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CHINA SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of
Science and Technology
People's Republic of
China
N0.309 October 10,2002
IN THIS ISSUE
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*
Major Progresses on China's Basic Studies
* Campus
Life Science and Technology Bases
* New Overcurrent
Protector
* Vaccine Killing Hepatitis B
*
Pollution Free Electric Auto
* No. 2 Asia-Pacific
Optic Network
* The World Most Advanced Chip Making
Base
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SPECIAL
ISSUES
Major Progresses on China's Basic Studies
It is reported that since its sponsorship of
selected major basic studies to meet the nation's priority
strategic demands in June 1997, the Chinese Ministry of
Science and Technology has poured a huge investment as much
as RMB 3 billion in supporting cutting-edge and innovative
studies of major scientific issues and achieved
representative findings and progresses in some major fields.
1) ARGO under Marine Real Time Observation
Program. Jointly launched by atmospheric and marine
scientists from the U.S., Canada and Japan in 1998, the
Global Marine Observation Program has been aiming at
collecting marine upper layer data such as sea temperature
and salinity in a fast, accurate and extensive manner for
the purpose of improving the accuracy of climate
predictions. In June 2002, China launched its first ARGO
buoy, which marked China's official participation in the
Program and obtained the right and obligations in sharing
the data and information derived from ARGO buoys.
2) China's No. 1 Continental Research Well.
No. 1 China Cotinental Research Well, a major
national scientific project trying to find an in-depth view
of the internal world of the earth applauded for the
completion of its drilling on May 20, 2002. Chinese
scientists have collected precious fresh consecutive rock
core samples as long as 2000 meters as well as liquid and
gas samples from the drilling process and harvested original
measuring data for further comprehensive scientific studies.
These data have revealed the deep matter composition and
structures of continental fold belt. With these
data, Chinese scientists studied the formation of super high
pressure metamorphism zone and returning
mechanism and explored the fluids and biosphere deeply
rooted in the earth.
3) Chinese scientists
published rice genome sequencing charts in Science. The
Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Development Planning
Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology
jointly announced on October 12, 2001 that China has
completed the working charts and associated database for
Chinese super hybrid rice which occupies an international
leading position. On April 5, 2002, the U.S. based Science
published the whole story of the said study and associated
working charts. After its publication, the rice genome data
have been downloaded at least 556 times by the scientists
from 21 countries. The findings have provided rich
information on rice genes and their functions, which also
become a helpful tool for understanding the genome of other
crops such as wheat and corn, and stimulating basic and
applied studies of the entire food lines.
4)
Major progress on the study of C60 nanometer material and
associated composition. Chinese scientists have for the
first time in the world obtained C60 single molecule image
that can tell its C-C dual bonds and single bond through
assembling C60 molecules on the surface of the single-layer
molecule film and with the help of scanning channel
microscope. Chinese scientists discovered a new 2
dimensional domain boundary structure in the two dimensional
C 60 lattice. The said boundary is believed to be entirely
caused by the differed orientations of C60 molecules. Along
the domain boundary sit non-structural defects and C60
molecules have maintained their position translation and
bond orientation sequence on the boundary. The
findings were published in UK based Nature.
5)
Oceanic crust debris discovered in China. In collaboration
with their US counterparts, Chinese scientists have
discovered in the middle section of North China and the
western section of Liaoning Province the oldest (2.5 billion
years) and well-preserved oceanic crust debris (ophiolite)
in the world. The findings were published in the U.S. based
Sciences journal on May 11, 2001.
6) Global
demarcation layer dividing the Permian system and Triassic
system defined. Not long ago, the section of Meishan Mount.
located in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China, was
officially determined by the International Union of
Geological Sciences the global section and position (or
golden nail for its nickname)of the demarcation layer
telling the Permian and Triassic systems. The decision
implies that the major division mark of the earth
development history has found its home in China. Chinese
scientists proposed to make tooth shaped rocks as the new
criteria for marking the division line between the Permian
and Triassic systems, and created the most complete tooth
shaped rock sequence over the section of Meishan Mount.,
which confirmed the scenario that the biological extinction
occurred at that time was caused by an extremely disastrous
event. The finding has become an international criteria
acknowledged by the world scientific community.
