News on China's scientific and technological development.

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Xie Jialin (L) and Wu Liangyong

Two names were added to the list of the country's top science and technology award winners on Tuesday. They were 92-year-old physicist Xie Jialin and 90-year-old Wu Liangyong, an architect and expert in urban planning.

Like their 18 predecessors, their age testifies to the contributions they have made in their fields and their whole-hearted devotion to their professions.

Their painstaking and life-long efforts are well worth such acclaim.

The national science and technology award was initiated in 2000 to pay tribute to those who have made outstanding achievements in scientific research and technological innovation. It was meant to encourage more scientists to devote themselves to the advancement of the country's technological capability.

However, in striking contrast to the great honor Xie and Wu have received, an ex-candidate for the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences was tried in Beijing on Tuesday for embezzling public funds intended for scientific research.

Given the bureaucratization of our institutions of higher learning and the increasing tendency among scholars and researchers to seek fame and fortune, the example of these veteran scientists, who have dedicated themselves to their research without bothering about money and fame, can never be overemphasized.

Qian Xuesen (1911-2009), the father of China's aerospace achievements, lamented in his late years the inability of this country's institutions of higher learning to produce great scientists.

Great minds always see beyond immediate personal gain. But nowadays, many of our professors and researchers get entangled in the pursuit of higher academic titles or seek extra money by acting as business advisors.

Some even resort to plagiarizing research papers or become obsessed with connections in order to get immediate success. In their mind's eye, research is nothing but the means for fame and material rewards.

Should young scientists learn anything from the top award winners like Xie and Wu, it is their never-say-die spirit and their disregard for fame and money, which has enabled these great minds to pursue their research regardless of what they will receive in return for their efforts.

While we hold these top science award winners in reverence, we need to bear in mind that those who always view research through the prism of expediency will never produce anything that will be of benefit to the country.

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Im not disputing the merits on awarding this scientist this award but to have to go so far back to find someone worthy enough of the award in China is rather telling.




.".........In 2011, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, one of the top honors for life sciences with many awardees going on to win the Nobel Prize, went to the Chinese medical scientist Tu Youyou for the discovery of a new malaria drug that has saved millions of lives in the developing world. The work, however, was achieved during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when money was scarce and scientists were under attack."

bladerunner said:

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Im not disputing the merits on awarding this scientist this award but to have to go so far back to find someone worthy enough of the award in China is rather telling.

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.".........In 2011, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, one of the top honors for life sciences with many awardees going on to win the Nobel Prize, went to the Chinese medical scientist Tu Youyou for the discovery of a new malaria drug that has saved millions of lives in the developing world. The work, however, was achieved during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when money was scarce and scientists were under attack."

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i read the article from chinadaily. it seems that science and innovation in China is big problem.
As i'am not good on this, i'll let to Vesicles to comment it.

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A total of 1.75 billion yuan ($280 million) was invested in China's independent nuclear research and development in 2011, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said on Tuesday.

Sun Qin, general manager of the CNNC, said the corporation saw investment in research and development rise 20 percent on the 2010 level.

After years of efforts, the CNNC's work in the field is bearing fruit, with successes including China's first fast reactor, advanced uranium enrichment technology and nuclear power technology, Sun added.

"We are now importing and learning nuclear power technology of the third generation," Sun said. "Based on such skills and accumulated experience, we aim to innovate and develop more advanced and safer nuclear power technology with Chinese intellectual property."

Established in 1991, Qinshan nuclear power plant, China's first nuclear power plant and designed solely by the CNNC, has been in safe operation for 20 years. By November 2011, it had generated 40.5 billion kWh of electricity, equivalent to saving 16 million tons of standard coal.

After Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis, the CNNC started further bolstering safety, Sun said.

bladerunner said:

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Im not disputing the merits on awarding this scientist this award but to have to go so far back to find someone worthy enough of the award in China is rather telling.

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Please please please keep underestimating Chinese people. It helps us a lot! Thanks!

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China will develop rare-earth-based new materials during the 2011-2015 period, in an effort to boost manufacturing capacity, according to a five-year plan for the new materials industry released on Wednesday.

The government will "make full use of its rare earth resources to expand the industrial scale of new materials made with rare earth," said the publication by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The government will focus on developing rare earth functional materials, increasing efforts to improve performances of new materials made with rare earth, promote its application in high-end manufacturing, and increase product added-value, the plan said.

Rare earth metals are a group of 17 elements that are widely used in high-tech products, including flat-screen televisions, lasers and hybrid cars.

The plan aims to promote the application rate of production technologies for rare earth functional materials to 70 percent in the country's high-tech industries by 2015, it said.

It also set goals to increase the output capacity for rare earth permanent magnet materials by 20,000 tonnes a year and that of rare earth hydrogen-containing alloy powder by 15,000 tonnes a year.

Rare earth permanent magnet materials, which have rare earth elements in their composition, are widely used in electrical motors, medical treatment and spaceflight, while hydrogen-containing alloy powder is used in high-performance batteries.

The plan also sets higher output goals for a range of other new materials that contain rare earth metals.

