by Yuri LATYPOV, Dr. Sc. (Biol.), Deputy Director of the Far Eastern Marine Biosphere State Natural Reserve, FEB RAS, Head of the Laboratory of Benthos Ecology, Zhirmunsky Institute of Marine Biology, FEB RAS In April-June 2010, Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry and Zhirmunsky Institute of Marine Biology, FEB RAS, in cooperation with the Vietnam Institute of Oceanography organized an expedition aboard the research vessel Academician Oparin. The objects of the observations were the coral reefs along the coast of Vietnam, in the open seas and in the Siam Gulf. Excessive anthropogenic load made these oldest ecosystems of our planet very fragile and now, special attention should be paid to the artificial cultivation of corals among other measures for their protection and restoration. There is a special dock in the Golden Horn Bay in Vladivostok--from it FEB RAS expedition ships sail for long voyage. Once it welcomed the corvette Vityaz on which the famous Russian explorer and ethnographer Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay, who in 1870-1880s performed studies of the indigenous population of South-East Asia, Australia and Oceania, had travelled. According to the tradition, many ships, which had been associated with the glorious pages of the history of Soviet science, had the same name. In 1957, from the board of one of the Vityaz oceanographers established the maximum depth of the Marian depression of the Atlantic Ocean--11,022 meters, and in 1949 in the area of Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, the existence of life at the maximum depths (over 8,000 m) had been proven. Later, more technologically advanced liners such as Akademik Oparin*, Akademik Lavrentyev** took over a scientific * Alexander I. Oparin (1894-1980)--a Soviet biologist and biochemist who created the theory of the origin of life on Earth from the abiotic components.--Ed. ** Mikhail Lavrentyev (1900-1980)--a mathematician and engineer, the founder of the Siberian Branch of USSR Academy of ... Читать далее