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New Anti-drooping Agent for Rice Crops

Tall rice paddies can increase production, but they can also result in drooping plants and a drop in output. Recently, Chinas annual rice production fell by 10 percent as a consequence of weak and damaged rice stalks, and harvesting has also been made more difficult. The new droop-resistant agent developed by the China Agricultural University has finally solved the problem. Mainly utilizing the hormone gibberellin, which strengthens the stalks, the plants are effectively shortened and strengthened, significantly boosting yields.

At present, the new agent has been applied on over 1,300 hectares in 14 provinces, and a team of nearly 40 experts is studying the long-term health of the paddies. According to statistics, with the right application, production can be increased by 5-15 percent.

Solar Power to Provide Electricity to 180,000 Farmers and Herdsmen in Tibet

Tibet Autonomous Region will invest RMB 1.27 billion in building small photovoltaic power stations and distributing adaptable systems to households over the next five years, providing up to 180,000 farmers and herdsmen with electricity.

With nearly year-round sunshine, Tibets direct solar radiation amounts to about 3,400 hours a year. Currently, Tibet has 400 photovoltaic power stations with a total capacity of nearly 9,000 kilowatts. It also plans to expand the power grid and build a series of small hydroelectric power stations to take advantage of the regions many rivers.

Chinas “Brain Pacemaker” Begins Clinical Trials

Professor Li Luming of Tsinghua University and his research team have developed what they call intriguingly a “brain pacemaker.” With the hardware tests and animal trials completed to the satisfaction of international safety standards and norms, the potentially revolutionary device is now set to begin human clinical trials.

The “brain pacemaker,” also known as “deep-brain stimulator” in medical jargon, is a small integrated circuit designed to be implanted in specific regions of the brain, where it emits minute electrical impulses that have been shown to improve the symptoms of Parkinsons disease and epilepsy.

It is a minimally invasive therapy that neither damages brain tissue or nerve cells, nor interferes with ongoing treatments for the same conditions. Critically, it is also low-maintenance, and can be recharged wirelessly, allowing it to continue functioning throughout a patients life.

Chinas First Dragon Chip Supercomputer Is Cheap,Fast, and the Size of a Fridge

Chinas first supercomputer using domestically designed CPU is as small as a refrigerator and capable of performing over 1 trillion operations per second. Equipped with a domestically designed processor chip, the Dragon Chip, or “Long- xin 2F,” it is an advanced configuration arranging 336 chips on one mainframe and using a high-density node design. It is also energy-efficient and inexpensive, with energy consumption at less than six kilowatts per trillion operations and a price tag of merely RMB 750,000.

Prior to now, the central processing units of Chinas supercomputers were all provided by foreign companies, such as IBM, Intel or AMD.

Giant Panda Still Evolving

The lovable giant panda, a Chinese national treasure, has not reached the end of its evolutionary road, according to Chinese scientists. They have demonstrated that the giant panda still has a comparatively high genetic diversity profile, and hence, a lot of unrealized evolutionary potential left. Giant pandas established themselves in southern China between 1 and 2 million years ago, earning them the distinction of being known as “living fossils.”

Using the latest research methods into population genetics, the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has thoroughly mapped the wild giant pandas population genetic diversity and variation, its population genetic structure and gene flow, as well as predicted future population trends. Researchers also found that giant pandas experienced a significant population rise at the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years ago, suggesting that its more recent decline is attributable to human activity and habitat destruction, and not the fickleness of their mating habits, as popularly believed.

Chinese Polar Robots That Skate and Fly

China has successfully tested a pair of robots at the South Pole. The November 2007 trial was conducted jointly by the Shenyang Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Weighing over 200 kilos, the “skating robot” is equipped with triangular anti-skid tracks and mechanical arms adapted for movement on the Antarctic ice sheet. Its resistance to extreme cold and its imperviousness to water allows it to function regardless of weather or surface conditions. A second robot,the20-kilo “low-altitude flying robot,” can fly on a stable course at nearly 160 kilometers an hour at an altitude of 150 meters, making it ideal for weather observation and photographic aerial surveys.

China Leads in Internet Broadband Use

According to the China Internet Development Report, issued by the China International Network Information Center, Chinas broadband users account for 85.9 percent of the countrys domestic network users, with ADSL responsible for 46.5 percent of that figure. In 2007, nearly 40 percent of newly registered users were rural dwellers, while the total number of Chinas Internet users reached 210 million people in the same year, setting China on a course to surpass the U.S. in early 2008. In addition, the number of Chinese domain names reached 11.93 million, with an annual growth of 190.4 percent, and .CN domain names increased fourfold over 2006, to 9 million.

As the network continues to grow rapidly in the countryside, the Internet market is expected to reap immense rewards. Tellingly, Chinas total trading volume via the Internet was RMB 59.4 billion in 2007, a 90.4 percent increase over the 2006 figure of RMB 31.2 billion.