Major Progresses on China's Basic Studies

2004-06-13 15:07

It is reported that since its sponsorship of selected major basic studies to meet the nation's priority strategic demands in June 1997, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has poured a huge investment as much as RMB 3 billion in supporting cutting — edge and innovative studies of major scientific issues and achieved representative findings and progresses in some major fields.
1) AGRO under Marine Real Time Observation Program. Jointly launched by atmospheric and marine scientists from the U.S., Canada and Japan in 1998, the Global Marine Observation Program has been aiming at collecting marine upper layer data such as sea temperature and salinity in a fast, accurate and extensive manner for the purpose of improving the accuracy of climate predictions. In June 2002, China launched its first ARGO buoy, which marked China' s official participation in the Program and obtained the right and obligations in sharing the data and information derived from ARGO buoys.
2) China' s No. 1 Continental Research Well. No. 1 China Continental Research Well, a major national scientific project trying to find an in — depth view of the internal world of the earth applauded for the completion of its drilling on May 20, 2002. Chinese scientists have collected precious fresh consecutive rock core samples as long as 2000 meters as well as liquid and gas samples from the drilling process and harvested original measuring data for further comprehensive scientific studies. These data have revealed the deep matter composition and structures of continental fold belt. With these data,
Chinese scientists studied the formation of super high pressure metamorphisrn zone and returning mechanism and explored the fluids and biosphere deeply rooted in the earth.
3) Chinese scientists published rice genome sequencing charts in Science. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Development Planning Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly announced on October 12, 2001 that China has completed the working charts and associated database for Chinese super hybrid rice which occupies an international leading position. On April 5, 2002, the U. S. based Science published the whole story of the said study and associated working charts. After its publication, the rice genome data have been downloaded at least 556 times by the scientists from 21 countries. The findings have provided rich information on rice genes and their functions, which also become a helpful tool for understanding the genome of other crops such as wheat and corn, and stimulating basic and applied studies of the entire food lines.
4) Major progress on the study of C60 nanometer material and associated composition. Chinese scientists have for the first time in the world obtained C60 single molecule image that can tell its C — C dual bonds and single bond through assembling C60 molecules on the surface of the single - layer molecule film and with the help of scanning channel microscope. Chinese scientists discovered a new 2 dimensional domain boundary structure in the two dimensional C 60 lattice. The said boundary is believed to be entirely caused by the differed orientations of C60 molecules. Along the domain boundary sit non-structural defects and C60 molecules have maintained their position translation and bond orientation sequence on the boundary. The findings were published in UK based Nature.
5) Oceanic crust debris discovered in China. In collaboration with their US counterparts, Chinese scientists have discovered in the middle section of North China and the western section of Liaoning Province the oldest (2.5 billion years) and well — preserved oceanic crust debris (ophiolite) in the world. The findings were published in the U. S. based Sciences journal on May 11, 2001.
6) Global demarcation layer dividing the Permian system and Triassic system defined. Not long ago, the section of Meishan Mount, located in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China, was officially determined by the International Union of Geological Sciences the global section and position (or golden nail for its nickname) of the demarcation layer telling the Permian and Triassic systems. The decision implies that the major division mark of the earth development history has found its home in China. Chinese scientists proposed to make tooth shaped rocks as the new criteria for marking the division line between the Permian and Triassic systems, and created the most complete tooth shaped rock sequence over the section of Meishan Mount. , which confirmed the scenario that the biological extinction occurred at that time was caused by an extremely disastrous event. The'finding has become an international criteria acknowledged by the world scientific community.
7) The history of macrocephalus mammals advanced 45 million years. While studying the fossil remains unearthed in Lufeng, Yunnan, China, the scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Pale-oanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that macrocephalus mammals literally lived in a period of 195 million years ago. The finding advanced the history of macrocephalus by 45 million years and made it part of earlier Jurassic Age, which , to some extent, rewrite the forepart of the history of mammals.
8) New brain section discovered for learning and memorization. Named by the U. S. scientists as Shu's Section, the discovery of a new brain section caused a stir in the international medical community. Scientists believed that the new discovery has provided new clues for understanding the mechanism causing learning and memory related diseases and would play an important role in treating memory decaying diseases such as senile dementia.
9) Becoming part of Life Science Project. In April 2000, Chinese scientists completed their assignment due for sequencing 30 million base pairs on the short arm of No. 3 chromosome ( about 1% of the total human genome sequencing).
10) Major progress on study of south— north belt in East China. China' s east section has long witnessed large differences from its southern part to the northern one, especially in terms of its climate and ecological environment , which resulted in the formation of unique consecutive vegetation belts unmatched by any other continents in the world. The belt has constituted the most desirable natural experimental site for studying the climate - ecological system that may cause temperature increasing effect in global changes. The study of interactions between land based farming ecological system and the global changes has been listed as a core study project under GCTE of International Geosphere and Biosphere Program (IGBP) and the south — north sample belt of East China was made by the same organization the 15th international standard sample belt.
New findings and results were also achieved in other basic study areas such as genetically modified goat; one dimensional nanometer crystal made of gallium nitride, the first of its kind in the world; genetically restructured
human insulin; oriented carbon nanometer tube matrix of super length (2—3 mm); crystal grain fining technique that doubled the strength of steel; new chemical displacement agent that may improve oil recovery rate by 5 % — 15 % ; air hole oscillation based drought resistant agent that may double or triple the crop yield in semi -arid region in drought years and many others. Meanwhile, some innovative studies have made debut in their respective international areas. For example, China' s studies on diseases causing genes have reached internationally advanced level and study of crystals having both photic and electric functions has not only continued its internationally leading position but also realized the effective power output in the range of 200nm - 193nm.