Production bases for rare earth functional materials will be mainly built in Beijing, Baotou city in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Ganzhou city in Jiangxi province, Liangshan and Leshan in Sichuan province, Longyan in Fujian province and Ningbo in Zhejiang province, the plan said.

While pledging policy supports to accomplish the goals, the plan also stresses efforts to protect energy resources and promote integrated utilization by developing reproducible resource technologies.

China's rare earth sales account for nearly 90 percent of the global total, but its reserves only account for one-third of the world's total. Decades of excessive exploitation has resulted in serious environmental damage.

To promote healthy development of the industry, China has suspended the issuance of new licenses for prospecting and mining and adopted production caps, export quotas and stringent environmental standards, while launching crackdowns on illegal mining activities.

China set the 2012 rare earth export quota at basically the same level of 2011. Its rare earth exports totaled 14,750 tonnes during the first 11 months of 2011, accounting for only 49 percent of the total quota.

The plan, which maps out development of the nation's new material industry, prioritizes the development of six types of advanced materials, including special metal functional materials, high-end metal structural materials, advanced macromolecular materials, new inorganic non-metal materials, high performance composite materials and frontier new materials.

The plan targets a 2-trillion-yuan output in the country's new material industry by 2015. The industry's output value stood at 650 billion yuan in 2010, growing by an annual rate of 20 percent since 2005.

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Samsung smartphones. The South Korean company became the leading brand in the
Chinese smartphone market in the last quarter of last year.

The smartphone market in China underwent a major shakeup in the fourth quarter of last year. Samsung knocked Nokia off the No. 1 spot in the world's largest mobile phone market, while Apple slipped for a second straight quarter to the fifth place, reports our sister newspaper the China Times.

The number of mobile phone users in China is expected to exceed 1 billion this year. Squeezing into the top places in the China market therefore signifies success in the global battleground.

According to a survey by technology research firm Gartner, in the last quarter of 2011, Samsung took 24.3% of the market, while Nokia occupied 19.6%, less than half its share in the first quarter. Local brands Huawei and ZTE expanded their share and surpassed Apple as the third and fourth biggest-selling brands in China, with 12.6% and 11.1% of the market, respectively.

In the last quarter of last year, Apple just beat Samsung with shipments of 37 million iPhone 4 handsets, returning to the first place in the global smartphone market. However, it lost ground to cheaper local brands in China from a market share of 10.4% to 7.5%, falling to fifth place. The US company has struggled with a lawsuit from a local company over the rights to the "iPad" trademark as well as controversies over alleged low wages and poor working conditions at its main supplier's factories in China.

By contrast, Samsung saw significant progress in China with its high-end Galaxy S2 device and low-price smartphones. Chinese brands are also gradually moving towards the higher end of the market with handsets that boast more features. ZTE had a 3% market share in the first quarter of last year, but ended 2011 with a surge to 11.1%.

"Chinese handset brands have been actively promoting their smartphones with the three major telecom operator in China, so we saw ZTE and Huawei gain significant market share," CK Lu, analyst at Taipei-based Gartner, told Reuters.

Price has been an obstacle for Apple in China. Jaysesh Easwaramony, analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Singapore told Reuters, the simple rule of thumb in China is the price of a smartphone has to be about 70% of the average monthly salary. However, an iPhone costs more than two month's salary, he said.

bladerunner said:

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Im not disputing the merits on awarding this scientist this award but to have to go so far back to find someone worthy enough of the award in China is rather telling.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.".........In 2011, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, one of the top honors for life sciences with many awardees going on to win the Nobel Prize, went to the Chinese medical scientist Tu Youyou for the discovery of a new malaria drug that has saved millions of lives in the developing world. The work, however, was achieved during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when money was scarce and scientists were under attack."

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If they go even further back to ancient Chinese Medical practices and medicine there would have been a hall by itself for the Chinese alone. The Nobel prizes is only about 100 years old and it doesn't equates to other countries discoveries and merits. I'm sure the Egyptian deserved a lot for their contribution for engineering and chemical for mummification.

Equation said:

If they go even further back to ancient Chinese Medical practices and medicine there would have been a hall by itself for the Chinese alone. The Nobel prizes is only about 100 years old and it doesn't equates to other countries discoveries and merits. I'm sure the Egyptian deserved a lot for their contribution for engineering and chemical for mummification.

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thats not my point though. The reason why I introduced the article was to support point that Qian Xuesen was making. I think he was questioning the motivational force behind todays scientists. Still if you have good reason to believe that he was a silly uppity old fart who hadnt changed with the times, then ill withdraw my comment.

bladerunner said:

thats not my point though. The reason why I introduced the article was to support point that Qian Xuesen was making. I think he was questioning the motivational force behind todays scientists. Still if you have good reason to believe that he was a silly uppity old fart who hadnt changed with the times, then ill withdraw my comment.

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Scientists can innovate and regardless of the political or social system so long as there are no punitive strikes for their effort. There is a belief prevailing among even the elite that the practice of not questioning the elders in institutions instead of non-conforming stifles innovations. I think this is nonsense. There are other motivations at play and it need not be even financial.

