Space Weather Observation in Operation
Starting from July 1, 2004, one can easily access to space weather information and prewarning, simply by clicking the website of www.spaceweather.gov.cn. ontaining the information on space accidents prevention, telecommunication, navigation, ground facility safety, and warnings for possible space weathers threatening human health, the new website constitutes a reminder to users for shutting off their important equipment and facilities when space weather disasters come. China Meteorological Administration created a national space weather monitoring and prewarning center on June 1st, 2002. The center was put into trial operation in June 2003. During the trial operation, some hazardous space weathers, including the solar storm and its effects on ionosphere occurred from October 28 to November 4, 2003, were observed through the Chinese made Fengyun II earth satellite. The Center has provided timely space weather information and prewarning for authorities concerned.
The Center's official told reporters that the center will observe and prewarn unexpected and long existing severe space weathers, using both domestic and international space environment observations, and data obtained from satellites and ground stations on solar activities, magnetic sphere and ionosphere. The Center will also, taking full advantage of the data derived from the Chinese made FENGYUN satellites’ onboard instruments, provide timely space weather prewarning and forecast for government, economic sectors and public.
Huge Investment for New Expedition Boat
Upon the approval of authorities concerned, the Chinese Academy of Sciences are pooling resources to construct a high performance scientific expedition boat of integrated functions. With a 2,500 tonnage, a draught of 6.5m, and the maximum speed of 15 knots for a consecutive cruising capacity of 8,000 sea miles, the new boat is designed to stand up strong winds scaled to 11 degree. As the first domestic all-weather dual-body expedition boat with the largest payload capacity and small water-line surface, the advanced expedition vessel expects to be rolled off in 2005.
According to a briefing, the boat will become an offshore research and experiment platform for acoustic physics, acoustic projects, and submarine robots. As a component part of the real time 3-D environment monitoring system and the comprehensive information system, the boat will work on near-sea or ocean going comprehensive scientific missions for acoustic and comprehensive marine experiments. In addition to its numerous small or medium sized investigation boats of the near sea capability, China has a dozen ocean going scientific expedition boats and two polar boats, all built in the 1970s and 1980s, and mainly distributed in the State Oceanography Bureau, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Ministry of Education. The four scientific expedition boats possessed by the CAS have reached an average age over 20 years. As a consequence, CAS has to build new expedition boats to save itself from the degrading situation.
China's Supercomputer Ranks Top Ten
The Shuguang 4000A, a supercomputer developed by the China Shuguang Computer Corp., is rated one of the world's top ten supercomputers, among 500 supercomputers recently listed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab under the US Ministry of Energy. The rating makes the Chinese manufactured supercomputer the first instance in the world top ten rank. Equipped with 2,560 Opteron chips made by AMD, the Shuguang 4000A is able to perform at a speed of 8.061 trillion times per second. Apart from its central processor and LINUX operation platform, the China's supercomputer's all other components are home made. The rating also makes China's supercomputer the only non-US and non-Japan made giant among the top ten.
On the list of the world's top 500 supercomputers published on November 2003, the Shenteng 6800, a supercomputer manufactured by the China Legend Group for the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was rated 14th place for its 4.1 trillion times/second computation speed. The rating also made China's supercomputer a fastest calculation machine following the US and Japan made supercomputers. Starting from 1993, the world's top 500 supercomputer rating is made every half a year jointly by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the University of Tennessee, and the Manheim University.
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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION |
China-US Young Scientists Exchange Project
China-US Young S&T Personnel Exchange Project, co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the US National Science Foundation, was formally kicked off on June 21, 2004 in Beijing. As a major event jointly organized by the two governments under an inter-governmental S&T cooperation framework, the Project will constitute a platform, through which US graduate students will be arranged, during their summer vocations, to work together with Chinese young scientists at Chinese universities, institutes or labs. Aiming at strengthening S&T exchanges and research cooperation among two nations’ young scientists, promoting science education and diffusions, enhancing friendship and improving mutual understanding, the new project will lay a ground for the future cooperation between coming generations of scientists in the two nations.
The first group of 27 American graduate students will work with Chinese young scientists, from June 21 to August 24, at the Peking University, Tsinghua University, and institutes or labs affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. American graduates, in an effort to gain the first hand research experience, and pave way for future cooperation, will make themselves familiarized with China's basic facts and its S&T system, S&T development and S&T infrastructures.
China Joins International Space Observation
A space storm observation project, initiated by LIU Zhenxing, the chief scientist of “Dual Satellite Program”, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has recently become a core item in phase one project of the International Living with a Star Program (ILWS). According to a briefing, the project is made up of three sounding satellites. One will be positioned some 700 km away from earth, probing ionosphere and thermosphere. Another will be orbited 50,000 km from earth, detecting near ground magnetic sphere. The third satellite, distancing itself from earth for about 150,000 km, will observe solar winds outside of the earth magnetic sphere. Researchers told reporters that the project is the first instance of four-in-one observations for ionosphere, thermosphere, magnetic sphere and solar winds. According to the proposal made by a planning meeting of ILWS, the three satellites will be released in 2011 to observe the peak years of solar activities.
As the largest international collaborative efforts in solar and earth space observation in the first 2 decades of the 21st century, ILWS is set to observe different space activities occurred from sun to earth. So far national space agencies from 24 countries, including the US, Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada and China, and two international space related academic organizations have joined the program.
