News on China's scientific and technological development.

China's first petaflop supercomputer to be fully assembled in late August


"Technician tests Tianhe-1 (TH-1) supercomputer at north China's Tianjin, Dec. 25, 2009. The supercomputer, named Tianhe (meaning Milky Way), is theoretically able to do more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second at peak speed, which was already partly installed in Tianjin." (Source: Xinhua)



"China's first petaflop supercomputer to be fully assembled in late August
17:14, August 06, 2010

The main components of the "Tianhe-1," China's first domestically-made petaflop supercomputer, have been transported to Binhai District in Tianjin, and the computer is expected to be fully assembled in late August, according to the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin on Aug. 5.

Three subsystems for computing, accessing the Internet, and input/output have reached Tianjin and are currently being installed. In addition, the supporting systems of cooling and power supply are ready for use. The "Tianhe-1" will be completely debugged after it is fully assembled, and if everything goes smoothly, it will be put into operation within 2010.

The "Tianhe-1" was successfully developed by the Changsha-based National University of Defense Technology in 2009, and China thus became the world's second country capable of developing petaflop supercomputers, only after the United States.

The "Tianhe-1" was ranked fifth on the list of the Top-500 supercomputers issued in November 2009. One–second calculations conducted by "Tianhe-1" are equivalent to 88 consecutive years of calculations by 1.3 billion people, and the data that the supercomputer can store is equivalent to the sum of the collections in four national libraries, each holding 27 million books.

The "Tianhe-1" will mainly be used for animation rendering, biomedical research, aerospace equipment development, processing of resource exploration and satellite remote sensing data, data analysis for financial engineering, weather forecasts, new materials development and design and theoretical calculations in general science."



"China's fastest supercomputer to have China-made chips
10:01, March 09, 2010

China's fastest supercomputer "Tianhe-1," ("Tianhe" meaning Milky Way), is to be equipped this year with China-made central processing unit (CPU) chips, replacing the only part of the computer that is currently imported.

Zhang Yulin, president of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) which developed the computer, told Xinhua Monday that the chips, also developed by the NUDT, are customized for this supercomputer.

"The new CPUs will greatly raise the peak speed and computing efficiency of 'Tianhe-1'," Zhang said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature now meeting in Beijing.

"Tianhe-1," unveiled in October last year, could rival the world's most powerful computers. Theoretically, it is capable of more than one quadrillion calculations per second when operating at peak speed.

Experts note that one day's task for "Tianhe-1" might take 160 years for a mainstream dual-core personal computer to complete."

1,000 Genomes Project releases first phase data


"1000 Genomes - A Deep Catalog of Human Genetic Variation"



"1,000 Genomes Project releases first phase data
10:00, June 22, 2010

The 1,000 Genomes Project, which aims to produce an extensive catalog of human genetic variations, started to release data from a pilot phase Monday.

The project, a collaboration started in 2008 among research groups in the U.S., the United Kingdom, China and Germany, would support medical research and throw new light on human evolution, said Wang Jun, project coordinator of the Chinese party and also deputy head of the Shenzhen Branch of the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).

More than 50 trigabites of 8,000 billion base pairs of human DNA had been mapped and included in a public database, he said.

Researchers could gain free access to the data through three websites, including the 1,000 Genomes website (), Wang said.

When completed, the database would contain human genetic information from the genomes of 2,500 people from 27 populations around the world.

BGI is responsible for mapping the genomes of 400 people of Mongoloid races and participants from the African populations.

Wang said the pilot project phase comprised three parts:

-- detailed comprehensive mapping of the genomes of six people from two core families;

-- less detailed comprehensive mapping of the genomes of 179 people;

-- mapping of the 1,000 genome exon (a DNA sequence that codes information for protein synthesis) of 700 people.

The results helped to evaluate the efficiency and effect of different mapping strategies. They will also help researchers to look closer at the genomes associated with human diseases.

Source:Xinhua"

Here's English translated version of the straddling bus video.

AssassinsMace said:

Here's English translated version of the straddling bus video.

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One way of improving safety is to have a shorter bus and to only allow the passing through of cars when the bus is picking up passengers. Signal lights at the back of the bus would help with traffic directions.

China celebrates 20 years in the international commercial launch business


"AsiaSat 1 successfully lifts off from Xichang, China on 7 April 1990."


The original AsiaSat 1 launched in 1990.