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bladerunner said:

thats not my point though. The reason why I introduced the article was to support point that Qian Xuesen was making. I think he was questioning the motivational force behind todays scientists. Still if you have good reason to believe that he was a silly uppity old fart who hadnt changed with the times, then ill withdraw my comment.

Click to expand...

Scientists can innovate and regardless of the political or social system so long as there are no punitive strikes for their effort. There is a belief prevailing among even the elite that the practice of not questioning the elders in institutions instead of non-conforming stifles innovations. I think this is nonsense. There are other motivations at play and it need not be even financial.

t2contra said:

Scientists can innovate and regardless of the political or social system so long as there are no punitive strikes for their effort. There is a belief prevailing among even the elite that the practice of not questioning the elders in institutions instead of non-conforming stifles innovations. I think this is nonsense. There are other motivations at play and it need not be even financial.

---------- Post added at 02:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:22 PM ----------



Scientists can innovate and regardless of the political or social system so long as there are no punitive strikes for their effort. There is a belief prevailing among even the elite that the practice of not questioning the elders in institutions instead of non-conforming stifles innovations. I think this is nonsense. There are other motivations at play and it need not be even financial.

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Hmmm I think it was vesicles who a few yrs ago said that its been a long time since science has experienced a quantum leap forward or something like that.

I wonder if a country can make that happen and if so would china be up to it? Or its just luck when nature throws up bunch of super duper brainy people. At this moment, there might be one in the womb of some Palestinian refugee this very moment.

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A worker works at the solar module workshop of the Eoplly New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.
in Nantong City, east China's Jiangsu Province

German enterprise is fighting back against cheap Chinese photovoltaic imports, with the German Photovoltaics Industry Union seeking to file anti-dumping and anti-subsidy charges against Chinese PV producers with the European Union.

German media cited Frank Asbeck, chief executive officer of Solar World AG, as saying that Chinese PV makers are dumping their products onto the German market at a price that is 30 percent lower than those made by local companies.

Competition from China has battered the local PV industry; German solar battery maker Solon SE and Solar Millennium AG have already filed for bankruptcy, unable to compete with lower production costs in China.

That might play well with EU decision makers in Brussels.

Solar World is said to be the major force driving U.S. PV firms to launch anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese firms.

A group of 14 Chinese PV companies including Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE:STP) and Yingli Green Energy Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE:YGE) have rejected those complaints.

Jiangsu-based Suntech, which is expected to sell almost 70 percent of its output to Germany this year according to industry website china5e.com, stands to suffer a huge blow if the German claims are supported by the EU.

Since the current discussion is on the Nobel Prize, this news may be relevant.



English.news.cn 2012-02-24 14:23:13

BEIJING, Feb. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Andreas Dress believes it won't be long before a person from China is awarded a Nobel Prize for science.

"I am pretty sure Chinese people will get a Nobel Prize for work done in China within the next 10 years," said the 74-year-old German mathematician.

He even has a candidate and specific achievement in mind.

"One person in China who currently deserves a Nobel Prize is Dr Chen Zhu. And there will be others to follow," Dress said.

Chen, who has a doctorate from the Universite Paris 7, has worked with French colleagues such as medical expert Hugues de The and has made outstanding breakthroughs in leukemia therapy.

Dress and Hugues de The are two of the eight foreign recipients of the 2011 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award. They received the top honor at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Feb 14.

Dress is well known in pure mathematics research and numerous application areas. He served as the first managing director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences-Max Planck Gesellschaft Partner Institute for Computational Biology from 2005 to 2010.

Dress learned of Chen Zhu's work on China Central Television's English channel in 2007. That year, Chen was appointed the country's minister of health.

Dress saw that as a step forward for China.

The lack of recognition has to do with the one-sidedness of the Nobel committee, Dress said. Before World War I, Germans dominated Nobel awards. After many German scientists fled to the United States because of the Nazis, the Americans, with their own rapid development, were put in charge of recommending Nobel laureates, a practice that continues today.

Dress said producing indigenous Chinese Nobel winners will help change how scientists' successes are measured in China. He noted that those holding degrees from foreign universities tend to receive more respect than their peers who have always studied in China.

"People should be judged by their work, not by where they studied. The scientific community should respect scientists and make it clear that research done in China can also be highly valued," he said.

The quality of science research in China is as good as anywhere else in the world, particularly in the field of mathematics, Dress said.

"The main issue today, faced by other nations, too, is how to educate people to be curiosity-driven and use their own brains," he said.

At the award ceremony on Feb 14, Premier Wen Jiabao called for scientists to be rigorous in independent thinking and academic integrity.

China is a victim of widespread academic fraud and scientific misconduct. Dress said "that happens everywhere", including in Germany and North American countries.

People in China are aware of such problems. What needs to be done, not only in China but in other countries as well, is to make it clear that such behavior is unacceptable, and those who cheat should bear the consequences, Dress said.

Citing Wen's interview with Science magazine in 2008, in which scientists were urged to "cultivate scientific ethics", "be bold in innovation and tolerant to failure", Dress said this attitude will relieve Chinese scientists from the pressure to be successful quickly.

(Source: China Daily)