Report on Advancements in Science
Focuses on Interaction of Science and Society

The research report entitled Report on Advancements in Science for the year 1999 has been formally published by CAS in Beijing. As one of a regular series entitled Science and Society, the report reviews the outstanding achievements and developing trends in physics, chemistry, biology (especially genetics), medicine, space science and mathematics. It presents the frontiers of science, commenting on the 1999 Nobel Prize-winning achievements in physics, chemistry, and biology/medicine, the Fields Prize in mathematics, as well as the latest developments in research on superconductors, nuclear fusion, carbon nanometer tubes, supernovae, vaccines for AIDS, the light quark mass, quantum communications and quantum calculation. It discusses such hot topics as the mysteries of the neutrino, the a -magnetic spectrometer experiment, moon exploration, and the investigation of the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon. The report elaborates on the policy role of science in rejuvenating China through science and education, and in sustainable development. It discusses the science development strategies and policies of some foreign countries, with a brief account of China's scientific papers, “big science” projects, state key laboratories, projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation, and the Xiangshan Science Conference.

As China's highest academic institution and a comprehensive think tank and center of natural science and high technology, the Academy deems it its responsibility and duty to report on the developments of world science and technology to the public and to policy-makers.

Accompanying the publication of Report on Advancements in Science, Report of Sustainable Development Strategy in China has rolled off the press. This report is based on long-term theoretical and experimental research conducted at the Academy in natural resources, the environment, and geosciences. It consists of four parts: strategic research, regional survey, categorical statistics, and technological support. Five components of the national sustainable development capability are discussed: the subsistence support system, the development support system, the environment support system, the integral society support system and the intelligence support system. The report is objective and authoritative.

The report is written in conformity to international norms, aiming to become one of the six authoritative reports of its kind worldwide. It presents for the first time an all-inclusive quantitative appraisal of the sustainable development capability of China and its provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. It incorporates a quantitative analysis of the country's sustainable development, maps out three “zero growth” thresholds which China is to cross, and proposes relevant policies and suggestions.

Xiangshan Science Conference Focuses on Complexity

The 112^th session of the Xiangshan Science Conference was held in Beijing in March, with “complexity” as its theme. Prof. Cheng Siwei, Profs. and CAS Members Dai Ruwei and Bai Yilong co-chaired the session. Over 30 scientists of economics, finance, management, biology, and other areas briefed the participants on new progress in their respective fields relevant to “complexity”, and exchanged views on the subject.

The attendants reached a consensus: although the naming, definition and characteristics of “complexity” have yet to be determined and real exchanges between different disciplines still need time, the discussions on complexity at the Xiangshan Science Conference these years have aroused great attention in China; there are good prospects for applications of work in this area; and people have great interest in solving scientific problems in economics and management by resorting to complexity. At the latest session, a source from the Department of Management Science of the National Natural Science Foundation of China said they are ready to support innovative research on complexity and that they would establish a web site on complexity on the Internet.

Speakers came up with unique views on complexity. Some suggested taking complexity as a branch discipline in view of advancements in science. Others believed that an active attitude should be adopted to this newly emerging subject, but that people should not seek imminent success or spoil things by excessive enthusiasm.

Gas-phase Material Growth to Fly High

Due to gravity, the pure scattering of atoms is obscured in the processing of materials on the ground. Gas-phase growth is an important way to prepare pure-quality materials, such as films and crystals. But the gas-phase growth process taking place on the ground is unavoidably affected by the buoyancy counter-flow resulting from gravity, making it difficult to predict and control the heat and mass flow. This leads to inhomogeneity of film thickness and crystal constitution, adding defects and affecting the quality of the materials prepared. Developing films or crystals by gas-phase growth in space enjoys incomparable advantages. Exploiting micro-gravity in space to control the buoyancy counter-flow induced by gravity in the growth process can improve the quality and properties of the materials.

After long-term investigation and many simulations on the ground, Wang Wenkui, a research fellow, and his co-workers at the Institute of Physics, have succeeded in preparing materials suitable for use in experiments in space. The mono-crystal b -FeSi₂, developed by Zhao Jianhua, with good pyroelectric transformation and high anti-oxidation properties, is a potential new pyroelectric and opto-electronic material. It is said that this year or some time later an experiment will be conducted in space on the materials they have developed.

