Advances in science and technology continue ( 2004-01-15 22:40) (China Daily)
China's space achievements,
unsurprisingly, head the country's top-10 achievements in science and technology
last year, according to results released on Tuesday based on votes of the 582
members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of
Engineers (CAE).
The annual event represents one of the most authoritative reviews of
scientific research and technological accomplishments for the previous year.
All the CAS and CAE members, regarded as the best in their respective
disciplines, were asked to look through progress in their own disciplines as
well as in others over the past year and vote according to academic significance
and impact.
Major technological accomplishments as well as progress in issues related to
daily life also feature in the list.
China's first manned space mission was top of the ladder not only because it
boosted national morale but also because it became a touchstone for the
country's overall scientific capacity and technological innovation.
So is another, the initial operation of the colossal Three Gorges Reservoir,
says Xu Kuangdi, president of the CAE.
He ascribes the two entries to the strategy of China's scientific research,
which now focuses on areas projected to help the country's economic growth and
social well-being.
The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic that overran China and
the rest of the world last year also helped bring about some of the finest
research achievements, such as the sequencing of the genome of the SARS virus by
Chinese researchers.
Chinese scientists continued to make outstanding achievements in
nanotechnology and biological research of rice, which also find place in the
top-10 list.
In the previous two years, research in the two areas -- which have won large
sums of government research funds -- featured in the list.
Investment by the government in scientific research has increased
tremendously over the past few years, with the CAS research institutes the major
beneficiaries.
Billions have been channelled to support a host of key projects in important
areas in the hope that Chinese scientists soon come up with advanced
accomplishments that lead the world.
So it's no surprise that out of the 10 advances, six were made by institutes
under CAS, which is known as the "national team'' of China's scientific
research.
Lu Yongxiang, president of CAS, calls for more support from the government
for basic scientific research, adding that science advances today not only
depend on creativity of scientists, but increasingly hinge on continued,
systematic funding.
The following is the top-10 list:
1.China's first manned space mission. After having spent about 21 hours in
space travelling more than 600,000 kilometres, China's first astronaut Yang
Liwei, aboard the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-V spaceship, landed safely in
Inner Mongolia on October 16 last year. The successful mission makes China the
third country in the world to send a man into space.
2.Molecular mechanism for rice production and breakthroughs in super hybrid
rice breeding. A team of Chinese plant geneticists headed by Li Jiayang of the
CAS Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology reported their discovery on
molecular mechanism of rice tillering, an agronomic trait of vital importance in
the production of rice, in the April issue of Nature magazine.
The researchers unravelled a long-standing puzzle in crop growth by isolating
and characterizing Monoculum 1 (MOC1), a gene having a key bearing on the
process of rice tillering.
The "super hybrid rice cultivation programme'' led by Yuan Longping made
major progress.
An average of 12.1 tons of rice per hectare was yielded in the 6.8-hectare
experimental field in a demonstration zone in Xiangtan County in Central China's
Hunan Province.
In another demonstration zone in Longshan County, an average yield was 12.3
tons per hectare. The rice, if planted widely across the country, will increase
the total rice output by 30 billion kilograms, enough to feed up to 75 million
people.
3. Initial progress in SARS research. Researchers were successful in the
isolation of whole genome sequencing and test kit development of SARS
coronavirus.
They also made significant progress in their research into the cause of SARS,
its clinical diagnosis and treatment, biological protection equipment, anti-SARS
drugs and inactivated SARS coronavirus vaccines.
4. Surface-modification technique and fabrication of artificial nanocluster
crystals.
Researchers led by Lu Ke of CAS Institute of Metals Research (IMR) solved the
problem of nitriding the surface of metal materials, applying nanotechnology.
In a thesis published in the January 30 issue of Science magazine, they show
that the nitriding temperature of iron can be greatly reduced, from above 500
degrees centigrade to 300 degrees centigrade, by applying nanotechnology.
A team headed by Jia Jinfeng and Xue Qikun at the CAS Institute of Physics
succeeded in fabricating, for the first time, many kinds of artificial
nanocluster crystals on silicon substrate, by using magic clustering process on
a periodic template.
5. First commercial magnetically-levitated rail system in the world put into
operation in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Line is a major outcome of Sino-German
science-and-technology co-operation. It takes a train only about eight minutes
to cover 33 kilometres, and the maximum speed reached 430 kilmetres per hour.
6. Water storage at the Three-Gorges Reservoir, the world's largest water
control project, and the operation of its permanent ship lock and its first
batch of power generating units.
7. Progress towards quantum communication over large distances.
Pan Jianwei, a researcher at the Department of Modern Physics at the
University of Science and Technology of China, and his co-workers of University
of Vienna made contributions that are believed to be an important step towards
long-distance quantum communications.
8. New super computer.
Researchers from the CAS Institute of Computing Technology developed Dawning
4000L, a computer super server that is able to perform up to 3 trillion
floating-point operations per second.
It is the largest IDC (International Digital Centre) data processing machine
in China and is suitable for both high performance scientific computing
applications and information services.
9. Progress in controllable thermal nuclear fusion studies. Researchers of
the CAS Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) made exciting achievements in their
2002-03 winter experimental campaign on HT-7, a super-conducting Tokamak unit.
Tomkama is a doughnut-shaped chamber used in fusion research in which plasma
is heated and confined by magnetic fields. The scientists obtained repeated high
temperature plasma discharge over one minute, keeping China in a leading
position in the field.
10. "Four-winged'' dinosaurs. On the basis of their studies on
124-128-million-year-old fossils unearthed in Northeast China's Liaoning
Province, researchers led by paleontologists Xu Xing and Zhou Zhonghe from the
CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) reported
in Nature magazine (January 23, 2003) their discovery of a new species of
microraptor with "four wings," that is, its two legs have asymmetrically arrayed
feathers, just like its two normal wings.
The discovery supports the hypothesis that the birds' ancestors' flying
capability stemmed from their first running increasingly fast and then getting
airborne.
