Hu Jintao Issued Awards to Min Enze and Wu Zhengyi

President Hu Jintao granted China’s National Scientific and Technological Awards for 2007 to scientists and Institutions that have made remarkable progresses in technological innovation on Jan. 8 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Petrochemical scientist Min Enze and botanist Wu Zhengyi, both are CAS members, were presented with the 2007 National Supreme Scientific and Technological Award at the annual awarding ceremony held under the auspices of the State Council. Premier Wen Jiabao delivered a speech on the event on behalf of the Party's Central Committee and the State Council.

As reported, CAS scientists and relevant institutions received 13 National Natural Science Awards, 3 National Technological Invention Awards and 14 National S&T Progress Awards. Prof. Peter Gruss, President of the Max Planck Society, and Prof. N. L. Dobretsov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences and President of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, won the international technological cooperation award.

Hu Jintao Calls on Qian Xuesen and Wu Wenjun

On Jan. 19, President Hu Jintao paid visits to renowned space scientist Qian Xuesen and mathematician Wu Wenjun, extending Chinese Spring Festival greetings to them and expressing gratitude for their contributions to the country's scientific cause.

Qian Xuesen, 97 years old, is a distinguished scientist and the major founder of China's space technology, while Wu Wenjun is a prominent Chinese mathematician and winner of the First State Scientific and Technological Award and the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences.

Lu Yongxiang Present at IAC Council Meeting

The Eighth Meeting of the IAC Council was held in the IAC Headquarters, Amsterdam, capital of Holland from Jan. 28-30, 2008. Participants, including Council members from IAC member academies, relevant international organizations, special representatives and observers totaled more than 30. The meeting was organized by the Dutch Royal Academy and IAC. Lu Yongxiang, President of CAS and Bruce Aborts, former president of the National Academy of Science of USA jointly chaired the eighth council meeting.

Cheng Siwei Meets Robert C. Merton, Nobel Prize Laureate

On Dec. 18 morning, Cheng Siwei, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress, President of the Management School of the Graduate University, CAS, and Director of the Research Center On Fictitious Economy & Data, CAS met with Robert C. Merton,,visiting Professor of the Business School of Harvard University, U. S. A. and laureate of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Economics.

New CAS Members Elected

Twentynine prominent Chinese scientists have been elected as CAS members and five of their colleagues from other countries, include US, France and Russia as CAS foreign members in 2007. The announcement was made by LI Jinghai, Vice President of CAS at a press conference held in Beijing on Dec. 27. Lu Yongxiang, President of CAS was present at the meeting.

The new CAS members, elected from 287 candidates, including six from the Division of Mathematics and Physics, six from Division of Chemistry, seven from Division of Life sciences and Medicine, four from Division of Earth Sciences, one from Division of Information Technical Sciences and five from Division of Technological Sciences. Five foreign members include three from USA (Alan J. Heeger of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Ferid Murad of the Health Science Center, University of Texas, Houston and Chenming Hu of the University of California, Berkeley), one from France (Vincent Courtllot of the Institut de Physique du Glob de Paris) and one from Russia (Ludwig D. Faddeev of the St. Petersburg Department of V.A. Steklov Mathematical Institute).

Sixtynine percent of the new CAS Members are under the age of 60. The oldest is 69 and the youngest 41. The average age of the newly elected is 53.7, the lowest since 1991. The election of CAS members is held biennially, and each time the total number of new members does not exceed 60, according to the Bylaws for CAS members. At present, CAS has a total of 710 members including 53 foreign members.

Top Ten S&T Developments of 2007 in China and World Unveiled

Under the auspices of the Academic Divisions of CAS and CAE (the Chinese Academy of Engineering), and Science Times, a selection of China's top ten developments in science and technology in 2007 was made today in Beijing. 547 Members of CAS and CAE took part in the voting.

The No. 1 event is the successful launch of the Chinese orbiter, Chang'e-1 and sampling of the clear images of lunar surface. Other selected events include: China’s first proprietary drilling rig for 12,000-meter wells, which is also the one equipped with the most advanced technology in the world, was successfully manufactured by the Baoji Oilfield Machinery Company Ltd.; China's first batch of home-grown feeder jet airliners, ARJ21, completed their static test and rolled off production lines; and China's new soybean cultivar yielded 371.8 kilograms per mu(15 mu a hectare), marking the highest soybean yields in China in the new century. There are also two achievements in the basic science research: researchers from the CAS affiliated University of Science and Technology of China have created two types of six-photon graph state: a six-photon Greenberger ¨C Horne¨ C Zeilinger state, which is the largest photonic Schrodinger cat so far, and a six-photon cluster state, which is a state-of-the-art one-way quantum computer; and researchers from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS recently observed a breakdown of the Approximation occurred at the lowest collision energy in the reaction of fluorine with deuterium atoms. The remainders are: researchers from the Institute and Biophysics, CAS have developed a new drug delivery method using nano-sized molecules to carry the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin to tumors; paleontologists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, CAS made their discovery of fossil embryos in rocks about 632 million years ago in Doushantuo Formation in southwest China; paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CAS discovered a giant bird-like dinosaur from Erlian in Inner Mongolia; and the construction of the Germplasm Bank for Wildlife in China's Southwest, the first national major scientific project jointly developed and managed by CAS and Yunnan Province, was completed.

Meanwhile, CAS and CAE Members also voted for the selection of the world’s 10 most significant developments in science and technology in 2007. Among these selected events, four items are made in the life science field, including the follows: two independent research teams separately from US and Japan reprogram human skin cells into embryonic stem cells; an international research group found that variations in near 120 kinds of genes are associated with cancers; American scientists have successfully transformed one type of bacteria into another type dictated by the transplanted chromosome; European scientists developed a kind of deoxyribonucleic acid-based converter that is named as the DNA brake or the molecular electric generator.

Besides, CAS and CAE members selected the global warming as one of the major progress in the world science community, though the event has been regarded as indisputable truth. The other event candidates selected include: European astronomers have discovered what they believe to be the first potentially habitable planet outside our solar system and the size and temperature of the planet are similar with those of the earth; European and American scientists published the first map describing the three-dimensional distribution of dark matter in the universe; French scientists have succeeded in tracking for the first time the birth, life and death of a single photon; American technologist investigated a new technique that can substantially increase efficiency of the conversion of ethanol from corns and will help popularize the use of ethanol gasoline; an European research team sent a quantum communication across a record 144 kilometers (90 miles) using a process that may one day be used to send secret messages across space via a network of satellites.

Bai Chunli Awarded Honorary Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry

On Dec. 12,, a ceremony of the Royal Society of Chemistry, ?U. K. was solemnly held in Beijing to award the title of Honorary Fellow to Dr. Bai Chunli, Vice President and member of CAS, which was coincided with the First International Seminar of Chemical Communications of U. K. So far, Bai Chunli is the first Chinese to win this honor, and there are only 87 outstanding figures, who have been granted such special honor in the world and only 3 of whom come from Asia.