journalistic practice looks like this. If I send a question to a Nobel laureate or want to do a quick interview, he responds to me within 24 hours. He puts everything aside and begins to work with the press, and through it, with society. He does this because he feels the need, even in some way an obligation. This western culture scientific communication, we would like such a culture to be formed in our country.

.

The point is that in Soviet time popularization of science was a state task and the state was involved in financing. The Knowledge Society worked amazingly: lecturers spoke all over the country, even in prisons, in logging fields, in haylofts, literally in the fields. It was a gigantic state machine for the popularization and propaganda of science, and, of course, scientists did not have any administrative problems in mind.

In the West, scientists have been living under the conditions of the grant system for financing science for many decades. They understand perfectly well that in order to receive a grant they must be able to present their results, report, present their research to society, because the money coming from the state budget is citizens’ taxes, therefore, they must understand what it is spent on. Therefore, in the West, all universities have long had departments of scientific communication, and a future physicist, archaeologist, chemist - everyone can take this additional course and gain the necessary skill of speaking with society in simple language. In our country this culture is just beginning to take shape. I don’t know how it is in Kazan, I have no experience communicating with scientists from here, but, in general, this is a difficult process. Besides, the press doesn't like us.

“BASICAL SCIENCE IS THE RISKEST PART OF SCIENCE”

You talked about grants. There is a widespread belief that the grant system is hostile to basic science.

Yes, definitely. Because you apply for a grant and declare the result in advance. And if you are a real scientist, then the result cannot be predicted in advance. Fundamental science is the most risky part of science, where you may not get any result or get negative result, but it will still matter. This part of science should be funded by the state without any conditions. Of course, there is not enough money for everything. Therefore, the state must clearly formulate priorities - in which areas we need breakthrough research. What is very important in Russia? Well, we have, relatively speaking, a lot of oil, but petrochemicals are in a very undeveloped state, we do not have deep oil refining. We have an energy problem. There are regions where there is not even gas installed. This is where super technologies and fundamental research are needed.

- Are there any priority areas in the popularization of science within the framework of the “Innovation Workshops”?

We have several target audiences with whom we want to work. The first is children. I think you are familiar with the problem of teaching in school: hours for science subjects are constantly being reduced. And for us it is important that children become interested, go to universities to study as researchers and then come to science.

The second audience is teachers. One teacher can impart knowledge to a huge number of children. He is a mediator. But teachers today do not have adapted information about modern science.

The third audience is journalists, because they are also mediators. Through their publication they will pass on knowledge to thousands of others. Science today is very complex, a journalist with humanitarian education This is difficult to deal with. Therefore, the most successful journalists writing about science are people with a scientific background. Our task: to create a dynamic department of science communication for young scientists, to somehow convey this experience of popularizing science, so that they can then talk with society, and maybe become a science journalist.

And finally, the fourth audience is scientists.

SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTARY FILMS IN RUSSIA

As part of the Innovation Workshops program, a scientific documentary film festival is held. How developed is scientific documentary filmmaking in Russia today?

Let's split the question into two variables. The scientific film festival “360 degrees” appeared three years ago, it was established by the Polytechnic Museum. As part of the program, we bring films here that we select ourselves. We show and discuss them. Moreover, the discussion is very important point, because it is one of the first steps to public discussion and speech. This is very important for young guys. We show how a scientist can offer an interesting lecture. We bring traveling exhibitions to cities, for example, in Kazan we show the exhibition “Look: This is Nano.” The exhibition is now at KFU, and it tells children about nanotechnology in an entertaining, interactive way. Here is another event, another format - this time for children.

.

- If we return to scientific documentary films in Russia...

Scientific documentary filmmaking was very strong in the Soviet Union and recognized in the West. In the 90s, as you know, we lost a lot, including scientific cinema. And in the West at that time a surge began.

Today, an obvious global trend in cinema is scientific documentaries. The festival “360 degrees” hit the top ten with its appearance. But we bring foreign films to it, because there are practically no Russian ones. One of the main goals of the festival is to provoke, to give impetus. By the way, this year there will be a Russian program at the fourth festival.

Are there any documentary workshops planned as part of the Innovation Workshops?

Yes, sure. Already during the summer school we will talk about visualization. We also plan to hold an on-site master class and a small short film competition that will be filmed by young people in the regions.

- Do you already have an idea of ​​who you will bring as lecturers to these master classes?

We haven't thought about this yet.

CONTRASTING INNOVATION AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

Today there is an opinion that scientific discovery is being replaced by innovation. How do you think these concepts relate?