This is the latest AsiaSat 5 communications satellite.


AsiaSat engineering team.



"AsiaSat Joins Long March Users’ Conference in Xichang Marking the 20th Anniversary of the Launch of AsiaSat 1
(AsiaSatLink, April 2010)

Twenty years ago on 7 April 1990 at 9:30 p.m. Beijing time, AsiaSat 1, AsiaSat’s first regional satellite for Asia, was successfully launched from Xichang, China aboard a Long March 3 launch vehicle. This historic success not only marked the coming of age of satellite communications in Asia, but also the beginning of China’s commercial launch service to the international market.

To commemorate this historic moment, China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), the launch service provider of the Long March rocket, hosted a celebration dinner on the evening of 7 April and the Long March Users’ Conference on the following day, inviting guests from the world’s leading satellite operators, manufacturers and aerospace insurers and brokers to Xichang to celebrate this very special occasion and to further explore future cooperation opportunities with the China aerospace industry.

AsiaSat's Chief Executive Officer Peter Jackson was invited to deliver a speech at the celebration dinner. In his address, Mr. Jackson expressed great appreciation for CGWIC’s excellent service and tremendous support in the launch of AsiaSat 1. The successful launch of AsiaSat 1, Asia’s first private regional satellite, by the Long March rocket placed AsiaSat in the forefront of Asian satellite television and created a new era for the Asian satellite communications history.

Other AsiaSat representatives attending the event included Dr. Ya Hui Chiu, General Manager, Operations, who was also AsiaSat’s principal technical representative for the AsiaSat 1 launch; Zhang Hai Ming, General Manager, China; and Tik Yau, Manager, Satellite Control Centre."

Physicists find new method to probe neutrino magnetic effects


"Kuo-sheng Nuclear Power Plant where scientists from Taiwan and mainland China are performing low-energy neutrino experiments"


"Underground neutrino detector viewed from above." (File picture; for illustration purpose only)



"Physicists find new method to probe neutrino magnetic effects
2010/08/10 18:43:30

Taipei, Aug. 10 (CNA) A local research team has recently discovered a new method to detect possible neutrino electromagnetic interaction, a discovery that will increase experimental sensitivity by more than 100 times, a researcher with Taiwan's top research institute Academia Sinica said Tuesday.

"The new method has raised the sensitivity of the study of neutrino magnetic moments, which can promote future research in particle physics and cosmology, " said team leader Henry Tsz-king Wong, a research fellow for the Institute of Physics at Academia Sinica. He described neutrino magnetic moments as a scientific term used to indicate possible neutrino electromagnetic interaction.

"The feature of the new method is that we unveiled a mechanism of atomic ionization for the detection of neutrino magnetic moments and demonstrated great enhancement in sensitivity," said Wong.

The researchers also used data made available by the Kuo-Sheng Reactor Neutrino Laboratory in northern Taiwan.

Future studies about demonstrating the existence of the "neutrino magnetic moments, " as well as for monitoring low radiation at the reactor neutrino lab and many other fields will benefit from the new method, Wong said.

"This innovative concept was received with intense interest by the international scientific community. Data analyses and experimental projects exploiting this idea are being planned in other laboratories, " said Wong, who was a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) from 1992 to 1996.

The findings were published in the Physical Review Letters journal Aug. 2. (By Sunnie Chen)"

"Taiwan doctors find possible way to treat brain cancer"


Challenge: How to transfer drugs past the blood-brain barrier?



"New procedure shows promise for treating brain tumors
By Rachel Bernstein, Los Angeles Times
August 10, 2010

In a study on rats, researchers use magnets, ultrasound and tiny particles to deliver chemotherapy drugs to precise locations. Clinical trials on humans are at least four to five years away.

Patients with brain tumors don't have many good options — surgery and radiation can damage crucial parts of the brain, and chemotherapy drugs don't easily cross the blood-brain barrier. A new procedure using magnets, ultrasound and minuscule drug-coated particles may be an effective solution, according to a study on rats published in Tuesday's edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, led by Dr. Kuo-Chen Wei of Chang Gung University in Taiwan, injected tiny magnetic beads called nanoparticles, coated with a chemotherapy drug, into the rats' tails. They used ultrasound to open up a small region of the blood-brain barrier and a magnetic field to attract the particles to a precise location in the brain.

When they applied the treatment to rats with brain tumors, the tumor growth was slowed and the rats lived two-thirds longer than untreated rats.

