China in Africa

An exascale computer is able to execute a quintillion calculations (10³⁰) per second. There is presently strong competition among the USA, Japan and China on the development of such machines. China on Sunday put into operation a prototype exascale computing machine, the Sunway exascale computer prototype developed by a team around the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology (NRCPC). The NRCPC had developed Sunway TaihuLight, crowned the world’s fastest computer two years in a row at both the 2016 and 2017 International Supercomputing Conferences held in Frankfurt, Germany. Another prototype exascale supercomputer Tianhe-3 passed the acceptance tests on July 22. Its final version is expected to come out in 2020.

CAS news release, August 7, 2018

The lower imports can be realized by popularizing low-protein feed, raising imports of soymeal substitutes such as meal from rapeseed, cotton and sunflower seeds and palm kernels and boosting domestic production. Soybean demand from China’s breeding industry is already weakening, as China is promoting the application of low-protein feed technology in raising pigs and chickens. Pork output and quality is not affected by lowering the share of protein in animal feed if four specific amino acids can be added at different stages of animal growth. Experts say that China had sufficient amino acid production capacity, and using low-protein feed formula could reduce the country’s demand for soymeal by 5 to 7 percent, equivalent to about 5 million tonnes of soybeans. The country can also raise its capacity for self sufficiency with oil-yielding crops. Thus, 4 million hectares of idle arable land and tidal flats in the Yangtze River Basin could be used for planting soybeans. In 2017, China imported about 55m tons of soybean products from the USA, about 57 % of total US exports of this commodity.

CAS news release, August 6, 2018

This railway was China’s first high-speed railway with a design speed of 350 km/h. Based on the request of the former railway department, the speed dropped to 300 km/h in August 2011. The number of round trips is 108.5, the number of passengers is about 82,000 per day. The railway spurred the birth of the “Chinese standard” of high-speed railways.

Japan JST China news, August 2, 2018

In a cooperative effort of teams from CAS SIBS and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Shanghai and the Wuhan Feisha Gene Information Co., a functional single-chromosome yeast was evolved from a Saccharomyces cerevisiae haploid cell containing sixteen linear chromosomes by successive end-to-end chromosome fusions and centromere deletions. The single-chromosome artificial cells had nearly identical transcriptome and similar phenotypical profiles as wild-type yeast,  but exhibited reduced growth and showed some other deficits (article in Nature). The team will further use this organism to study differences between single-chromosome prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms. The present achievement is hailed as a major contribution of scientists in Shanghai to synthetic biology, after the chemical synthesis of bovine insulin and tRNA in the 1960ies

CAS news release, August 2, 2018

Whereas the effect of amino acids as feed additives is well studied in monogastric animals, less is known about their effects in ruminants such as goats. ZHU Xiaoli thus studied the effects of supplementation of methionine and lysine on nutrients digestion and serum parameters in growing goats. When twenty growing goats were randomly assigned to 4 kinds of diets with different levels of methionine and lysine, mRNA expressions of related amino acid sensing and transporting genes changed in parts of the intestine, as did protein synthesis and serum amino acids profiles.  The findings will be used for improving animal production through regulation of amino acid composition in feed.

CAS news release, August 1, 2018

Since being a member of UNESCO’s „Man and the Biosphere“ MAB program for 40 years, China claims the registration of 34 biosphere protected areas placing it 4th in the world. Surveys have changed from patrol workers to drones and IR cameras, e. g., for registration of snow leopards in Sichuan Province. This year feces, hair, etc. will be collected in order to identify the DNA, gender etc. of individual snow leopards, analyzing their food composition, in order to understand the overall situation for snow leopard survival.

Japan JST China news, August 1, 2018

The group of Tianling REN at the school of information science and technology of Tsinghua University has developed a graphen-based electronic tattoo which can be used for detecting multiple functions such as breathing, heart rate, sleep analysis and vocalization. The team applied graphene oxide by wet stripping and reduced it to graphene by laser irradiation, resulting in an ultra-thin layer which could be personalized as a tattoo during the irradiation process. The graphene layers respond to the stretching and compression of the skin surface resulting in changes of electric resistance for readout devices. In addition to skin, graphene tattoo were transferred to other substrates such as leaves, and silk.

