China in Africa

The group of HO Lei has developed a fourth generation robot suit using aluminum material. The height is about 1 m, the weight about 23 kg, and the device is equipped with 6 joints and 7 sensors from top to bottom. When wearing, the user fixes it with belt to his chest, abdomen and feet, and furthermore wears canes on both arms. When the user moves, the sensor on the waist senses the intention of the exercise by measuring the angle and the acceleration of the tilt of the upper limb of the user, and transmits the information to the computer. Then instruct the robot suit through the control module and assists the user’s actions by operating the electric drive joint, the smart shoes, the waist support, and the belt. When moving forward, the foot of the user is slowly lifted up by the electric drive joint and the smart shoes, and walks by linking it with the canes of both arms.

Japan JST news release, August 21, 2018

The Chang’e-4 lunar probe will land on the Aitken Basin of the lunar south pole region on the far side of the moon. the rover was a rectangular box with two foldable solar panels and six wheels. It is 1.5 meters long, 1 meter wide and 1.1 meters high. It will be equipped with four scientific payloads, including a panoramic camera, infrared imaging spectrometer and radar measurement devices, to obtain images of moon’s surface and detect lunar soil and structure. Both the lander and rover will carry international payloads from other countries. The global public will have a chance to name the rover. Participants can submit their proposed names for the rover through the internet from Aug. 15 to Sept. 5, and the official name will be announced in October after several selection rounds. Winners will be rewarded at most 3,000 yuan and be invited to watch the lunar probe launch.

CAS news release, August 20, 2018

A research team around HUANG Changshui designed and synthesized a new 2D carbon material where fluorine atoms were used to replace some acetylenic bonds for improving lithium–ion diffusion in perpendicular direction (fluoride graphdiyne, F-GDY). The material showed extraordinarily high reversible capacity (1700 mA h g^-1) and extremely stable cycle performance (9000 cycles) at 0.9 V.

CAS news release, August 20, 2018

In a study by CAS Institute of Psychology, it was shown that more and more Chinese people like to give their children a unique name. In the study, the team’s average word frequency (used in contemporary Chinese) of the individual characters of the individual name was used as an indicator of the uniqueness of the name: the lower the average word frequency of a name, the higher the name is unique. For example, the uniqueness of “Chen Chen (jun)” is higher than the uniqueness of “Chen Jun” because the word “銞” is used very frequently in modern Chinese. The study randomly selected 580 names of people born between 1950 and 2009, 10 per year. It was found that between 1950 and 2009, the word frequency of Chinese newborn names was decreasing year by year, and more and more uncommon words appeared, indicating that people’s demand for uniqueness is getting higher and higher.

CAS news release, August 20, 2018

The center will be located in Buji Lilang, with a construction area of ​​about 150,000 square meters. After completion, it will have 1,100 wards and 2,500 beds. It will be financed by China Gene Group (Hong Kong) in cooperation with Luohu Hospital Group and focus on rare diseases such as GM2 gangliosidosis and diseases which are difficult to treat such as senile dementia and leukemia. China Gene Group (Hong Kong) plans for a total investment of about 2 billion yuan.

China Bio news release, August 17, 2018

The China Institute of Electronic predicts that China’s robot market size will reach $ 8.74 billion this year. Of this, 6.23 billion USD are in industrial robots and 1.84 billion USD in service robots, 670 million USD are on special robots such as disaster robots. The strongest growth of 44 % is in the service robot market which is expected to exceed 4 billion dollars in 2020.

Japan JST China news release, August 17, 2018

The center led by Francis CHAN aims to unravel the role of the gut microbiota in human health, and to develop novel strategies for disease prevention and intervention. Microbiota transplantation will also be studied in conditions such as obesity and metabolic syndrome. The medical faculty established a gut microbiota biobank in March 2016 to provide quality-assured frozen microbiota solution for microbiota transplantation. So far, over 80 microbiota transplantations were done, mostly in view of life-threatening gastrointestinal diseases.