In general, I can’t stand the word “innovation”. They came up with a new word for themselves and clung to it like an ace in a hot water bottle. Innovation is a thing to a greater extent, lying in the field of technology. Science is more of a fundamental story. But we must understand that there will be no innovation in technology if there is no base of fundamental science. Discoveries are made in fundamental science, and we don't know what will follow them. In the film Particle Passion, David Kaplan answered the question “What will be the economic and commercial effect of discovering the Higgs boson?” responded with a wonderful phrase: “I have no idea, it’s not my concern.” Because his task is to ask nature a question, receive an answer from it and explain the theory. And innovation is technology. There are no breakthroughs in it, but there are amazing, effective and crazy solutions.

- However, today scientific discovery and innovation are lumped into a single concept.

Yes, they are dumped, but they don’t fall, and this is a mistake.

RETURNING A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Today we see an increase in demand for popular science literature, mainly translated. Can we say that Russians are acquiring the critical outlook that was so instilled in them in the USSR and which they lost in the 90s?

Yes, in the USSR they instilled a critical, analytical view and systems approach. In the 90s, of course, all these psychics and others came out. But here it must be said that this is not only Russian history. This was the case throughout the democratic world. We have this part public life was so aggressive that the weakened popular science component was squeezed out. And these went ahead. It was a period of troubled times. Now this situation is beginning to somehow improve. It is the popular science books that we talked about that are developing this critical view today. At one time, in the 90s, a commission was created at the Russian Academy of Sciences to combat pseudoscience.

- It existed even before the liquidation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Rostislav Polishchuk is one of its most active members.

Yes, and it was headed by Eduard Pavlovich Kruglikov. He was the most active fighter against pseudoscience. But I believe that wasting energy on fighting it is absolutely pointless, unproductive and useless. The position of the defender is always losing. And our position should be this: “We don’t know you, we don’t see you, but we are doing our job - writing popular science books, making good news feeds about science in all publications.” The policy should be such as to squeeze out all this scum. You see, the remedy mass media, which does not write about science cannot be considered news. Because all the news feeds write about is corruption, prostitution, betrayal, looting, greed. The media have been writing about this for hundreds of years. Because this is human nature and it has not changed, there is nothing new here. But only science receives the true and new. Therefore, true news is only scientific news. Please tell this to your management. This paradox was noticed not by me, but by our colleague, physiologist Konstantin Anokhin. Only science gives new things and nothing else.

THE MOST POPULAR MYTHS ABOUT SCIENCE

- How do you assess the state of science journalism in Russia?

Journalism is journalism, people just write, choosing certain topics for themselves. We don’t teach this, we don’t have specialization in universities. The first master's degree program in science journalism was opened by the journalism department of Moscow State University only this fall. This is the first precedent.

Somewhere in selected places there were small courses: I taught my own course on science journalism in International University in Moscow, Lena Kakorina, a well-known scientific journalist, read at the journalism department of Moscow State University, but all of these were non-graduating departments. Now it is appearing.

Science journalists need somewhere to work. Your publication does not need a science journalist, and many publications do not. There are few scientific departments, although all world publications contain brilliant scientific departments, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Figaro, Career de la Sera...

- What, in your opinion, are the most popular myths about science?

The most popular myth recent years: A scientist is a beggar. This is wrong. It is enough to come to the territory of Moscow State University and look at the cars at the faculties. To this, professors tell me that students come in Bentleys, Porsches, I don’t know much about these cars... No, no, no, the situation has changed a lot. Today, a scientist has the opportunity to earn a decent living with his mind and his work. Moreover, we are observing the process that our guys who left for the West in the 90s... And they left not because they were bastards, but because they could not realize their higher education. Talented children are born all over the country, not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They came to Moscow, they graduated from the university, completed graduate school, defended their defense - and they were discharged from the dormitory. They are ready to be hired, but where to live? It is impossible to rent an apartment, even a room, with this payment. And he starts looking for where he can do an internship, and goes there.

When at one time the reasons for young people leaving were studied, equipment was in the first place, access to information was in second place: libraries, the Internet, Western scientific journals. And the salary stood in some far, far away place. Now the situation is changing. For example, your Kazan University not only receives huge state funding - a lot of money, the state bought them luxurious equipment - something that science cannot live without. Salaries are growing, you can take several grants, you will have good money. Today the situation is changing radically: an excellent equipment base is appearing, there is access to information, to Western magazines, the state is also helping here, foundations are providing access. And it turns out that you can reveal your potential in your own country. That would be another way for the apartment to resolve the issue. The process has begun. Of course, in Moscow it is more noticeable. But the main thing is that it started.

Reference

Lyubov Strelnikova- editor-in-chief of the magazine “Chemistry and Life - XXI Century” and the agency “InformNauka”. Member of the International Association of Journalists and the European Association of Science Journalists, Vice-President of the non-profit partnership “Promotion of Chemical and environmental education" Author of the book “What is everything made of? Stories about substance".

