News on China's scientific and technological development.

Advantages of overhang rail maglev

Bltizo said:

Whoa the Zhonghua-06 train is hanging off a rail?? That's pretty cool right there.

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Martian said:

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China's light maglev "Zhonghua-06" made debut
UPDATED: 15:41, May 13, 2005

China's light maglev train "Zhonghua-06" made its debut in Dalian (in northeast China's Liaoning Province) on May 11, 2005.

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"Englishman
May 15th, 2005, 01:21 AM
I can see big advantages of overhanging maglevs, though maintanance might be more tricky. Snow, flooding, leaves-on-the-track can all be avoided."

"hkskyline
May 13th, 2005, 08:40 PM
China's first overhang rail maglev train passes test run
13 May 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, May 13 (CEIS) -- The first Chinese-made overhang rail maglev train passed test run on May 12 in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The test train, "Zhonghua No. 6," is designed to run at a top speed of 400 kilometers per hour being overhanged from the track above, unlike other prototypes that are levitated above the rail and propelled forward by magnetic forces.

The new model, completely designed and developed by China itself, is 9.6 meters long, 1.65 meters wide and 1.87 meters high.With a designed transportation capacity of 80,000 passengers and 48,000 tons of cargo per hour, the train is designed for traffic between large and medium-sized cities.

The overhang rail technology applied to "Zhonghua No. 6" is expected to help reduce potential traffic accidents, said Li Lingqun, chief scientist of the team that developed the train.

China's first self-made maglev train "Zhonghua No. 1" made debut in Dalian in October last year after 16 years of research. The train is designed to run at a low speed of less than 110 kilometers per hour for urban traffic."

CNN: China COMAC C919 is 20% less expensive than Airbus A320 and Boeing 737

See the interview for yourself, it starts 16 seconds into the following video:


Boeing China sales vice president - James Simon: "The C919, from my perspective, it will be a good [and] very capable aircraft. The Chinese have the capability to put a man in space and anyone who can put a man in space can build an airplane."



"Chinese passenger jet C919 takes on Boeing and Airbus
China unveils its first domestically produced commercial jet. Here's what the C919 looks like from the inside
By Tiffany Lam 17 November, 2010


Visitors inspect the C919 prototype at an aviation exhibition during the Zhuhai Airshow.

China is taking on the world’s only large commercial aircraft producers Boeing and Airbus with its first homegrown passenger jet, the C919.

The C919, built by state-owned enterprise Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), is a single-aisle commercial liner designed to compete with the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737. It was officially unveiled at the Zhuhai air show in south China on November 16.

Comac claims that they have already received orders for 100 jets from four Chinese domestic airlines Air China, China Southern, China Eastern and Hainan Airlines, as well as the U.S.-owned GE Capital Aviation Service.

No details on the planes' cost or how many planes each company ordered have been made available, although state media reports that the estimated market price for the C919 is 20 percent cheaper than its foreign competitors.

The company expects to sell more than 2,000 C919s globally over the next 20 years.

The 156-seater is 17 meters long, 5.6 meters tall and 3.96 meters wide. The fuselage will bear the Comac name but crucial systems on the inside are produced by Western aviation companies, according to The Age.

The first "9" in the craft's model number stands for “forever,” based on two words’ similar pronunciations in Chinese. The “19” refers to the maximum number of 190 seats on the aircraft.

Test flights for the C919 are set for 2014 and the planes will be delivered in 2016.

Comac added that the C919 hopes to cash in on China’s domestic demand for planes. Some 4,439 commercial jets are expected to be needed in China by the year 2029, constituting 14 percent of the world's demand.


An interior view of the C919 prototype."

Chinese companies are building 19 of the world’s 24 largest hydropower stations




Two Liberian boys holding a picture of Chinese president Hu Jintao (Christopher Herwig)

"China is the country with the highest numbers of dams in the world, and in recent years, Chinese institutions have taken a lead in building dams not just domestically but also abroad. Chinese banks and companies are involved in constructing some 266 dams in 65 different countries, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia, including Kamchay Dam (Cambodia), Mphanda Nkuwa Dam (Mozambique), Merowe Dam (Sudan), and Tasang Dam (Burma). (For more information on these projects, see our case studies.)"


Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L) shakes hands with Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen during a token groundbreaking ceremony of Kamchay hydroelectric dam project in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, on April 8, 2006. [Xinhua Photo]



"China's dam builders clean up overseas
By Peter Bosshard
May 12, 2010
...
Low costs, access to cheap loans and a big portfolio of domestic projects make them attractive partners for clients around the world. We are aware of at least 216 dam projects in 49 countries which have some form of Chinese involvement - and counting. Chinese companies are currently building 19 of the world’s 24 largest hydropower stations. The president of Sinohydro recently estimated that his company controls half of the global hydropower market.

The primary interest of Chinese dam builders in their new "going out" strategy is to win international contracts, which typically have much bigger profit margins than projects in China. Companies such as China Southern Power Grid and Yunnan Joint Power Development Co are also building projects in Myanmar and Laos to supply electricity to the Chinese home market."




Sinohydro builds the Kamchay Dam in Cambodia, 2008 (Marcus Rhinelander)

"China's Leading Hydropower Dam Company

Sinohydro Corporation is China's leading dam builder, having built 70% of China's hydropower capacity. Sinohydro is involved in constructing many...big dams within China, such as China’s Three Gorges Project, Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba on the upper Yangtze River (aka Jinsha River), the Xiaowan dam on the upper Mekong River, the Jinping dam on the Yalong River, and the Laxiwa Dam on the upper Yellow River.

Now, Sinohydro is "going out," building dozens of big dams overseas....Sinohydro's overseas projects include the Merowe Dam in Sudan...and the Bakun Dam.... Sinohydro is also building the Bui Dam in Ghana, and several projects in Laos and Burma, as well as a growing roster of projects in South Asia.

Sinohydro's reach is expanding. The company will likely be a major player in plans to dam the Mekong River in Southeast Asia and the Gibe IV dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia. Sinohydro may seek to build the world's largest hydropower project - the Grand Inga Dam in Congo. In total, Sinohydro is building, plans to build, or has built some 105 dam projects in 47 countries outside of China (as of August 31, 2010; see Sinohydro Projects list)."

Acer Challenges Apple’s iPad, Unveils Three Tablet Computers


Acer tablet PC launching on November 23rd with price ranging from $299 to $699. Acer tablet to be backed with an app store.


PCMagazineReviews: Live from the Acer Tablet Unveiling



"Acer Challenges Apple’s iPad, Unveils Three Tablet Computers
November 23, 2010, 11:37 PM EST
By Hugo Miller and Katie Hoffmann

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Acer Inc., the world’s second-largest computer maker, unveiled a lineup of three tablet devices in a bid to challenge Apple Inc.’s market-leading iPad.

Two of the tablets will be based on Google Inc.’s Android platform and feature 7-inch and 10.1-inch screens, while the third 10.1-inch-display device will run on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software, Taipei-based Acer said in New York yesterday.

Acer, which also makes mobile phones, aims to grab about 10 percent of the market for tablets that bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones such as Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone. Apple demonstrated the appeal of such devices by selling 3 million iPads in the first 80 days after the product debuted in April.

The new tablet computers may appeal to price-sensitive consumers, Angela Hsiang, an analyst with KGI Securities Co. in Taipei, said by telephone. “The debut highlights Acer’s official entry into the tablet computer market,” said Hsiang, who rates the stock “outperform.”

Acer joins a field dominated by Apple, which had a 95 percent share of the tablet market last quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Samsung Electronics Co. recently released its Galaxy Tab and RIM plans to release its 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook next quarter.

“This is a market that’s still not fully known, not fully satisfied,” Jim Wong, Acer’s head of information-technology products, said yesterday. The company expects 40 million to 50 million tablets will be sold worldwide next year, he said.

