Lu Yongxiang Present at Seventh IAC Board Meeting

The seventh IAC Board Meeting was held in Amsterdam, capital of Netherlands, from Jan. 29 to 31. Some 30 representatives from member academies of the IAC Board, international organizations and observers attended the meeting. Lu Yongxiang, President of CAS and co-chair of IAC co-hosted the meeting with Prof. Bruce Alberts, former President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and co-chair of IAC.

The participants listened to IAC annual report regarding its activities, finance and research projects. Lu Yongxiang and Bruce Alberts gave positive comments on IAC performance in 2006. Lu Yongxiang hoped that IAC would continue to deliver quality research reports, initiate research projects on global focus and reinforce cooperation and exchanges with relevant international organizations, such as UN, thus joining efforts can be formed to build a rosy future with science.

Lu Yongxiang Allows Interview with German Professor

On Jan. 11, Lu Yongxiang, Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and President of CAS allowed an interview with Prof. Taube, Senior Researcher of the Institute of Economics, University of Munich. Lu expressed his opinions on certain issues, such as how the S&T policy and the government could promote the industrial R&D of enterprises. According to Lu, the medium term goal of the Chinese government’s S&T policy aims to improve the competitiveness of enterprises and enhance their innovative capability. To construct an effective national innovation system in China, the enterprises will play a core role. So the universities and scientific research institutions should be encouraged to closely work in joint hands with enterprises while reinforcing international cooperation and exchanges. In future, the Chinese government will increase R&D input continuously. The R&D input will account for GDP’s 2% and 2.5% by 2010 and 2020, respectively. Under the premise of total R&D input increased, the government input will gradually reduce its percentage from 50% down to 30-40% while the enterprises input will increase from 50% to 60-70%.

Top 10 News Items on S&T Advances in China/World Unveiled

The top 10 News items of China’s S&T advances and the top 10 News items of the world S&T advances for 2006, selected by 565 Members of CAS and Members of CAE were unveiled in Beijing today. The former include: 1. Significant results achieved on the next generation Internet technology; 2.The ever biggest integral natural-gas field discovered in northeast of Sichuan; 3. The first super-conducting experimental Tokamak fusion device built; 4. Chemical reaction resonance observed at quanta level; 5. The first “Green Corridor” running through Taklamakan Desert; 6. The first global ocean scientific expedition completed successfully; 7. Major progress made on research into HBV therapeutic vaccine: 8. Key breakthrough achieved on reconstruction to Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC); 9. Teleportation of quantum state in two-particle composite system; 10. ERS-1 launched successfully. The latter include: 1. Stardust brought comet samples to the earth successfully; 2. Key progress made on organs grown from stem cells; 3. International thermal-nuclear launched; 4. The smallest generator appeared; 5. Human Chromosome 1 gene sequence completed; 6. The direct evidence for existence of dark matter in the universe found for the first time; 7. SMART-1 detector touched the moon successfully; 8. Super-heavy Element 118 synthesized; 9. HIV is confirmed to be originated from the wild chimpanzees; 10. The connectivity map to connect small molecules, genes and disease completed.

21-volume Yunnan Botanical History Published