"Chemistry and life - XXI century"- monthly popular science magazine. Founded in 1965 under the name “Chemistry and Life” (KhiZh) and published until 1996. Since 1997 it has been published under the title “Chemistry and Life - XXI Century”. The volume of the magazine is 72 pages. In terms of circulation, the magazine is one of the four most famous popular science publications. periodicals in Russia: “Science and Life”, “Knowledge is Power”, “Chemistry and Life - XXI Century”, “Technology for Youth”. In 2002, the magazine was awarded the prestigious Belyaevskaya literary prize for achievements in the field of educational activities.

Newspaper of the National Research
Tomsk Polytechnic University
Newspaper of National Research
Tomsk Polytechnic University

70 years of the Great Victory

Lyubov Strelnikova: “The dialogue between scientist and society is inevitable”

Why is science becoming popular?

THE PROJECT CREATED WITH THE SUPPORT OF RUSNANO - INNOVATION WORKSHOPS - IS GAINING MOMENTUM. THE IDEA IS TO CREATE INNOVATION WORKSHOPS IN THE REGIONS - CLUBS UNITING SCIENCE POPULARIZERS. THESE SITES WILL ACCUMULATE THE LATEST ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENCE, MASTER CLASSES, PROJECTS TO POPULARIZE THE NATURAL AND EXACT SCIENCES, AND INTERACTIVE SHOWS. IN TOMSK, ORGANIZERS HOPE TO FIND THEIR LIKE MINDS. AS PART OF THE FESTIVAL, MASTER CLASSES WERE HELD AT TPU, AT WHICH LECTURERS TOLD STUDENTS AND YOUNG SCIENTISTS HOW INTERESTING IT IS TO PRESENT THEIR RESEARCH. WE MET WITH ONE OF THE IDEOLOGISTS OF THE INNOVATION WORKSHOPS PROJECT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE CHEMISTRY AND LIFE MAGAZINE LYUBOV STRELNIKOVA AND ASKED HER TO TELL ABOUT WHY A MODERN SCIENTIST NEEDS TO BE PUBLIC.

Science must be open

- We often say today that scientists should become media personalities. Why is this necessary?

The dialogue between the innovative scientist and society is inevitable. He will have to communicate. There is no escape from this. Tomorrow this will be even more important, because technology is entering our lives very quickly.

Often we do not know the consequences and often receive sharp rejection from society for many innovations. After all, everything new needs to be explained. And explain it even before the technology reaches the masses. In addition, science today requires huge amount money. When the government chooses whether to spend money on science or something else, it must understand that it is investing in the public interest. How does it know this if the press does not write about these developments, if scientists do not contact the media, do not give public lectures, and do not present their research on open public platforms? To receive a grant, you must present your results, report, and present yourself and your developments. That's what we're talking about today. Science must be open to society.

- Is “Innovation Workshops” created for this purpose?

Yes. We create intellectual clubs for scientific and technical youth. We are looking for people who are interested in popularizing science. Moreover, we form groups from children with roots in science. Flesh of the flesh. So that through them this ideology can penetrate the scientific community. So that they serve as competent mediators between science and society. They could interact with a variety of target audiences: schoolchildren, teachers, the general public, politicians, businessmen, and authorities. We want to create mediators, raising them from the scientific community, speaking the same language with it, but capable of conveying ideas in an accessible way. This is the meaning of our project.

Intellectual clubs will win over night clubs

- Do you divide your young mediators according to scientific areas? Do you have sections?

No. We don't share. In general, division into different scientific areas is a “textbook” thing. Man invented this for the convenience of research; the world is not divided, everything in it is connected to everything. Science was divided into disciplines: it was convenient to teach and study, then the disciplines were divided into even narrower areas. Like a tree. Differentiation has reached such a fantastic stage that scientists from different floors of the same institute sometimes do not understand each other. And now another time has begun. Time for convergence and integration. We are eliminating this fragmentation of the scientific community and uniting them. After all, we understand that pure chemistry, pure biology, pure physics do not exist. There is no such division in nature; the world knows no divisions. Therefore the most interesting discoveries today occur at the boundaries of disciplines. Integration, synthesis, restoration of an integral picture of the world, a unified natural science - this is the way modern science. Interdisciplinary projects are developing successfully. Moreover, research that combines natural sciences with the humanities is very popular today. And I’m not even talking about archaeologists or historians, but about sociologists, who suddenly become in demand in the natural sciences, and joint projects arise.

- How do you select mediators for the program?

First of all, we need to understand why a person needs this. If it’s to expand your resume and portfolio, then we’re not interested. Although this is a standard situation. When a young scientist wants to go to our summer program“School of Scientific Communications”, get a valuable piece of paper, put it in your portfolio and go up career ladder. We are not interested in such people. We have an interview procedure via Skype. A person must want to participate in this process of changing the world around him, he must want this active life, which, it seems to me, is so little in modern students today. What was enough in our time. This drive to set the tone for intellectual life at your university, in your city. So that the main entertainment for young people is not nightclubs and parties, but intellectual clubs. In addition, in the Innovation Workshops program, young scientists gain invaluable organizational experience.

