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No.345

 
 
 


CHINA  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of Science and Technology
People's Republic of China


N0.345 October 10,2003
 
IN THIS ISSUE

* International S&T Cooperation Award for 2002

* China's New Patent Application File Number

* SARS Lab Researchers Trained

* More Progresses for Paleontological Study

* Sichuan Discovered New Human Gene

* Traditional Therapy for AIDS Treatment

* New Member for Chip Family


 
 SPECIAL ISSUES
 

International S&T Cooperation Award for 2002

The Conferring Ceremony for the International S&T Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China 2002 was held on September 22, 2003 at Beijing Diaoyutai State Guest House. Mr. Cheng Jinpei, Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology honored Mr. Nobert·Angert from  Germany, Mr. Joseph H.Hamilton and Mrs. Cao Yunzhen from USA and Mr. Toshisube Hirano from Japan with the Award certificate. Mr. Robert·Degeilh, a French winner of the Award was absent for the health reason.

Mr. Nobert·Angert, Deputy Director, German Heavy Ion Research Center and internationally renowned accelerator expert has since 1980 been actively involved in helping China with constructing its own heavy ion accelerator and associated improvements and upgrading, found the solutions to numerous key issues relating to engineering design and construction and trained through his efforts many high caliber technical personnel for China.

Mr. Joseph H.Hamilton, a renowned US physicist has supported and helped China with its nuclear basic study for thirty and odd years. Chinese scientists have in collaboration with Mr. Hamilton achieved the breakthroughs in nuclear structure study and new nuclide synthesizing. Mr. Hamilton has co-authored with Chinese scientists 200 and more papers published in the major international academic journals.

Mrs. Cao Yunzhen, research fellow with US based the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) has played an active role in promoting the exchanges of senior AIDS experts between the two countries and initiated the prevention and blockading HIV-1 infections between mothers and infants, rendered an outstanding contribution to China's AIDS prevention and treatment, especially in terms of clinic treatment, research, technical training and awareness enhancing.

Mr. Toshisube Hirano, a renowned Japanese expert on fire and burning has assisted China to create the national key lab on fire science and the discipline for fire security and engineering. Mr. Toshisube Hirano  has also trained for China many high caliber personnel in the field.

China's New Patent Application File Number

It is reported from the source of China State Intellectual Property Office that China will make its patent application file number longer from previous 8 digits to 12 starting from October 1st, 2003. The number changing constitutes an attempt to be in line with the standards on the patent application file number published by the World Intellectual Property Organization as well as the current custom of the patent application numbering. The new file number will be made of three parts: application year, type and file number in 12 Arabic numbers commonly seen internationally. The numbers from 1 to 4 from left to right indicates the year in which the application is accepted, the fifth number shows the application type, and the numbers from 6 to 12 (7 in all) represent the actual file sequence number of the application. Each Arabic number used in the application file number is decimal for calculation.

The invention, utility and design patent applications to be filed on October 1st, 2003 or after will be numbered under the new rules. In the meanwhile, the applications filed before or on September 30, 2003 will not be added with more digits or changed after October 1st, 2003, and the file number of these applications shall remain effective in required legal procedures.

SARS Lab Researchers Trained

The training course for BSL-3 SARS viruses study sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology started its first day lesson among SARS researchers on September 15, 2003.

P3 lab is a kind of large biological lab dedicated for animal experiments. The National Key Technologies for SARS Prevention and Treatment has paid great attention to the biological security of SARS viruses based study. On the basis of investigating the distribution pattern of P3 labs in the country, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health, State Food and Drug Administration and State Environmental Protection Administration have jointly issued the Interim Methods for the Management of Contagious SARS Viruses based Research Labs and Interim Methods for the Management of the Preservation and Using of Contagious SARS Viruses and Associated Infecting Animal Models with the Viruses.

In the meanwhile, the Key SARS Technology panel has issued the regulations on the biological security management of contagious SARS viruses based research and the MOST has dispatched an inspection team to conduct the on-site biological security check of contagious SARS viruses based research activities.