World's Longest Nanotubes Prepared

A research team led by Prof. Xie Sishen in the CAS Institute of Physics has successfully synthesized a directional carbon nanotube array, 3 mm in length and shaped like a toothbrush. These are the longest nanotubes in the world, indicating that China's research on carbon nanotubes and methods of synthesis are state-of-the-art. Since their first preparation in 1991, carbon nanotubes have aroused attention due to their novel physical and chemical characteristics and potential for practical applications. Carbon nanotubes have high ductility and extremely good conductivity, combining properties of metals and semiconductors, with an intensity of a hundred times greater than that of steel, and a specific gravity which is only one-sixth of that of steel. Beginning in 1991, the CAS research team first synthesized nanotubes by chemical methods, and then successfully prepared high density directional nanotube arrays over a large area, 100 micrometers long and 20 nm in diameter, marking the world's top level in the field. Dr. Pan Zhengwei of the group further improved the fabrication technology of carbon nanotubes, successfully controlling their growth, and synthesized a batch of super-long directional carbon nanotubes of 2-3 mm in length. Their achievement was publicized in the August 1998 issue of Nature, and was reported by the UK Financial Times.

In an ensuing development, a research team studying advanced carbon materials led by Dr. Cheng Huiming at the Institute of Metallurgy has successfully synthesized 3cm long single-walled nanotube ribbons and ropes by means of organic catalytic cracking with single-wall carbon materials. The celebrated American specialist in nanotubes and 1996 Nobel Prize laureate of chemistry Professor R. E. Smalley praised their work as “surprisingly great” when commenting on their paper. When he was specially invited to deliver a lecture at the Autumn Meeting of the American Society of Materials in 1998, he spoke highly of the achievement, saying that these 3-cm ribbons and ropes are “the longest nanotube bundles yet described”, and that the work is “very impressive and very tantalizing”.

Biology on a Higher Plane

The study of space biology has been further deepened over the past five years with a project studying the biological effects of space flights. The project demonstrates China's ability to carry out biological experiments in space, and will bear significantly on the country's projected manned aerospace flight project in the next century. Eight research units have participated in the project, led by the Institute of Hydrobiology. The project is based on life sciences, uses newly-developed technologies and equipment, and includes development of relevant instrumentation and hardware. It has taken space biology research in China to the highest level to date.

According to Prof. Liu Yongding, who is in charge of the project, on the basis of the experience of six experiments aboard satellites, the research group chose 33 kinds of organisms and sent them simultaneously into earth orbit. Measurements made resulted in a wealth of real-time data. The experiments focused on eight scientific problems: the relationship between senescence and free radicals, stress and irritability responses, orientation behavior in space, the messenger function of calcium, receptive conductance of film to variable weight, population changes and individual changes and their relationship, effects of quickened growth of micro-organisms, and development of cerebral cells and insects. Several first-time successes were achieved: research into the germination of higher plants and growth of seedlings in space by Chinese researchers; measurement of the dynamic increasing curve of the population of gonidia and co-culture of organisms growing in space; successful culturing of brain cerebral cells in space; and incubation and development in space of insects which undergo metamorphosis. Some of the results of this work are entirely new, the first of their kind in the world. Over 50 related papers have been published and 40 papers collected in proceedings of seminars or in technical documents.

Beijing-Shanghai Remote Experiment in Operation

A new achievement of the CAS Shanghai Open Laboratory of Nuclear Analysis was formally announced in March 1999 as “a remote experiment on the Internet”. Using this technology, researchers in Beijing can precisely control a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in Shanghai. While the needle point is scanning in nanometers, the microscopic image is transmitted to Beijing through the Internet. Researchers in Beijing can adjust the controlling parameters on the screen to obtain the best sample image.

A CAS source is quoted as saying that computerizing and networking modern experimental equipment is a worldwide trend, and is happening in China too. Remote experiments will become an important component of research in China's open laboratories, and will be of great importance to the construction of open laboratories involved in the knowledge innovation pilot program of the Academy. This new networking technology and service over the information highway provided by the Internet will allow for sharing of large and expensive equipment, avoiding repetitive investment and saving research funds. This will provide excellent conditions for scientists, technicians and faculty members, offers new ways to monitor agricultural and industrial production, and opens up the possibility of large-scale, real-time and concerted experiments between laboratories across different countries and regions.