In the Innovation Workshops, do you teach scientists some proven Western technologies or create something new, your own?

Interviewed by Maria Alisova

Dossier
Lyubov Nikolaevna Strelnikova.
Born in Moscow, graduated from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. DI. Mendeleev. In 1984 she began working in science journalism - in popular science magazine"Chemistry and Life". From 1995 to the present - editor-in-chief of this magazine, at the same time - director of the Center for Popularization scientific knowledge"NaukaPress", publishing the journal "Chemistry and Life". In 1999, she organized the first agency in Russia scientific news"InformScience". Member of the International Association of Journalists and the European Association of Science Journalists, expert of the Dynasty Foundation on science popularization programs, member of the expert council of the Polytechnic Museum. In addition to journalism, he is engaged in teaching. She created an original course (30 hours) for the School-Studio of Scientific Journalism at the magazine “Chemistry and Life”. She taught her own course “Science and Journalism” at the Faculty of Journalism at the International University in Moscow. Candidate of Chemical Sciences, author of the book “What is everything made of? Stories about substance."

Nowhere and never before have I seen so many huge, obese people as in the state of Texas several years ago. In the crowd on the streets of Austin, I felt like a dystrophic person.

Massive obesity in the United States has been a topic of constant debate in the press for more than a decade. However, this problem did not arise at the beginning of the 21st century. Half a century ago, in 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith, a renowned Harvard economist, first wrote in his best-selling book The Affluent Society that more Americans were dying from overeating rather than from malnutrition. He saw economic reasons in this. As Americans' basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing were satisfied by the mid-fifties, corporations began to invent and advertise new needs that they rushed to satisfy. The main thing is that they buy.

As a result, to beginning of XXI century, 61% of Americans already have health problems caused by excess weight. And the daily energy consumption of every person in the United States increased by almost two hundred kilocalories from 1977 to 1995, as Greg Kritzer writes in the book Fat Lands: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (“ Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World”, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

Obesity in the United States has become an epidemic. This is not just a metaphor: the World Health Organization also declares an “obesity pandemic.” And in the USA, the rate of its spread is the highest in the world: 13% of the population in 1962, 19.4% in 1997, 24.5% in 2004, 26.6% in 2007, 33.8% of adults and 17 % of children - in 2008, 35.7% of adults and 17% of children - in 2010.

Detailed statistics for Russia are not easy to find. It is often written about 15–16% of the adult population, but these figures probably date back to the early 2000s. In December 2012, the director of the Research Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, chief nutritionist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation V. A. Tutelyan said at a press conference that more than 25% of Russians are obese, and 50% are overweight. It seems that we are again trying our best to catch up with America...

Obesity kills 100,000 to 400,000 Americans every year and costs American society $117 billion. These costs are comparable to the costs of solving medical problems associated with smoking and alcoholism.

What's the matter? Is it just the overeating that Galbraith wrote about? Greg Kritzer in his book analyzes possible reasons, political, social and economic. For example, when food prices peaked in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon demanded action. As a result of the minister's reforms Agriculture Earl Butz, restrictions on the import of cheap goods were lifted palm oil, and it was allowed to make sweet glucose-fructose syrup from corn using new technologies. These cheap, but high-calorie products began to be used in the manufacture of the vast majority of food products to make them accessible.

Fast food marketers also did not stand aside. They simply forced their customers to eat more by launching Big Macs and other super-sized meals. As a result, the calorie content of one meal at McDonald's increased from 200 kilocalories in 1960 to 610. And customers diligently devoured bloated superburgers - no one can resist the gift of food.

Finally, Kritzer describes the appearance of " new culture Without Borders,” which makes it easier and fashionable to consume all these fat-rich, nutrient-poor foods. If in earlier times preparing home-cooked dinners was a tradition, then in the 80s housewives stopped spending time on this: after all, you can go somewhere or order ready-made food at home. Meanwhile, popular books and TV programs promoted theories that the baby knew when he or she was full and when and what to eat. As a result, parents no longer have control over what and when their child eats, even if it's just French fries and hamburgers.

In order to somehow rectify the situation, the American government began to take measures, including the 1990 law on labeling ( Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, NLEA), obliging manufacturers to write the calorie content of products and their composition on all packaging. And in 2008, New York became the first city where restaurant menus began to indicate the calorie content of dishes so that visitors could make an informed choice that would not cause harm to their health. Everyone once again started talking about calories and started counting them.