"The technology's not very difficult," Wei said, "but the idea is novel."

Clinical trials in human beings are at least four to five years away, he added.

Brain tumors are difficult to treat with traditional drug delivery methods because the brain is insulated from circulating blood. Focused ultrasound — similar to, but much stronger than, the ultrasound technique used on pregnant women — temporarily disrupts the barrier, allowing drugs to enter.

Once the drugs get into the brain, they should ideally be delivered to a precise location to cut down on the damage to healthy tissue. This report is the first in which magnetic targeting was combined with ultrasound to attract the nanoparticles — and their drug passengers — to a specific part of the brain.

"The method has significant clinical potential," said Dr. Kullervo Hynynen of the University of Toronto Medical School, who conducts similar research but was not involved in the new study.

Wei and his team are working to improve the treatment so they can apply it to human patients. He said they needed to try additional chemotherapy drugs and nanoparticle types, as well as improve the ultrasound and magnetic-targeting technology.

Still, some scientists worry that opening the blood-brain barrier to allow powerful chemicals into the brain is too dangerous.

"The potential for toxicity in normal brain regions could cause all kinds of problems," said Allan David, a drug delivery researcher at the University of Michigan. "I think it's an interesting study, but it's still far from clinical studies."

Some of the danger of opening the blood-brain barrier may be avoided by combining Wei's approach with a type of drug that is activated only upon reaching the tumor, David said, so that healthy brain tissue is left unharmed."

Quickie said:

Now, why do some people/media give the impression that China lacks scientific and engineering talents. :nono:

I have come across quite a number news report (Chinese sources, of course) that says otherwise. Here is one of them for a start.


China publishes most scientific theses in 2007: Engineering index

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2008-12-09 16:56:45 Print

BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- China published 78,200 Ei-indexed theses in 2007, overtaking the United States for the first time to be the world's number one, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) said here Tuesday.

The Ei theses are scientific and technical ones indexed by the U.S. based Engineering Index.

ISTIC statistics also showed, the number of Chinese theses indexed by the Science Citation Index (SCI) topped 94,800 in 2007,7.5 percent of the world's total, ranking third after the United States and Britain.

China's theses indexed by the Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings (ISTP) were 45,300, 10,1 percent of the world's total and the second among all countries.

Most of the theses were on disciplines such as chemistry, computer science, physics, materials science, telecommunication, automatic control, biology, dynamics and electronics, mathematics, architecture and geography.


Editor: Deng Shasha

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]

Now, why do some people/media give the impression that China lacks scientific and engineering talents.

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It could be because in the 110 year history of Nobel Prizes and with 1.3 Billion Chinese, mainland China has never won a Nobel prize.

noname said:

]

It could be because in the 110 year history of Nobel Prizes and with 1.3 Billion Chinese, mainland China has never won a Nobel prize.

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Some of the Chinese American Nobel Prize winners were born in China.

List of Ethnic Chinese Nobel laureates


"Chinese American Nobel Prize Winner Yang Chen Ning Delivers Speech
NANJING, CHINA - OCTOBER 30: (CHINA OUT) Chinese American Nobel Prize laureate of physics, Chen Ning Yang (L) attends a launching ceremony of an education base at the Southeast University on October 30, 2006 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China.

In this photo: Chen Ning Yang
Photo: China Photos/Getty Images
Oct 30, 2006"



"The list shows ethnic Chinese Nobel laureates listed under their place of birth. The list is summarized from the Nobel Prize website[1]

↓ Name↓.....Country↓.....Field↓.....Year↓

1 Charles K. Kao.....China.....Physics.....2009[2]
2 Roger Yonchien Tsien.....United States.....Chemistry.....2008[3]
3 Gao Xingjian.....China.....Literature.....2000[4]
4 Daniel C. Tsui.....China.....Physics.....1998[5]
5 Steven Chu.....United States.....Physics.....1997[6]
6 Yuan T. Lee.....Taiwan (ROC).....Chemistry.....1986[7]
7 Samuel C. C. Ting.....United States..... Physics.....1976[8]
8 Chen Ning Yang.....China.....Physics.....1957[9]
9 Tsung-Dao Lee.....China.....Physics.....1957[9]"

[Note: At this very moment, I'm leaving out-of-state for two weeks. I have a few more posts planned for this thread. I will see all of you in September. Enjoy your summer everyone.]