With the 9.7-inch iPad priced between $499 and $829, consumers looking for cheaper devices may be attracted to other tablets below $400, Hsiang said. Still, it will take some time before the new products can significantly add to Acer’s revenue, she said.

Hedging Bets

“It’s a wide-open market and an opportunity for Acer to make itself better known to a North American market,” said Roger Entner, head of telecom research at Nielsen Co.

Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci may be trying to hedge his bets by releasing devices in different sizes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last month that devices such as the PlayBook are “dead on arrival” because they are too small to compete with the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen.

Acer, which trails Hewlett-Packard Co. in global computer shipments, rose 0.5 percent to NT$90.20 at 11:54 a.m. on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The stock has lost 6.1 percent this year, compared with a 1.5 percent gain by the benchmark Taiex index.

The two Android tablets will be available in April and the Microsoft device will go on sale in February. All three will offer Wi-Fi connectivity and allow users to surf the Internet using a 3G connection. Wong said the tablets would likely be in the previously stated range of $299 to $699.

Acer yesterday also released a smartphone with a 4.8-inch screen based on Android that they touted as a phone with the “soul of a tablet.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Hugo Miller in Toronto at [email protected]; Katie Hoffmann in New York at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at [email protected]"

Taiwanese researchers develop revolutionary biodegradable plastics



"Taiwanese researchers develop revolutionary biodegradable plastics
2010/11/23 19:23:31



Taipei, Nov. 23 (CNA) An university research team in Taiwan has developed a series of revolutionary plastic materials that can decompose and turn into nutrients four to six months after being buried in the ground.

A Tatung University team, led by bio-engineering professor Chen Chih-cheng in cooperation with a biochemical technology company, unveiled the results of its research on Tuesday.

Chen said the new plastic his team developed is different from others already in existence on two levels: it is 100 percent biodegradable and offers far more agricultural applications than any other material on the market.

The plastic has already been made into green plastic bags, seedling-nurturing cups and agricultural covers -- products that have been sold to European countries -- with many benefits.

Flower or vegetable seeds, for example, can be planted in the ground while in their plastic cups; instead of having to be removed from the container at the time of transplanting, the professor said.

The plastic degrades completely in the soil without leaving any toxic residues and converts into nutrients for plants; helping raise the odds that they will sprout successfully and grow well in the future, according to the professor.

The plastic is made mainly of corn starch with some biodegradable polymers, Chen said, and turns into carbon dioxide and water as it degrades.

He also noted that if the material were burned, it would generate a far smaller volume of greenhouse gas emissions than typical plastics on the market.

The technology for making the plastic has been certified in the European Union, the United States, Japan and Taiwan as environmentally friendly, Chen said.

On his team are three Ph.D. students -- Wang Chin-huang, Tsai Ping-hsun and Kuo Chou-chiang -- and master's candidate Wang Yen-wen. They work in the university's Bio-Polymer Lab. (By Lin Sze-yu and S.C. Chang)"

Scientists store 900,000GB of data in 1 gram of E. coli bacteria

Doesn’t seem possible? Well, scientists have been working on using proteins, bacteria and other organic material as storage media for a while now, and if only looks like all the efforts are bearing fruit, it doesn’t make it any more unlikely! Calling it ‘bioencryption by recombination’, a team of scientists from Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have figured out how to store and en/decrypt data onto living bacteria cells.

These efforts are part of the CUHK’s submission to iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) 2010 contest, and its mission statement reads:

CUHK iGEM 2010 team is formed by a group of undergraduates and instructors from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Our project is to create a brand new biological cryptography system. We harness the incredible adaptability of simple organisms in the tortured environment to make sure that the message stored can be left undisturbed regardless of any environmental changes.