Calorie and calorimeter

Previously, any schoolchild knew what a calorie was: the amount of heat that is needed to heat one gram of water by one degree. The term "calorie" (from Latin calor- heat) was introduced into scientific use by the French chemist Nicolas Clément-Desormes (1779–1842). His definition of the calorie as a unit of heat was first published in 1824 in the journal Le Producteur", and it appeared in French dictionaries in 1842. However, long before this term appeared, the first calorimeters were designed - instruments for measuring heat. The first calorimeter was invented by the English chemist Joseph Black, and in 1759–1763 he used it to determine the heat capacities of various substances, the latent heat of melting of ice and the evaporation of water.

The famous French scientists Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) and Pierre Simon Laplace (1749–1827) took advantage of D. Black’s invention. In 1780 they began a series of calorimetric experiments that made it possible to measure thermal energy. This concept is found back in the 18th century in the works of the Swedish physicist Johann Karl Wilcke (1732–1796), who studied electrical, magnetic and thermal phenomena and thought about equivalents in which thermal energy could be measured.

The device, which later began to be called a calorimeter, was used by Lavoisier and Laplace to measure the amount of heat released in various physical, chemical and biological processes. At that time there were no accurate thermometers, so to measure heat it was necessary to resort to tricks. The first calorimeter was ice-cold. The inner hollow chamber, where an object emitting heat (for example, a mouse) was placed, was surrounded by a jacket filled with ice or snow. And the ice jacket, in turn, was surrounded by air so that the ice did not melt under the influence of external heat. Heat from the object inside the calorimeter heated and melted the ice. Weighing melt water flowing from the shirt into a special vessel, the researchers determined the heat generated by the object.

A seemingly simple device allowed Lavoisier and Laplace to measure the heat of many chemical reactions: combustion of coal, hydrogen, phosphorus, black powder. With these works they laid the foundations of thermochemistry and formulated its basic principle: “Any thermal changes that any material system experiences, changing its state, occur in the reverse order, when the system returns to its original state.” In other words, to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen, it is necessary to expend the same amount of energy as is released when hydrogen reacts with oxygen to form water.

Also in 1780, Lavoisier placed a guinea pig in a calorimeter. The warmth from her breath melted the snow in his shirt. Then other experiments followed, which were of great importance for physiology. It was then that Lavoisier expressed the idea that the breathing of an animal is similar to the burning of a candle, due to which the necessary supply of heat is maintained in the body. He also linked three for the first time essential functions living organism: respiration, nutrition and transpiration (evaporation of water). Apparently, since then they started talking about the fact that food burns in our body.

In the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of the famous French chemist Marcelin Berthelot (1827–1907), who published more than 200 works on thermochemistry, the accuracy of calorimetric methods greatly increased and more advanced instruments appeared - a water calorimeter and a sealed calorimetric bomb. The last device is especially interesting to us, because it can measure the heat released at very quick reactions- combustion and explosion. A sample of the dry test substance is poured into a crucible, placed inside the bomb and the vessel is hermetically sealed. The substance is then ignited with an electric spark. It burns, giving off heat to the water in the surrounding water jacket. Thermometers allow you to accurately record changes in water temperature.

Apparently, in a similar calorimeter in the thirties of the 19th century, the famous German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) conducted his first experiments with food, who shared Lavoisier’s ideas that food is fuel for the body, like firewood for a stove. Moreover, Liebig named this firewood: proteins, fats and carbohydrates. He burned food samples in a calorimeter and measured the heat released. Based on the results of these experiments, Liebig, together with his colleague Julius von Mayer, compiled the world's first food calorie tables and, based on them, tried to calculate a scientifically based diet for Prussian soldiers.

A famous follower of Justus von Liebig was the American agricultural chemist Wilbur Olin Atwater (1844–1907). He was the first to think of measuring the energy content of food components and came up with a scheme for calculating the calorie content of any food product. He didn't have to start from scratch. Atwater spent three years (1869–1871) in Germany, where he studied the experience of European agricultural chemist colleagues. Here he was not only inspired by the ideas of physiological calorimetry sown by Liebig, but also mastered some experimental techniques.

Today he is called the father of nutrition. " Most The information we use today about food and its components comes from Atwater's experiments,” says Erica Taylor, a chemistry professor at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, where W. O. Atwater once worked. Indeed, the values ​​​​so familiar to us of the calorie content of carbohydrates (4 kcal/g), proteins (4 kcal/g) and fats (9 kcal/g) were first obtained experimentally by Atwater. But even now, one hundred and twenty years later, nutritionists use these figures when calculating the energy value of food. Atwater's system remains the basis for food labeling today. And in this sense, as one of the journalists correctly noted, Wilbur Atwater is the most cited scientist in the world.