Supported by the specialists committee of new materials under the 863 National High Technology Program and cooperating with the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Xu Zuyan and his colleagues in the open laboratory of the Institute of Physics have developed a multi-wavelength optical-parametric laser device after ten years of arduous work, which has been granted the first prize of invention of CAS and the second prize of the National Invention Award. The multi-wavelength laser device is a special laser source, which can simultaneously output several kinds of laser beams of different wavelengths, and has wide application prospects in spectroscopy, nonlinear optics, atomic-molecular physics, medical science, communications, pollution detection and high-precision measurement.

The laser device embodies two discoveries by the inventor: the phase matching catadioptric phenomenon of the nonlinear optical crystal LBO (LiB₃O₅), and the theoretical proof of the universal existence of this phenomenon. Compared with other multi-wavelength laser devices available, it has several technological advantages in its tuning range, tuning speed, output peak power, output wavelength, and super-short pulses. Its tunable width is elevated by several orders, thus widening the application domains of multi-wavelength lasers.

Now multi-wavelength optical-parametric laser devices developed from BBO and LBO crystals have been provided for users at home and abroad in research on materials, nonlinear optics and spectroscopy.

The invention of this laser device was accomplished by the same group, from fundamental research to applied research and finally into product development. Five related papers have been published in world-class physical and optical journals, and have been cited 29 times.

The Lijiaxia Gorge 400MW evaporation-cooled hydropower generator in Sichuan Province is a key project in the Ninth Five-Year Plan of China, and has now successfully passed its medium-term review. The self-cycling evaporation-cooled technique for large-scale generators, initiated by the Institute of Electric Engineering, is state-of-the-art in both theory and industrial practice. The project was approved by the former State Planning Commission as a State key project, and is organized under the leadership of CAS and with the participation of the Ministry of Electrical Industry and the Ministry of Machine Building Industry. Prof. Gu Guobiao, Member of CAS, is in charge. The contractual term is from December 1996 to June 1999.

Based on the achievements and experience gained in working on the 400MW evaporation-cooled hydro-generator, work will start soon on electromagnetic and structural design for a 700MW super-large evaporation-cooled hydro-generator. Following that, an evaporation-cooled turbo-generator of over 100MW is slated to be built, installed and put into operation with the support of the government and the cooperation of design institutes, generator manufacturers and electric power departments.

Earth-sounding Radar on the Dam

A new detecting technique of earth-sounding radar, developed by the CAS Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, the Department of Water Resources and the Institute of Entomology of Guangdong Province, can precisely detect hidden trouble spots in dams. According to Dr. Xu Xingxin, director of the project, the earth-sounding radar technique has several advantages: a high resolution ratio, high efficiency, and no accompanying damage to dams. The technique has been employed to locate termite hills and nests of other animals, cracks, cavities, infiltration lines, leakage channels, collapses and damage spots in dams, and to ascertain grouting quality. The equipment can be disassembled into parts, transported to the site, and then assembled there. Encouraging results have been obtained in its application in 15 reservoirs, three spill gates and a number of embankments in Guangdong Province.

China's Ecological Research Network

The commissioning of the China Ecological Research Network, which passed a review by the State expert committee, indicates that China has become an important component of the global ecological monitoring and research network. The system is China's first uniformly planned and designed network based on ecological system theory and systems engineering methods. Each station in the network has the capacity to conduct field observations and experiments on environmental factors such as the atmosphere, earth and water, as well as the overall structure, energy flow, matter circulation and dynamic properties of the ecological system. The 34 stations in the network can communicate and exchange data among themselves or with other domestic and overseas computer networks. Laboratories, computer rooms, and living facilities have been constructed at the stations, to ensure that the network functions well.

The network has become a research base and support system for work in ecology, natural resources and environmental science in China. It will play a significant role in sustainable development of agriculture, improvement of the ecological environment, and advancements in ecology and other relevant disciplines.