Tsinghua University news release, July 31, 2018

In pursuit of China’s plan to promote the establishment of a polar commercial route, the polar vessel “Snow Dragon” arrived on July 30 at the Arctic Circle and raised China’s flag. The crew carried out observation activities such as marine weather, marine hydrological messages, marine environmental radionuclides, etc., and launched the underwater glider “sea wing” for the first time in the Bering Sea.

Japan JST China news, July 31, 2018

The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kyoto University and the China Science and Technology Information Research Institute have succeeded in the joint development of a Chinese-Japanese scientific technology paper translation system. The translatable proportion reached 97%. Both sides first constructed a high quality medium-to-medium language material bank of more than 5 million phrases based on scientific technology papers and then learned these data using a neural network translation engine developed by Japanese scientists.

Japan JST China news July 31, 2018

The group of CAO Yu used the capsid protein (HaCP) of Baculovirus expressed by E. coli and found by cryo-electron microscopy that a variety of exogenous proteins expressed at the N-terminus of HaCP could be directly fused and displayed on the outer surface. HaCP had two forms of assembly in vitro: one with a small diameter named N-tube, and another with a relatively large diameter, named W-tube. The N-tube is a helical structure similar to the TMV capsid, with 111/3 protein subunits arranged in a spiral along each circle. The W-tube is a stack of disc structures consisting of 12 protein subunits with a 11.25° rotation between adjacent discs. The interaction between the HaCP nanotube subunits was tunable, leading to high flexibility of the resulting nanotubes. HaCP nanotubes thus allow to accommodate larger guest compounds compared to assembled subunits of TMVs and thus might be  evolved into nanoscale functional molecules.

CAS news release, July 30, 2018

LIU Feng and WANG Chao of the CAS Institute of Mechanics propose a theoretical framework to make use of electrical conductivity of 3D graphene foams. They combined a model of conductance between graphene sheets with a second model of the network structure of 3D graphene foams as studied by molecular dynamics simulation, and extracted geometric features such as average contact areas and contact densities. They found that as the number of layers of graphene sheets increases, the conductivity first increases and then decreases, an observation which now will be exploited experimentally.

CAS news release, July 30, 2018

A group around Xuetong ZHANG at CAS Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO)  has developed a novel type of smart fibre by combination of graphene aerogel fibre, phase change material (PCM) and fluorocarbon (FC) resin coating. The fibre is flexible and self-cleaning, it responds to multi-stimuli (photo/electric/heat), and is capable of thermal energy conversion and storage. It could be woven into fabric with intelligent and integrative functions and holds promise for applications in wearable fabrics and portable electrical devices.

CAS news release, June 28, 2018

Interdigital micro-supercapacitors are a promising miniaturized energy source. A research team led by WU Zhongshuai and BAO Xinhe from the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has reported a new-type of all-solid-state flexible planar lithium ion micro-capacitors. They were fabricated via layer-by-layer mask-assisted deposition of graphene (EG) and electrode materials, without metal current collector, additive and polymer binder. The resulting patterns of sandwich-like electrode structures showed outstanding uniformity, mechanical flexibility, and high electrical conductivity. Cycling stability was 98.9% of capacitance retention after 6000 cycles, and there was high electrochemical stability at 80 °C.

CAS news release, June 28, 2018

According to a post of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), jointly issued with the Ministry of Finance, China will rapidly expand the present number of 220 national key laboratories. Major efforts will be made in research fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, geoscience, biology and medical science, and in cutting-edge fields such as stem cells, synthetic biology, and brain science. By 2025, China will have completed its national key laboratory system, boosting its scientific research level and international influence.

 CAS news release, June 27, 2018

The leading food delivery company has started an unmanned delivery service in Beijing by a vehicle called小袋v2. Speed of the vehicle is 20 km/h, and the box is equipped with a highly sensitive temperature control system. Furthermore, even under complicated road conditions, obstacles can be automatically avoided and routes can be automatically planned.

Japan JST China news, July 27, 2018