Atwater's Key Factors

As the American anthropologist Richard Wrangham writes in his book “Light the Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human” (Moscow, Astrel, 2012), Atwater dreamed of making it so that the poor could buy enough food with their modest means, providing themselves with the necessary energy. To do this, it was necessary to understand how many calories are contained in different foods and how many of them a person needs to provide energy for his life. At that time, our information about the composition of products was scanty. In the 70s of the 19th century, they did not yet know about vitamins, microelements, antioxidants and their importance for the body. The importance of calcium and phosphorus was recognized, but their role was not understood. However, Atwater was solving “energy” problems, and at that time they already knew for sure that three main components of food provide energy to the body: proteins, fats and carbohydrates. This is where Atwater needed a calorimeter bomb. In it, he measured how much heat is released during the complete combustion of an accurate sample of typical proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Of course have various proteins, as, indeed, fats and carbohydrates. But their calorific value did not differ much within each group.

However, combustion heat alone is not enough. You need to know how much of each of these components is in your foods. The solution was found to be purely chemical. Using ether, Atwater extracted fat from a ground piece of food, the weight of which he knew exactly. And then he determined the weight of the substance (fat) that had passed into the ether. This way it was possible to calculate the lipid content in the product. By the way, this same simple method is still used today.

I had to tinker with proteins, since there is no analysis to determine the total amount of proteins in a particular product. However, Atwater knew that on average about 16% of the mass of protein is nitrogen. He figured out how to determine the amount of nitrogen in food, and through it he calculated the protein content.

There is a similar problem with carbohydrates: they did not know how to determine their total content in food. Arithmetic came to the rescue here. Atwater burned a sample of food and determined the amount of ash produced, containing only inorganic substances. Now it was not difficult to determine the total organic content (the original weight of the food minus the ash). By subtracting the fat and protein mass from this value, Atwater arrived at the carbohydrate content.

However, not all the food we eat is absorbed by our body. How long does it idle? This was important to know and take into account when assessing the energy value of the product. To answer this question, Atwater had to examine the feces of people whose diets were precisely known. According to his calculations, it turned out that on average the share of undigested food is no more than 10%.

As a result of all these experiments and calculations, which took many years, Atwater finally proclaimed: energy value proteins and carbohydrates eaten by a person are 4 kcal/g, and fats are 9 kcal/g. These magic numbers were called the Atwater Factors, and his approach was called the Atwater System. By 1896, he had developed calorie tables. They were the ones used by the compilers of the US Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database reference book and the Food Composition reference book.

Atwater's system turned out to be extremely versatile and tenacious. Suffice it to say that common factors and remain unchanged to this day. But at the same time, the system is flexible and open to various additions and clarifications. Atwater himself eventually added alcohol (7 kcal/g) to his regimen, rightly considering it a high-calorie source of energy. True, after the scientist published the results of the study, alcohol producers immediately seized on the thesis “alcohol provides a lot of calories to the human body” and began to actively use it in advertising their products. This greatly upset Atwater, and he considered it necessary to give students one lecture every year on the dangers of alcohol and the benefits of moderation in everything.

In the twentieth century, nutritional biochemistry developed extremely actively, allowing researchers to obtain more and more new data. Already in the second half of the last century, new factors were introduced into the system for dietary fiber(non-starch polysaccharides). It is known that this group of substances is absorbed much worse than carbohydrates, so their energy value was noticeably lower - 2 kcal/g. It was even possible to take into account the energy that the body expends to produce urine and gases.

In 1955, general factors were supplemented with specific ones: egg white - 4.36 kcal/g, protein brown rice- 3.41 kcal/g, etc. The same is with the nitrogen content in protein: instead of the average of 16%, specific numbers began to be used - for example, 17.54% for pasta protein and 15.67% for milk protein.

However, the effect of all these small clarifications turned out to be so small that many nutritionists still use Atwater’s general factors. Much more serious problems with this system are related to something else.

Unaccounted factors

The first major flaw is that the Atwater system does not take into account the energy expenditure of digestion. Humans, of course, spend significantly less energy on digestion than, say, snakes and fish. But nevertheless, these expenses are noticeable. We have to pay with energy to digest food. Fat is easiest to digest, then carbohydrates, and proteins are the worst. The higher the proportion of protein in food, the higher the costs of digestion. Wrangham, in his book, mentions one 1987 study that found "that people whose diets were high in fat gained the same weight as those who ate nearly five times as many calories as carbohydrates." However, not only the chemical composition of the product is important, but also its physical state. Obviously, the body will spend more energy on digesting raw food rather than cooked food, hard rather than soft, consisting of large particles rather than small ones, cold rather than hot. It turns out that the calorie content of food that has been repeatedly processed, chopped, steamed, boiled and maximally softened is higher than that of food prepared from the same products, but processed less intensively.