7) The history of macrocephalus mammals
advanced 45 million years. While studying the fossil remains
unearthed in Lufeng, Yunnan, China, the scientists from the
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
under the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that
macrocephalus mammals literally lived in a period of 195
million years ago. The finding advanced the history of
macrocephalus by 45 million years and made it part of
earlier Jurassic Age, which , to some extent, rewrite the
forepart of the history of mammals.
8) New
brain section discovered for learning and memorization.
Named by the U.S. scientists as Shu's Section, the discovery
of a new brain section caused a stir in the international
medical community. Scientists believed that the new
discovery has provided new clues for understanding the
mechanism causing learning and memory related diseases and
would play an important role in treating memory decaying
diseases such as senile dementia.
9) Becoming
part of Life Science Project. In April 2000, Chinese
scientists completed their assignment due for sequencing 30
million base pairs on the short arm of No. 3 chromosome (
about 1% of the total human genome sequencing).
10) Major progress on study of south-north
belt in East China. China's east section has long witnessed
large differences from its southern part to the northern
one, especially in terms of its climate and ecological
environment, which resulted in the formation of unique
consecutive vegetation belts unmatched by any other
continents in the world. The belt has constituted the most
desirable natural experimental site for studying the
climate-ecological system that may cause temperature
increasing effect in global changes. The study of
interactions between land based farming ecological system
and the global changes has been listed as a core study
project under GCTE of International Geosphere and Biosphere
Program (IGBP) and the south-north sample belt of East China
was made by the same organization the 15th international
standard sample belt.
New findings and results
were also achieved in other basic study areas such as
genetically modified goat; one dimensional nanometer crystal
made of gallium nitride, the first of its kind in the world;
genetically restructured human insulin; oriented carbon
nanometer tube matrix of super length ( 2-3 mm); crystal
grain fining technique that doubled the strength of steel;
new chemical displacement agent that may improve oil
recovery rate by 5%- 15%; air hole oscillation based drought
resistant agent that may double or triple the crop yield in
semi-arid region in drought years and many others.
Meanwhile, some innovative studies have made debut in their
respective international areas. For example, China's studies
on diseases causing genes have reached internationally
advanced level and study of crystals having both photic and
electric functions has not only continued its
internationally leading position but also realized the
effective power output in the range of 200nm-193nm.
Campus Life Science and Technology Bases
As is approved by the Chinese Ministry of
Education and the State Development Planning Commission, 36
Chinese universities including Peking University, Tsinghua
University and Beijing Normal University etc. will create
their respective training base for life science and
technology.
It is briefed that the training
bases will integrate different functions such as teaching,
learning, research and development and commercialization,
give more weight to the utilization of campus resources in
training, disciplinary development and research, and strive
for working out new products, technologies and techniques.
Meanwhile, the training bases will cooperate with industries
of high technology and integrated strength, incubating new
enterprises and industries and serving industrial sectors.
The training bases will produce high caliber
expertise for the development of China's biotechnology
industry, stimulating campus discipline and courses
restructuring, creating innovative and pioneering platform
for teaching, learning and research faculty, and promoting
spin-off of research findings and results and associated
commercialization. From the new semester this year, these
bases will open basic life science courses for students and
speed up training of life science lecturers both inside and
outside the campus.
Being an important
exploration into innovative education, the training bases
will make innovations part of their systems, mechanism and
modes, encouraging cross section marriage of different
disciplines both at home and abroad. The central government
will work out relevant policy and allocate input to support
the construction of these training bases. Training bases
shall develop their respective strength on the basis of
their disciplinary background and make their experimental
conditions, teachers' level, textbook selection and
development, curriculum setting, teaching contents and
methodology be in line with or approach to internationally
advanced level.
NEWS BRIEFS
New Overcurrent Protector
Recently Tianjin University has successfully
wound up its project on applied study of energy efficient
automatic controlled PTC heater and overcurrent protector
and associated commercialization, a national key project
listed in the 9th Five-Year Plan（1996-2000). The PTC
overcurrent protector developed by them employs the system
integrated with mixture of multiple donors and acceptors and
multiple phases and optimized formula, technique and
structure, which effectively improve PTC materials'
properties and solve its low resistance problem. The new
protector is able to prevent PTC material from breakdown and
failure that could be caused by drastic reduction of
electric resistance under high temperature so that it
improves PTC materials' resistance to electric pressure and
its performance stability.