Commodity Grain Bases for the 21^st Century

A seminar on cross-century agricultural development co-sponsored by CAS and the provincial governments of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and the Inner-Mongolia Autonomous Region has been held in Changchun. CAS Vice-President and Member Chen Yiyu, CAS Members Li Zhensheng, Zhao Qiguo and Shi Yulin attended the meeting and delivered invited reports. Hard work in this field since 1949 has resulted in great advances in China's grain production, and obvious changes have taken place in the regional pattern of grain production. The grain supply patterns have been changed from “southern grain transported to the north” to “northern grain transported to the south”. The Huang-Huai-Hai area and the Northeast have become bases of grain production in China, with the latter enjoying advantages over the former in per capita area of cultivated farmland, reserve farmland resources, water resources, and the potential for further incremental gains in grain production.

CAS has long taken “serving agriculture” as one of its objectives, and has organized its staff workers in carrying out scientific investigations and experimental demonstrations with numerous attainments in natural resources, environment and agricultural production in the three northeastern provinces and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Their efforts provide an excellent foundation for cross-century development of agriculture in these places, which are now the areas with most surplus grain in the country. The area has a variety of regional advantages, including large expanses of grassland and forage grass, as well as fodder and protein resources. It is predicted that by the year 2005, increased grain output in the area will reach some 18 billion kilograms, which will meet 50 percent of the demand of the newly added population of the country at that time. Scientists of the Academy are ready to become more involved with innovation in farming technologies. Joint efforts by the Academy and the three provinces and one region in building commodity grain bases will play an important strategic role in future agricultural development and grain production, and assist with the needs of China's modernization drive.

Attending the seminar were leading cadres from the three provinces and one region mentioned above, specialists in farming economy and technology, and S&T professionals from some 20 CAS institutes and departments.

Urban Waters Made Cleaner

The first ten month term of the management project of Xuanwu Lake, located in the heart of Nanjing with heavily polluted waters, has resulted in an ecologically improved landscape of 17 hectares with cleaner water, aquatic vegetation and an abundance of fish, shrimps and snails. The project has been carried out by the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology with 1 million yuan of funding. Modern techniques adopted include a biological wave-mitigating device, a soft segregating wall installation, base and field clearing, and under-water planting. Twenty-one varieties of 11 species of submerged vegetation were carefully chosen to form an ecological panorama of flowers, silver carps, snails and freshwater mussels, resulting in a local ecosystem with excellent self-purifying functions, changing the turbid algae water body into a clear grassy one.

The project is a model for management of urban lakes generally, and should have wide application.

CAS Yunnan Branch and the government of Yunnan Province recently signed a cooperative agreement incorporating joint efforts in the following areas:

1. Establishment of a State natural pharma-cological engineering center;
2. Establishment of three key laboratories of natural medicinal chemistry, livestock and fowl molecular biology, and animal reproduction biology;
3. Establishment of the Gaomeigu observation base in Lijiang with a telescope of 2 meters in diameter;
4. Introduction of cooperative mechanisms in training Master's and Ph.D. students;
5. Encouragement of CAS staff in Yunnan to participate in research in local universities and institutes;
6. Acceptance of excellent local researchers as research council members of CAS institutes; and
7. Equal treatment of CAS institutes under the Kunming Branch and local institutes in obtaining funds for research programs and projects.

Asteroid Named after Late Patriot

Co-sponsored by CAS, the Municipal Government of Ningbo and the K. C. Wong Educational Foundation, the ceremony naming an asteroid as Planet Wongkwancheng was held in Ningbo, the hometown of the late eminent patriot K. C. Wong. The asteroid, numbered 4651, was first observed and located in Taurus by the CAS Purple Mountain Observatory using a 60cm-reflecting telescope. It moves around the sun along an oval orbit at the speed of 1.53 million km per day. It is 427 million km away from the sun and takes 4.81 years to circumnavigate the sun once. The naming of Planet Wongkwancheng, ratified by the International Asteroid Center and the International Asteroid Naming Committee, is a remembrance and prize for Wong's contribution to the undertakings of science and education in China.