When we go to the hospital to visit a sick friend or relative, we bring with us chicken bouillon and boiled chicken breast, or steamed cutlets, or mashed potatoes... Not because it’s tasty and easy to prepare (some people don’t like chicken breasts). But because this is the most tender meat of chicken, where there is practically no connective tissue. It is very soft, so it is easily digestible, without taking away excess energy from the patient for digestion (it will be useful to him for recovery) and at the same time giving more calories. In this sense, caloric content chicken breasts higher than chicken legs.

A good illustration of what has been said is a well-known study carried out by Japanese scientist Kyoko Oka and co-authors (K. Oka et al, “ Food texture Differences Affect Energy Metabolism in Rats", "Journal of Dental Research", 2003, 82, 491–494). The researchers kept 20 rats on different diets: half were given regular pellet food, which had to work hard to chew, and the other half were fed the same pellets, only puffed up like breakfast cereal. The conditions of keeping the animals and their load were the same. It would seem, how can the method of cooking affect the growth of animals? How could it?

The rats switched to a diet containing different pellets at four weeks of age. At week 22, the differences became noticeable to the naked eye. Rats fed the soft diet weighed an average of 37 grams (about 6%) more than those fed the hard kibble, and had an average of 30% more fat, which is classified as obese. The rats got fatter from soft, highly processed food because they spent significantly less energy on digestion. It turns out that air flakes have more calories than solid granules.

The physical state of food is a trap for the Atwater system. He believed, and this is built into his system as one of the main factors, that the body does not digest 10% of the food that is excreted in feces. Atwater thought that this value was constant and did not depend on the consistency of the food. Perhaps in his time there was no incredibly finely ground snow-white flour. But today we know that this flour is 100% digestible. And if we eat baked goods made from coarse flour, then a third of it is excreted from the body undigested.

The Atwater system has another pitfall, which can be called “biodiversity.” We are all very different, different genetically, and therefore biochemically and metabolically. How many times have we been surprised voracious appetite thin people who, despite large amounts of food consumed, do not gain weight. The fact is that thin people normally spend more energy on digestion than fat people. Therefore, after eating food of the same calorie content, fat man will gain more weight than a thin person.

So, Atwater’s system does not take into account the significant contribution made to the calorie content of food by its physical properties and methods of preparation, finally - a metabolic portrait of each of us. This means that we cannot use this system to assess the real nutritional value of our own diet. More and more on the shelves high-calorie foods, although they don’t look like they are based on their ingredients and caloric content on the labels. They mislead us because none of what we talked about in this chapter is taken into account in these inscriptions. Meanwhile, we continue to gain weight from food that is easy to digest.

Is it possible that all these additional, but so important factors taken into account in the Atwater system? Extremely difficult, if not impossible. Methodologically, this is an incredibly difficult task. After all, it will be necessary to conduct a gigantic number of experiments to obtain real values nutritional value specific products, taking into account their consistency, method of preparation, combination with other products and our biochemical individuality.

Can we do without calories?

How many calories does a person need? To this question, which Atwater posed to himself at the very beginning of his research, he was able to give a comprehensive answer. Together with his colleagues at Wesleyan College Edward Rosa and Francis Benedict, he designed a special ventilated calorimeter chamber in which a person could stay, work and rest. The heat it generated was determined by the difference in temperature of the water that flowed through a system of tubes laid in the chamber - at the inlet and outlet. With its help, in 1896, he began to study how much energy a person spends at rest, wakefulness and when various kinds activity, how much oxygen it consumes and how much it produces carbon dioxide. The objects of the study were primarily his students.

Based on the results of these measurements, Atwater was the first to calculate the balance between the energy entering the body with food and consumed by a person. He confirmed that in human body The law of conservation of energy works: it does not disappear anywhere, but passes from one form to another. It is interesting that before Atwater, there was an opinion in scientific circles that the first law of thermodynamics applied to animals, but not to humans, since humans are unique. Atwater not only refuted this misconception, but also proved for the first time: if a person does not fully use the energy that enters his body with food, then it is stored in the form of excess kilograms.

Atwater studied the diets of a huge number of different families different layers society. Analyzing the results, he sadly noted that people are eating more and more fatty and sweet foods and moving less and less. Even then he spoke about the importance of cheap and effective diet, which includes more proteins, beans and vegetables instead of carbohydrates.

Atwater made enormous contributions to nutritional science. It's not just results over 500 scientific works and one and a half hundred articles. He managed to achieve the creation of the US Federal Food Research Foundation. In 1894, for the first time in a bill, the US government appropriated ten thousand dollars for food and diet research. Atwater did most of them. One hundred years later, federal support for these programs has increased to $82 million. And he foresaw that we would begin to get fat because we were eating more and moving less. Foresaw in late XIX century.

Caloric content and chemical composition are still calculated using the Atwater system, albeit modified in the 20th century. Yes, today we understand that she gives rough estimates. But it's better than nothing.

