Highlights of Exchanges

Sino-American Efforts on Renewable Energy

The meeting and survey of the Advisory Group for the Sino-American Project of Large-scale Power-generation by Renewable Resources was held from Mar. 15 to 21 in Hawaii. The 25 academicians and experts from the two countries headed by Zhao Zhongxian, member of CAS and chairman of the Chinese group and Dr. Larry Papay, Academician of NAS, head of the USA ?group discussed issues concerned with exploration and development of renewable energy power generation. Both China and USA, as principal exporters of relevant technology, reached consensus to promote jointly the economic transformation based on the renewable energy resources.

Sino-Europe SMOS Satellite Workshop Held

Recently, Sino-Europe Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity（SMOS）satellite calibration/validation and Soil Moisture application workshop was held in the Center for Space Science and Applied Research, CAS. Yann Kerr, Chief Scientist of SMOS project of European Space Agency (ESA) delivered a keynote lecture entitled “Present Status and Future Plan for SMOS Satellite”.

Training on Germplasm Resources

In line with the Cooperation Agreement between CAS and Board of Directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew on Conservation and Research of the Germplasm Resources of Wild Species and according to the consensus reached at the Sino-British bilateral annual planning meeting held at the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), CAS in Oct. 2008, Vanessa Bertenshaw（Seed Technology Specialist）and Beverly Maynard（Curation Team Supervisor）from the Millennium Seed Bank, Seed Conservation Department, the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew （MSB）paid a visit to KIB from Feb. 9 to Feb. 20. They provided a 2-week series training course for seed management technology for researchers of Germplasm Conservation and Storage Center, Southwest China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species (SCSB).