CAS news release, August 13, 2018

A research team led by Professor YU Shuhong developed a new technology combining ice crystal induced self-assembly and thermal curing. Based on traditional phenolic and melamine resins, a series of products with wood-like tunnel structures were developed. Bionic artificial wood has the advantages of light weight, high strength, corrosion resistance and fire insulation.

CAS news release, August 13, 2018

Moutai, brewn in Guizhou by the Moutai Group is a typical representative of traditional Chinese brewing. The company has now entered into academic research with Jiangnan University (Academician CHEN Jian) to apply microbiology research and solid-state process optimization on higher standards and quality control of this traditional drink. BGI’s chairman WANG Jian signed as well into a long-term strategic cooperation on industrial microbiology and medical big data.

China Bio news release, August 10, 2018

On August 5, 1987, China successfully launched the ninth returning satellite. In addition to completing the established scientific research tasks, the satellite was also equipped with peppers, wheat, and Seeds such as rice. Since then, nearly 70 experiments were carried out on more than 6,000 germplasm resources selecting 230 species from crops, vegetables and flowers. It was observed that space breeding could change the color, flowering period, resistance, etc. of a crop. For example, lilies could grow up to two meters high. China’s first Space Breeding Germplasm Resources Research Center and Genetic Resource Bank will no be built in Yangling, Shaanxi prefecture, and tree seed breeding will play an important role.

China Bio news release, August 9, 2018

A team around YAO Maosheng has collected samples of air from 19 cities in 13 countries (4 from China) and analyzed the particulate matter (PM) using molecular technology. The analysis revealed 30 different types of ARGs that make bacteria resistant to seven types of antibiotics. ARGs resistant to vancomycin, one of the most effective antibiotics, were found in the air of six cities. The research showed that airborne transmission of ARGs might contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance. The research serves as a reference for comprehensive and effective prevention and control of antibiotic-resistant infections.

CAS news release, August 9, 2018

According to the China Industry and Information Department, China will stepwise employ a nationwide IPv6 internet protocol.

(1) By 2018, it will form a market-driven excellent development environment, and the number of IPv6 active users reaches 200 million people,

(2) By 2020, a market-driven excellent development environment is gradually established, and the number of IPv6 active users exceeds 500 million. The new web address does not use personal IPv4 addresses any longer,

(3) By 2025, China’s IPv6 network scale, user size, traffic volume scale will be the world’s largest. Network, applications, and terminals fully support IPv6, and complete the flat evolution and upgrade to the next generation network.

Currently China’s IPv6 users are only 3% of the total, 70th in the world.

Japan JST China news, August 9, 2018

The group of TAN Anjiang at the CAS Institute of Plant and Plant Science has used gene-site replacement to express spider silk proteins in silk gland and silkworm pupa. The sgroup used TALEN technology to completely knock out the fibroin heavy chain (FibH) coding region and integrated a DNA fragment containing part of the spider silk gene. The expression of spider silk protein was up to 35.2%, much higher copared to reported transgenic methods (0.3-3%). Since the transferred spider silk protein fragment has a small molecular weight (about 70 kDa), the chimeric spider silk obtained this time has a decrease in strength compared with the control silk, but has a remarkable improvement in ductility.

CAS news release, August 8, 2918

LIN Haibo’s team of Jilin University School of Chemistry have reported the preparation of high-performance battery-grade carbon materials from rice husks, and used this material to develop cost-effective lead-carbon batteries. Reportedly they have built a 100-ton supercapacitor carbon and a 1000-ton battery carbon production line. Compared with ordinary lead-acid batteries, the lead carbon battery had a 6 times higher life cycle of, an 8 times faster charging speed of, 3fold discharge power, and could be produced at low cost.

China Bio news release, August 8, 2018

The laboratory will have 5 strategic cooperation centers, with Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Kei East and Huawei.

Japan JST China news, August 7, 2018