Apparently, meticulous calorie counting in stores and restaurants is losing its meaning. What to focus on? On simple rules that have stood the test of time and do not need adjustment: eat in moderation, move more, avoid fast food and sugary drinks, eat more vegetables and fruits, cook your own homemade meals from fresh ingredients. You know all this as well as I do.

But here is another argument worthy of attention. Judy McBride of the USDA Agricultural Research Service put it very well: “Who knows how many unknown components we have not yet discovered or noticed in foods that are beneficial and necessary for our bodies? This is why it is extremely important to receive nutrients along with fresh natural products, and not with vitamin supplements.”

Finally, I offer you a few rules (64 in total), taken from the book of the popular American journalist Michael Pollan, “The Nutrition Bible,” which was published by the Astrel publishing house last year.

• Rule 1: Eat real food, not manufactured stuff.
• Rule 8: Avoid foods that are advertised as healthy.
• Rule 13. Eat only what will spoil later.
• Rule 20: Anything shoved through your car window is not considered food.
• Rule 27: Eat animals that have been well fed themselves.
• Rule 29: Eat like an omnivore.
• Rule 37. Than whiter bread, the faster to the coffin.
• Rule 39. Eat anything if you prepared it yourself.
• Rule 42: Be skeptical about non-traditional dishes.
• Rule 44: Pay more, eat less.
• Rule 47. Eat out of hunger, not out of boredom.
• Rule 49: Eat more slowly.
• Rule 52. Buy small dishes.
• Rule 56: Snack only on unprocessed plant foods.
• Rule 57. Do not refuel in the same place as the cars.
• Rule 58. Eat only at the table.
• Rule 59. Try not to eat alone.
• Rule 63. Cook yourself.
• Rule 64: Break the rules from time to time.

“What is nanotechnology? This is a new name that has been coined for chemistry,” Roald Hofmann, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, told me. “But why rename? It’s a mess,” I was surprised. “No, that’s normal. The world is ruled by fashion, and it is very important for young people to think that they are doing something new. Therefore, well-known things need to be renamed periodically.”

Indeed, nanotechnology has literally become a new word in science. But the question is: what word did they replace? The fact that nanotechnology is chemistry is a balm to my heart as a professional chemist and almost an insult to physicists. After all, the grandiose nanoproject, launched more than ten years ago in the USA and five years ago in Russia, was initiated by physicists. In a wave of euphoria, they even reported that they were about to learn how to manipulate atoms using probe microscopes, and then chemists would not be needed at all, because nanorobots would begin to assemble any substance from individual atoms. Poor things, they probably forgot that there is Avogadro’s number - 6.10 23. This is the number of molecules contained in 18 g of water; this is the number of atoms that makes up a gold ingot the size of a matchbox. Even if robots spend a second on one act of forced connection of two atoms in the simplest molecule, and even if there are a million robots, minimal amount substances can be collected over billions of years. Meanwhile, nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler, in his book “Machines of Creation,” wrote not only about the waste-free production of all materials from atoms, but also that nanorobots will rebel and begin to produce only themselves. And we will become the raw material that robots will use to make atoms. And the world will turn into gray slime. Nobel laureate Richard Smalley was very clear about this: “Don’t talk nonsense, Mr. Drexler, don’t mislead people.”

Nature masters the manipulation of atoms and the creation of matter, and chemists spy on its secrets, discover laws and create technologies and industries. Our favorite objects are atomic clusters, large molecules, DNA molecules, viruses, proteins, thin monomolecular films, and all of them belong to nanoobjects in at least one size. The same Richard Smalley received his Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of fullerene, a beautiful molecule consisting of 60 carbon atoms, which today is considered almost a reference object in nanotechnology. And here are the Nobel Prizes in chemistry in recent years: for the discovery and study of fluorescent protein, for revealing the mechanism of the ribosome, for metal complex catalysis. In all cases, the objects of work are typical nano. So Roald Hoffman is right: nanotechnology is chemistry!

And yet this statement suffers from some radicalism. Biochemists study proteins and ribosomes and molecular biologists, and the 2010 Nobel Prize for the production of graphene was still awarded in physics, although chemists are perplexed. Once again there is confusion. The problem is that for the convenience of research and teaching, man has divided science into many sections, subsections and specializations. And in this endless fragmentation we have reached the point of absurdity: researchers working on different floors of the same institute do not understand each other. So nanotechnology was invented at just the right time. Nanoobjects are of interest to representatives of all natural sciences. And for such interdisciplinary study, physicists, chemists and biologists will inevitably have to agree, to create a common language of science that is understandable to everyone.

The word "chemistry" has another meaning. This is something mysterious, related to the feelings and communication of people. We have a chemistry - the English say when sympathy flares up between two people. Nanotechnology is chemistry, it is the magic of the great unification of sciences that is happening before our eyes.