As you can infer, the aim of the project is not just to create an information dense storage medium, but also to make it extremely resistant to hacking and environmental damage, which most current solutions are especially affected by. You can download their presentation (PDF) from here. In essence, the team sought to make bacteria data storage and encryption feasible in the real world, which previously returned very low and impractical data density figures. Now, they’ve managed to squeeze more than 931,322GB of data onto 1 gram of bacteria (specifically a DH5-alpha strain of E.coli, chosen for its extracted plasmid DNA size) by creating a massively parallel bacterial data storage system. Compared to 1 to 4GB per gram data density of conventional media, the 900,000GB per gram figure the team has returned is truly astounding.

Taking the dream one step closer to industrial reality, the team has developed data proof-read/correction and random access modules, in addition to an encryption module, all using site-specific recombination of the inversion type, specifically, R64 Shufflon-Specific Recombinase, a type of Rci-mediated recombination. In essence, the team has transferred information onto DNA, and the encoding method to do this has been explained below:

A translation table would first need to be constructed by the client, the extended ASCII table with 256 characters were used as standard in here. It is not difficult to identify DNA as a naturally referred as a quaternary numeral system, With the DNA base adenosine representing the number “0”, thymine representing “1”, cytosine representing “2” and guanine representing “3”, we are essentially encoding the 256 characters with this base-4 numeral system.



Before the DNA is synthesised, the resultant code/DNA information is compressed using a combination of Huffman coding and LZ77 algorithm, allowing for reduced “homopolymer and repetitive regions”, and, more information to coded into less units.

New drug against Asian liver fluk, licensed in China, shows 70 percent cure rate

An experimental drug called tribendimidine could help cure millions of people infected with a parasitic worm known as the Southeast Asian liver fluke, which can cause cancer, Swiss scientists said on Thursday.

In a study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, researchers found that tribendimidine, developed by the Chinese National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, is as safe and effective as the standard treatment for this fluke -- a generic drug called praziquantel -- and has a cure rate of 70 percent.

In contrast to the new drug, antimalarials such as artemether, artesunate, mefloquine "are ineffective and should not be recommended" for treating the fluke, also known as Opisthorchis viverrini or O viverrini, the researchers said.

"Our results were very encouraging for tribendimidine," Jennifer Keiser of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"The cure rates were much better than praziquantel, but of course we would now need to confirm these results in larger clinical trials. To move forward, this drug would also need to be developed outside China."

Parasitic worms come in various types and are a problem that plagues more than a billion people around the world. Over time these parasites have become increasingly resistant to available drugs, raising an urgent need to find new drugs to fight them.

According to the World Health Organisation, Opisthorchis caused by parasitic worms is endemic in southeast Asia, the Siberian lowlands and eastern Europe. An estimated 67 million people are at risk of the disease, and 9 million are infected in Cambodia, Laos, and northeastern parts of Thailand and Vietnam.

Infection with this fluke can cause a variety of conditions, including cancers of the bile duct.

The researchers said that since praziquantel is currently the only drug treatment available and concerns are growing about the emergence of resistance to it, they wanted to look at the efficacy of other potential treatments.

Besides tribendimidine, which is licensed in China for use in people but has not been registered outside China, the antimalarial drugs artemether, artesunate and mefloquine have shown potential against the infection in studies on animals.

Keiser's team conducted a trial to assess the safety and efficacy of these drugs compared with praziquantel in school children in Laos, where prevalence of Opisthorchis viverrini infection is higher than 50 percent.

They treated 125 infected children with one of five options and measured the effects by cure rate and by each drug's ability to clear eggs laid by the parasites in their human hosts.

The highest cure rate of 70 percent was seen in patients treated with tribendimidine, followed by 56 percent for those treated with praziquantel. Just four percent of children taking combined mefloquine and artesunate were cured, and four percent of those on artesunate only. No child was cured with mefloquine.

Praziquantel and tribendimidine were also found to be "significantly more effective" than the others at clearing eggs, Keiser's team said.

CoolReflection said:

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Scientists store 900,000GB of data in 1 gram of E. coli bacteria.