More than 100 personnel from 40 and odd research institutes and businesses in different sectors such as health, education, agriculture, quarantine examination and the military attended the two-day training courses. Renowned domestic experts on biological security were invited to give the lectures on the hardware construction of BSL-3 labs, operational procedures, biological security protection cases both at home and abroad, experimental animals and models, preservation of SARS viruses, handling of accidental lab events and associated environmental protection.

Full Fledged Digital Media Broadcasting

Mr. Zhang Haitao, Chinese Deputy Administrator of Radio, Film and TV expressed at the China-Japan-Korea joint forum on mass media held recently that the digitalized radio and TV broadcasting will see a full fledged nationwide application in the next 5 years. To achieve the goal, China will work on a three-phase strategy as follows:

Phase I: on the basis of digital cable TV broadcasting experiments carried out in the preceding two years, 2003 will the year for the vigorous development of the digital cable TV system. At present, China has 100 million cable TV subscribers among its 320 million households. In this context, the digital cable TV shall be the priority of the digital TV development at this stage and the number of digital cable TV subscribers is expected to reach 30 million in 2005.

Phase II: satellite based direct digital broadcasting will start the operation from 2005. The direct broadcasting will be able to make one hundred and more digital TV programs available for subscribers' direct viewing, which would make itself a strong rival against the regular cable TV network. Phase III: 2008 will be the year witnessing the vigorous development of the ground digital and high resolution TV system. So far, China has not yet determined its broadcasting standards for the ground digital TV system. As a result, it could take a longer period of time for China to achieve scale development in the field. It is planned to kick off the ground digital and high resolution TV broadcasting in 2003 and make it a nationwide application in 2008 by taking advantage of live coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games in the same year.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
 

More Progresses for  Paleontological Study

In the first half of 2003, the study of biological genesis, radiation, extinction and recovery in major geological times, a major project under the National 973 Program had led to the publication of 60 and more papers, five of which were published in the journals Nature and Science under the first authorship. These papers have covered cutting edge and hot issues of paleontology from innovative angles and attracted the academic attention both at home and abroad.

While introducing the paper. “There are four small feathered Microraptor  Gui dinosaurs in west Liaoning”, the associated commentary in the journal Nature believed that the paper has shown the most important result on the birds genesis study. In collaboration with other scientists from the UK, France and Japan, Chinese scientists published the paper on Haikou fish, a vertebrate in the early Cambrian age and its vertebra and head structures. It is believed in the paper that Haikou fish is the most ancient vertebrate so far discovered on the earth, possibly representing a key transitional process from the headless creature to the one with head. The integrated paper co-authored with British scientists has for the first time illustrated series major results achieved in the study of Rehe biological colonies in recent years. It highlighted the discussion of a number of major theoretical issues relating to the study, which made it the first paper telling the successive stories in the Nature about the Rehe biological explorations started a few yeas ago. The paper on a missing link in the evolution history of the maidenhair tree has revealed the discovery of a maidenhair tree fossil possessing the reproduction organ dated back to 120 million years ago in Yixian county, Liaoning Province, filled up a blank history as long as 100 million years in the tree's evolution story. The author also pointed out that the maidenhair tree has seen a retarded development in its 120 million year long evolution process. The finding has been deemed another milestone in studying the genesis and evolution of the ancient tree.

The journal Science has published a Chinese paper co-authored with British and Japanese scholars on a new Yunnan insect species and its importance to the evolution of deuterostome. The paper proposed the socalled five-step new concept for the genesis of vertebrates.

Up to date, the project has since its launch in 2000 published 21 papers with Chinese scientists as the first author in the journals Science and Nature.

Sichuan Discovered New Human Gene

On September 22, 2003, the World Health Organization named the new human gene discovered in Sichuan, China and the new gene was published in three major international medical journals.

The new gene named B5516, was discovered by the Bone Marrow Transplanting and Matching Center under the Institute of Blood Transfusion, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. While testing the HLA of the blood specimen collected from a young female donor, researchers found that a section of her B55 gene did not match with all the benchmark criteria. Researchers then examined the bases of this unique B55 gene one by one and made the new discovery in the first half of this year that the said gene has one more structure in addition to the usual 15 structures, namely 16 in all. Researchers reexamined the donor in July 2003 and concluded with the same result. The female donor who carries the new gene has been coded in the international immunity HLA database.

