China in Africa

The State Forestry Administration announced that by 2020, 16.78 million hectares of energy forest will have been built, and the annual utilization rate of forestry biomass will exceed 20 million tons of standard coal. Among them, the contribution rate of bio-liquid fuel will be 30%, and the contribution rate of biomass utilization 70 %.

China Bio news release, March 21, 2017

The white paper has been prepared by the CAS Science and Technology Service (STS) and by the CAS Institute of Electronics. It is based on the strategic alliance founded in 2014 for real-time detection and health monitoring comprising CAS institutes, Zhejiang University, 10 other universities, Beijing Union Hospital, 16 clinical medical institutions and 14 enterprises.

China Bio news release, March 20, 2017

Daran ZHENG and Bo WANG from CAS Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology have identified in a sample of mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber an extremely rare example of three male damselflies showing courtship behaviour. During courtship, male Platycypha caligata waves the white anterior surface of all six laterally enlarged tibiae at the females, but uses the posterior surface of the tibiae for intra-sexual signaling during territorial defense.

CAS news release, March 20, 2017

The plant, jointly launched with the Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group, has a capacity of 100,000 metric tons of anhydrous ethanol per year via methanol. Based on this plant, a factory with a capacity of 1,000,000 metric tons per year is planned by 2020. The Chinese production of ethanol was 7 million tons, less than the needs of China’s industrial and energy sectors. Furthermore, only one third of this ethanol, about 2.50 million metric tons , was used as fuel ethanol.

CAS news release, March 17, 2017

The program, which is still in the planning stage and not financed, will focus on sequencing of eukaryotic populations, including all plants, animals and single cell organisms. In a first step the genomes of about 9330 eukaryotic families will be refined to obtain a reference genome that is comparable to or better than the human reference genome. Then, genomic sketches will be drawn from one species from each genus out of 140,000 to 200,000 eukaryotic genera. Finally, the remaining 1.5 million known eukaryotic species will be subjected to low-coverage sequencing. As the world’s largest genomics research and development center, BGI has launched an independent sequencing system. BGI’s Yang Huanming and Zhang Guojie will be involved in the project.

China Bio news release, March 7, 2017

China’s first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou I is expected to dock with the orbiting Tiangong II space lab three times. It will be sent into space from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan aboard a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket.

CAS news release, March 6, 2017

Chang’e 5, China’s newest lunar probe, is scheduled to bring 2 kilograms of lunar soil and rock samples back to Earth before the end of 2017. The 8.2-metric ton probe has four components, an orbiter, lander, ascender and re-entry module. After the probe reaches lunar orbit, the components will separate into two parts, with the orbiter and re-entry module remaining in the orbit while the lander and ascender descend toward the moon’s surface. The lander and ascender will make a soft landing and carry out tasks such as using a drill to collect underground rocks and a mechanical arm to gather lunar soil. After two days, the ascender’s rocket will elevate it to lunar orbit to dock with the re-entry module. It will transfer lunar samples to the module, which will carry them to Earth. The samples are to be distributed to scientists around the country for research.

China Bio news release, March 6, 2017

French Prime Minister Cazeneuve participated in the opening ceremony of the laboratory on March 2. In design, it is similar to the French Lyon P4 laboratory. It will provide a complete advanced biosafety system and become China’s infectious disease prevention and control R&D center, the strong pathogen preservation center and a UN infectious disease reference laboratory.

China Bio news release, March 3, 2017

The target asteroid for landing is Aphobis, an asteroid of about 400 m length, which will come close in 2029, missing the earth by about 30,000 kilometers. In 2012, China’s second lunar probe, Chang’e-2, after successfully completing its mission, rendezvoused with the asteroid Toutatis at a distance of 770 meters which passed the earth at a distance of about 7 million kilometers.

CAS news release, March 1, 2017

The group of Zhenfang WU has produced nerve growth factor in the salivary glands of transgenic mice. Within a state-funded project, the team explores if saliva from transgenic animals such as pigs might become a commercial production method for therapeutic proteins, as animals secrete larger amounts of saliva than, e. g., milk, and saliva can be collected repeatedly.

CAS news release, March 1, 2017

CAS Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences has already built 3 large-scale scientific units: a synchrotron, a superconducting tokamak and a steady-state strong magnetic field device. Next to Beijing, it is among the country’s most densely populated science areas. The next step is to upgrade the existing devices, e. g., by a new fusion reactor, a 3D detector for atmospheric particles, a fourth generation synchrotron and other large scientific devices. Hefei plans also for a national information laboratory, a large gene center, an ion medicine center and research platforms concerning national information security, nuclear fusion energy, haze governance, cancer treatment and others. Anhui Province where Hefei is located had in 2016 a GDP growth of 8.7%, fiscal revenue growth of 9%, and per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents increased by 8.2% and 8.3%.

China Bio news release, February 28, 2017

The instrument will be based on iGene’s liquid chip probe hybrid gene capture technology TargetSeq and multiple PCR amplification technology MultipSeq. It aims at enterprises, hospitals and research institutions interested to customize and develop genetic testing kits.

China Bio news release, February 28, 2017

Prof. Chang CHEN has proposed a new concept based on studies with C. elegans and human fibroblast senescence cells. His results showed that compared with old worms or senescent cells, young worms or young cells could generate more reactive oxygen species (ROS) to activate Erk and Akt signal pathways in response to redox stress. Based on these results, he proposes a new concept RRC, which includes the ability to generate ROS/RNS to activate cellular signaling, the ability to activate the antioxidant system and to degrade the damaged proteins.

CAS news release, February 27, 2017

China’s largest cotton-producing area is Xinjiang, with about 1,8 million ha. According to the Ministry of Statistics, the cotton-producing area was down by over 11 %, but the the cotton production in Xinjiang alone reached 3.594 million tons and will eventually contribute 2/3 of China’s cotton harvest. The standard cotton is Zhongmian 49″, an insect-resistant transgenic variety.”

China Bio news release, February 22, 2017

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, 80 % of this budget targeted Information technology, advanced manufacturing, new energy, biomedicine and other high-tech fields. It was announced that China will build new technology sharing platforms for researchers and implement new laws to protect their intellectual property. China will also encourage companies to build innovation centers, staffed with professional technical managers, to cooperate with universities and institutions, Eight investment funds, including a 10-billion-yuan fund for commercializing major science projects, have already been established.

CAS news release, February 23, 2017