The group of ZHANG Dawei has developed a biosensor which monitors a set of transcriptional regulators responding to intracellular phenylalanine concentrations via a fluorescent signal. The sensor was used to monitor bacteria engineered for overproduction of phenylalanine.

China Bioindustry news release, March 29, 2013

The center contains specimen collected in the South Pacific at depth from 6,500 to 10,900 m depth and will build a unique database for microbial resources and large data.

China Bio news release, March 28, 2017

Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets, also known as white graphene”, has similar properties to graphene, such as excellent mechanical stability and thermal conductivity. Using ultrasonic separation and cheap raw materials, boron nitride nanosheets with an average thickness of about 3 nanometers was prepared at 19% yield.”

China Bio news releae, March 27, 2017

Haiyi (sea wings”) is made from carbon fiber and was built at CAS Shenyang Institute of Automation. It can monitor sea water temperature, salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll and oxygen content. Haiyi does not have a propeller. In its body, there is an oil bag that works like a fish bladder, and a moveable battery.The depth was reached in the Mariana Trench and monitored by the mother ship Tansuo-1. In Oct 2014, Haiyi swam 1,022.5 kilometers nonstop in 30 days during a test.”

CAS news release, March 24, 2017

The plant has been installed at Sinopec’s Zhenhai plant and will start operation in the second half of 2017. Capacity is 100,000 t/y based on waste food and tall oil. According to the International Air Transport Association’s forecast, in 2020 bio kerosene will reach 30% of the total amount of jet fuel. China consumes nearly 20 million tons of aviation fuel annually.

China Bio news release, March 25, 2017

The 1600 m2 center located in Myanmar is under the management of the CAS Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and works on biodiversity projects in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. The English website http://www.seabri.cn introduces the researchers, the progress of field science, the discovery of results, the publication of papers, and the cultivation of talents.

China Bio news release, March 24, 2017

Presently, over 90 % of carbon fibers are prepared from polyacrylonitrile. A team of the Ningbo Institute succeded to prepare a lignin – acrylonitrile copolymer by esterification and free radical copolymerization, with good spinnability and thermal stability.

CAS news release, March 24, 2017

The yet unnamed center will focus on genetic diseases such as diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, malignant tumors and others in view of personalized (precision”) treatment, and the establishment of a genetic database, related to human longevity and intervention. The location is in Hefei’s Chaohu Economic Development Zone”

China Bio news release, March 8, 2017

The group of Hong ZHANG at China’s Third Military Medical University have developed a rapid blood typing test which uses blood-group specific antibodies, bromocresol green as an indicator dye and paper chromatography. When a drop of blood is applied, the results appear as visual color change in the observation window of the paper strip. After analyzing 3,550 clinical blood samples, the test showed a higher than 99.9 % accuracy rate.

CAS news release, March 21, 2017

In the resin, bisphenol A, a petrochemically produced molecule, is substituted by lignin-derived vanillin. The synthesis proceeds in high yield (~ 93.3%) from vanillin and a phosphorous organic compound via diamine coupling to a bisphenol, followed by epichlorohydrin reaction to the epoxide. After curing, the epoxy resin shows a high Tg (~ 214 ° C), a tensile strength (~ 80 MPa) and a modulus (~ 2709 MPa), much higher than the values for bisphenol A epoxy resin.

CAS news release, March 21, 2017

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