Researchers explained that decoding the new gene may help to raise the success rate of organ transplanting, and bone marrow transplanting in particular. The Blood Transfusion Institute under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences will in collaboration with interested manufacturers produce a reagent capable for testing such new gene, searching the sources of such new gene among the donor's family and people in the street.

Nanometer ‘Catalyze’ Solar Energy

Prof. Zou Zhigang, Director of Environmental Materials and Renewable Energy Research Center, Nanjing University has, in collaboration with Japan Institute of Integrated Industrial Technologies, applied the knowledge gained from studying superconducting oxide materials in photo-catalyzing, and worked out for the first time in the world the photo-catalyzing agent with visible response for full water decomposition.

While working on new environmental materials and energy at Nanjing University, Prod, Zou and others realized for the first time in the world water decomposition based hydrogen making through photo-catalyzing process. Prof. Zou demonstrated his experiment as follows: resting two bounded glass panel in deep color under a desk lamp of 60 w, turning on the lamp, and connecting the electric wire at the end of the glass panel to a simple fan. It takes less than one second for the fan to get rotated. When turning off the lamp, the fan would cease to move. The magic is played by the nanometer photo-catalyzing material coated on the glass panel. Through the go-between of nanometer photo-catalyzing material, it is not only possible to converse the solar energy into a chemical energy, namely hydrogen, but also possible to make the solar energy into the electric energy to be the substitute for hydraulic and thermal power. In the meanwhile, the process is able to decompose toxicant matters and purify the environment. The inventor has filed the patent applications for the finding in both China and Japan. It is reported that the technology is expected to become extensively applied in many fields by 2030 and is of very broad application perspectives.

Traditional Therapy for AIDS Treatment

Mr. Jianjin, WANG, Head of AIDS Traditional Therapy Team established by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and Director, AIDS Division, the Institute of Basic Theoretical Studies under the Chinese Academy of Traditional Medicine recently expressed that as AIDS is a virus based epidemic discovered only in last several decades, it shares some resemblance with the diseases named by the Chinese traditional medicine such as plague or fatigue in terms of its spread mode, epidemics, symptoms and clinic expressions. Such relevance makes the theoretical evidence and diagnosing input for treating the AIDS disease with traditional therapy.

He added that the traditional therapy focuses on man's response and adaptability to the contributing elements,  imposing the combined effects of medical herbs, acupuncture and air exercise on the patients to enhance their immunity, curb the further development of the disease, slow down or alleviate the symptoms, and eventually improve patients' living quality and prolong their life. In addition, dialectic and individual based treatment constitutes the essence of the Chinese traditional medicine, which is also important for AIDS treatment.

Mr. WANG indicated that from the 1990s, some Chinese researchers have applied Chinese traditional therapy in AIDS treatment by taking into account the specific clinic cases and by taking advantage of their own experience. Some Chinese traditional medicines have proved effective in treating the diseases and some others are remaining in the domestic or international process for further experiments or clinic testing.

For example, since the 1980s, the Chinese Academy of Traditional Medicine have worked together with their counterparts in Tanzania for treating AIDS diseases with traditional therapy. So far they have treated about 10,000 AIDS patients or HIV carriers with the traditional therapy and explored the treatment effects of 10 Chinese traditional medical recipes such as for heat removing, detoxification, tonifying and promoting blood circulation and removing stasis.

New Member for Chip Family

Following its predecessors such as Fangzhou, Xingguang and Longxin, Wantong I, China's another proprietary chip made its recent debut in Zhongguancun, Beijing.

It is reported that the LAN based chip developed by Beijing Liuhe Wantong Microelectronics Co. Ltd. is of broad perspectives for public, industrial, governmental, household and individual applications. The new chip had been tested by Aglient, an internationally renowned chip testing equipment manufacturer at the end of August 2003 and late approved by the verification check organized by the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry. At present, the firm is working with interested manufacturers for working out a more comprehensive solution for the new chip's commercial production in the year.


       Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Cheng Jiayi, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China  Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594

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