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Hmm..... reminds me of that movie with Keanu Reeves "Johnny Mnemonic"

China passenger train hits 300 mph, breaks record

By ANITA CHANG
The Associated Press
Friday, December 3, 2010; 2:28 AM



BEIJING -- A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour) Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said.

The Xinhua News Agency said it was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train. Other types of trains in other countries have traveled faster.

A specially modified French TGV train reached 357.2 mph (574.8 kph) during a 2007 test, while a Japanese magnetically levitated train sped to 361 mph (581 kph) in 2003.

State television footage showed the sleek white train whipping past green farm fields in eastern China. It reached the top speed on a segment of the 824-mile (1,318-kilometer) -long line between Zaozhuang city in Shandong province and Bengbu city in Anhui province, Xinhua said.

The line is due to open in 2012 and will halve the current travel time between the capital Beijing and Shanghai to five hours.

The project costs $32.5 billion and is part of a massive government effort to link many of China's cities by high-speed rail and reduce overcrowding on heavily used lines.

China already has the world's longest high-speed rail network, and it plans to cover 8,125 miles (13,000 kilometers) by 2012 and 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) by 2020.

The drive to develop high-speed rail technology rivals China's space program in terms of national pride and importance. Railway officials say they want to reach speeds over 500 kph (312 mph).

Taiwan advances diamond-based electronics


Synthetic diamonds will become "the ultimate semiconductor of the future, able to withstand heat and pressure that would melt silicon. (200 degrees Fahrenheit is the melting point for silicon)"


Randomly-oriented surface of a HFCVD (i.e. Hot Filament Chemical Vapor Deposition)


Cross-section SEM (i.e. Scanning Electron Microscope) picture of a thin diamond film



"Diamond-based electronics
Posted: Nov 26th, 2010

(Nanowerk News) Diamond has long been a fascinating material from jewels to artificially made thin films. It has long been considered as an ideal candidate for electronic device applications due to its highest thermal conductivity and robustness to use in diverse conditions.

To revolutionize diamond-based electronics, the usually insulating diamond should be fabricated or doped as n-type conducting nature. A few years ago, nitrogen doping at high temperature of about 800°C has been suggested to create n-type conducting nature in the ultrannaocrystalline diamond (UNCD), which own similar properties as diamond.

Recently, researchers from Taiwan (Department of Physics, Tamkang University and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University) have demonstrated ("Monolithic n-type conductivity on low temperature grown freestanding ultrananocrystalline diamond films") the possibilities of fabricating n-type conducting UNCD films by Li-doping at very low temperature of about 570°C by simply using a Li-based substrate material – no need to use any heater that usually used for diamond growth processes.

Further, they showed the fabrication of freestanding UNCD films, which could be easily bonded to substrates for diverse applications. They foresee a great potential for these findings and the bonded freestanding films on to flexible substrates to be used in flexible diamond based electronic devices.

Source: National Tsing-Hua University"



"Monolithic n-type conductivity on low temperature grown freestanding ultrananocrystalline diamond films
Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 042107 (2010); doi:10.1063/1.3472204 (3 pages)
P. T. Joseph[1,2], N. H. Tai[2], and I. N. Lin[1]

[1]Department of Physics, Tamkang University, Tamsui 251, Taiwan
[2]Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

(Received 13 February 2010; accepted 8 July 2010; published online 28 July 2010)

Abstract

We report monolithic n-type conductivity on low-temperature (<570 °C) grown ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films by Li-diffusion (about 255 nm) from LiNbO3 substrates. Low resistivity of 1.2 Ω cm with carrier concentration of −2×1020 cm−3 is obtained on freestanding UNCD films. The films bonded to Cu-tape show very low turn-on field of 4.2 V/μm with emission current density of above 0.3 mA/cm2 at a low applied filed of 10 V/μm. The n-type conductivity of low-temperature Li-diffused UNCD films overwhelms that of the high-temperature ( ≥ 800 °C) nitrogen doped ones and will make a significant impact to diamond-based electronics.

© 2010 American Institute of Physics"