Superconductor in Mobile Telecommunication
In collaboration with China UNICOM's Tangshan Branch, Tsinghua University found the successful application of a high-temperature superconductor filter in CDMA base station on March 26, 2004 After a three-month trial operation, Tsinghua University issued an official announcement on June 22, 2004, applauding the excellent performance of China's first high-temperature superconductor filter in CDMA base stations. The development makes China the second country following the US in the world possessing a proprietary high-temperature superconductor application in mobile telecommunication.
According to the announcement, China UNICOM has inked an agreement with Tsinghua University to establish a CDMA mobile telecommunication zone with high-temperature superconductor filter applications. The agreement expects a coverage of some 100 km2 using the superconductor technology by the summer of 2005. For comparison, the superconductor application can reduce mobile handsets’ radiation, while improving voice quality and the system's sensibility.
A research team headed by Prof. CAO Bisong, at the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, started from 1997 to work on high-temperature superconductor filter's applications in China's mobile telecommunication system. The research has resulted in a dozen of patent applications, and the high-temperature superconductor filter has become a proprietary technology.
Advanced IPv6 Network
China's first experimental IPv6 commercial network was put into operation on June 22, 2004 in Chongqing. According to a briefing, the network's core components, including routers, switch, network monitoring and analyzing system, protocol testing system, and both wire and wireless connection systems, are manufactured on a localized basis. The development marks the application phase of China's IPv6 technology. As an upgraded version, the IPv6 protocol based next generation of internet presents a faster speed and more IP addresses. According a rough calculation, the IPv6 based new internet will be able to offer 1 million IP addresses for everyone in the world.
Researchers told reporters that the key IPv6 application technologies, independently developed by the Institute of Computation Science, a part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have resulted in proprietary innovative breakthroughs, including protocol testing, high performance IPv4/v6 protocol switch, penetrating NAT channel technology, IPv6 handset end-to-end application, and IPv6 network monitoring and analyzing system. The new findings, including Silkroad channel technology, IPv6 protocol testing software, IPv4/v6 protocol switch at the kilomega speed, have reached an international leading position. All these innovative developments have laid a solid ground for developing China's next generation of internet.
Breakthroughs in Quantum Technology
Based on their 7-year tireless efforts, Prof. PAN Jianwei and his collaborators, at China Science and Technology University, have recently achieved a telepathy among five photons over a limited distance. The development marks the world's first instance of five-particle entanglement and a hidden transmission between terminal quantum. The finding, reported in the July 1st issue of the journal of Science, secures China a leading position ahead of the US, France and Austria in quantum entanglement study.According to the report, one has to create a maximum possible amount of quantum entanglement between two distant places, if a distant quantum coded telecommunication or hidden transmission is to be realized. Before the said finding, a number of international research teams had been pounding on the same experiments, ended up in producing a maximum 4-particle entanglement, without luck for a 5-particle one.
With the support of the Chinese authorities, Chinese scientists, using a single-photon detector, ‘observed’ a special pulse phenomenon, from which appeared the world's first instance of 5-particle entanglement. Researchers told reporters that they are now working to realize the same entanglement within a distance over 10 or more kilometers. Researchers predict that the accelerated S&T development will make quantum telecommunication a practical technology in the next 5 to 10 years.
Biochemical Sand Control
Researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geology, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are at present working on innovative sand control techniques. The project expects an outcome of one or two biochemical sand fixation materials that can be used to restore vegetations and control sands in an environment with annual precipitation less than 150 mm. Biochemical sand fixation means will see a cost reduction by 30%, as compared with pure chemical means.
According to recent findings, lower grade plants and microbes, including blue algae, lichen and mosses, which have extensive distributions over the northern deserts of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, have sand fixation functions. With a drought tolerance stronger than trees and grasses, they may even survive a waterless environment, though they will have a prosperous growth once being given water. They can present a sand control cost lower than tree planting and grass growing. A chemical technique may bring about a fast sand control result, while a biological one may last the sand control result. Researchers, in this context, wish to work out a fast but long lasting sand control approach combining the two.
China's Fuel Battery Sedan
Thanks to their some two-year efforts, a team of researchers, headed by Prof. WAN Gang at Tongji University in Shanghai, produced a fuel battery driven sedan car named Chaoyue II. Comparing with its proceeding prototype Chaoyue I, Chaoyue II marks an improvement for all Chinese made key components.
Built upon a Santana 3000 prototype, Chaoyue II has dramatically reduced hydrogen consumption from chaoyue I's 1.39kg per hundred kilometers to the current 1.03 kg per hundred kilometers. For comparison, Chaoyue II registers an improved boosting power for 26.7 seconds, from start to picking up to 100 km/h, or some 20 seconds less than Chaoyue I. The new prototype reaches a maximum speed of 118 km/h, with a cruising mileage for 197 km.
The new fuel batter car, using Chinese made proprietary engine rather than an imported one as in its predecessor. Chaoyue II has shed off a weight as much as 150 kg, but with an enhanced engine power by 6 kw. Trial running has shown that the Chinese made fuel battery engine presents a reliability and stability both better than its imported counterparts.
China's First Leukemia Testing Kit
A leukemia testing kit, jointly developed by the Xiamen University, China Institute of Medicinal and Biological Products Quarantine, Beijing Wantai Biomedicine Co. Ltd. and the Putian Central Blood Transfusion Station, recently passed the experts’ verification check. Expert panel believe that the testing technique makes an important contribution to developing recombinant HTLV and associated diagnosing testing kit. The HTLV testing kit, China's first proprietary product in the field, will greatly improve the safe blood transfusion and reduce the infection of leukemia disease. The testing kits have so far screened out two positive cases of leukemia among some 7,000 potential blood donators.
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