Toxicant Free Ship
Paint
Recently No. 2 Marine Research Institute
of the State Oceanic Bureau has successfully developed a
toxicant free ship paint that is able to prevent marine
living creatures from adhering to ship body without
contaminating the seawater. Named as peppery agent, the
toxicant free ship paint is the compound made of natural
pepper extracts and organic clay which will not kill the
adhesive marine living creatures but drive them away from
the ship. The experiments on 7 ships running over the South
China Sea, the East Sea, the Yellow Sea and the north
Pacific Ocean have shown that the paint is of apparent
pollution prevention effect in driving away marine living
creatures, and is able to reduce the resistance in running
as well as energy consumption.
Vaccine
Killing Hepatitis B
Not long ago, Guangzhou
Airforce Hospital successfully developed HBVDAN vaccine able
to kill hepatitis B which has found its success in the trial
application on transgenic mice. The dual grain HBVDAN
developed by the hospital and tested on transgenic mice is
able to improve the immunity of specific cells and clear up
the in-body hepatitis viruses. So far the result has been
submitted to the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology
for approval of its application in human body. The new
development is believed to bring about good news to
hepatitis B patients if its test on human body turns out the
same positive result as the transgenic mice.
Pollution Free Electric Auto
Not
long ago, Huazhong Science and Technology University made
the debut of its newly designed pollution free electric
sedan car. It is briefed that the driving system of the car
is made of switch magnetism resistance motor and associated
controller, which are developed by the university on its
own. Applied with the full digital high performance control
technology in line with the world advanced level, the new
system is of apparent competitiveness in terms of both its
performance and costs. The electric sedan car is
powered on high performance lithium battery and working on
special gear box rather than traditional brake, which saves
the manual speed gear shifting and facilitates operation.
The car is designed with both motor energy recovery braking
and mechanic braking systems. With a fully charge battery,
the vehicle is able to run for 250 km on diversified roads.
The car is proud of its many merits such as zero
emission, low noise, smooth running, large output ,
automatic speed shifting and fast response etc..
No. 2 Asia-Pacific Optic Network
No. 2 Asia-Pacific Optic-Cable Network running
as long as 17,000 km connecting China, Japan, South Korea,
Singapore, Malaysia and other countries and regions has
applauded for its completion after the two-year
construction.
The optic-cable network started
its construction in 1999 under the joint financing of China
Telecom, China Unicom and China Netcom together with a
couple of major international telecommunication giants in
Asian and Pacific regions. Installed with 4 pairs of
optic-cables with a transmission speed of 640Gbits/s, or
7.44 million lines equivalent, the optic-cable network
constitutes the international network with the largest
volume, the most landing spots and the most advanced
technology in Asia and Pacific regions. The operation of the
network will not only meet the increasing telecommunication
needs in these regions but will also make seamless
connection with Europe and Latin America through China-US
submarine cable system so as to accommodating the needs to
access to the whole world possible.
The World
Most Advanced Chip Making Base
Beijing
Zhongxin Huanqiu Corp. recently broke the ground for the
construction of a standard production line for manufacturing
8-inch and 0.18-micron integrated circuits in Beijing
Economy and Technology Development Park. With a total
investment of USD 1.25 billion, the new production line will
produce 8-inch, 0.18-micron and higher specification IC
chips. The construction of the said standard manufacturing
site will create fine chip making conditions for the fast
growth of IC design industry in the city and make the
localization of core components of mobile telecommunication
and computer terminals manufacturing possible. The standard
manufacturing site is scheduled to be completed of its
construction in 13 months and will be put into operation at
the end of next year. It is believed that the new
manufacturing site will become a major market supply source
for IC chips.
Residue Removing Technology
Tianjin University in collaboration with
Tianjin Zhongxin Pharmaceutical Group has recently found the
solution to some key technical problems in the production of
the Chinese traditional medicines: removing the residue in
manufacturing containers and improving the heat transmission
process. The new development has made a critical stride in
traditional medicines modernization project.
The basic principle of effective residue
removing and concentration technology is to add solid grains
that will not be easily react with other matters in the
traditional medicine extraction and concentration container
and make these grains in fluid status so as to prevent the
formation of residue in the container and improve the heat
transmission process.
It is briefed that
calculated on the annual production volume of a single
product, the application of the said technology may save 500
working hours, or RMB 300,000 equivalent, and reduce waste
water discharge of 1,000 tons per year, greatly reducing the
pollution to the environment.
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