Since 1987, the K. C. Wong Educational Foundation, based in Hong Kong, has closely cooperated with CAS in establishing funds in the Academy. As of the end of 1998, 306 senior researchers were financed to participate in international conferences, over 180 mid-level and senior researchers were funded to study abroad, and 224 overseas doctoral degree holders and foreign scientists of Chinese origin were financed to work in CAS institutes. Fifty postdocs were granted K. C. Wong Post-doctoral Research Award funding in 1998 alone.

At the naming ceremony, the K. C. Wong Educational Foundation donated one million US dollars to CAS and Ningbo respectively, with an aim to promote the application of CAS research achievements in Ningbo.

Ge Tingsui Granted Mehl Award

A meeting was held at the Institute of Solid Physics to celebrate Professor and CAS Member Ge Tingsui's winning the Mehl Award. The Award is the highest prize of TMS, a scientific organization working in mineral, metal and material sciences in the United States, to honor those who have made commendable achievements in materials science and application. Recommended by ten eminent specialists and after a year of discussions and deliberations by the Society, Prof. Ge became the first winner of this award in Asia. At the news conference TMS said that honoring Prof. Ge with the Mehl Award for the year of 1999 was to commend him for his great contributions in the field of materials science, especially in metal internal friction and anelasticity in the past decades. It is a recognition of the influential achievements made by Prof. Ge and his co-workers in their own laboratory in China. At the annual meeting of TMS, Prof. Ge was invited to deliver a presentation entitled “50-Year Study of Grain Boundary Relaxation”.

Streamlining of Head Office – Reform measures of the Head Office of CAS have recently been announced. The number of bureaus has been scaled down from 17 to 12, the divisions streamlined by one-fourth, and the staff downsized from 486 to 336. The restructuring is aimed at facilitating scientific and technological innovation, commercializing research discoveries, and establishing a new management system compatible to the advancement of science and the strategic status of the Academy.

Briefing on Pilot Program – Prof. Xu Zhihong, Vice-President of the Academy, spoke to a gathering of some 25 officials from foreign embassies and representative offices of international organizations based in Beijing. He briefed them on the Pilot Program of the Knowledge Innovation Project now being conducted by the Academy.

Paper published in Nature – In its Vol. 397 / 18 February 1999 issue, Nature chose as its cover story a paper titled “A primitive fossil fish sheds light on the origin of bony fishes” written by Dr. Zhu Min, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CAS, and his colleagues. The achievement by Dr. Zhu et al. received acclaim from renowned specialists in the field such as Dr. P. E. Ahlberg and Dr. David Swinbanks.

CAINET to be launched - As part of the effort of the Pilot Program of the Knowledge Innovation Project, CAINET (China Advanced Internet, dubbed “broad-band IP network”) is to be initiated by CAS in coordination with the State Bureau of Broadcasting and Television, the Ministry of Railways, and the Municipality of Shanghai. Making use of available optic fiber networks, CAINET will connect such metropolises as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan, providing for a wide range of digital data transfer.

Forum commemorating Albert Einstein - On March 12, CAS held a forum to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein, deemed the greatest scientist in this century. CAS President Lu Yongxiang made a speech saying that among scientists, Einstein had the highest innovative spirit in this century, and that he embodies characteristics of innovation that our scientific and technological undertakings most call for.

Guo Lei elected new member of IEEE - Guo Lei, a young researcher (aged 37) at the Institute of Systems Science, was elected member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), one of the world's largest academic organizations, due to his contribution to the adaptive control of linear random systems and recurrence identification theory. He is the second and the youngest Chinese member of IEEE in the field of automatic control, following CAS Member Chen Hanfu.

Achievements on lists of major advances - Two accomplishments by the Institute of Electrical Engineering were selected and listed as major news items regarding scientific progress in China and in the world respectively during 1998. One is China's first bismuth high-temperature superconducting transmission cable developed by the Institute in cooperation with the Beijing General Institute of Non-ferrous Metals and the Northwest Institute of Non-ferrous Metals. The unobstructed current of the cable can reach 1200A, and its contact resistance is smaller than 0.06mW . This technique will greatly accelerate the application of high temperature superconductivity technology in China. The other is a custom-designed permanent magnet, an essential component of the a -magnetic spectrometer that was sent into the space on board the American shuttle “Discovery” to look for antimatter and dark matter.

Study of dynasties at Shanghai Observatory - Major headway has been made in the chronological study of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. Prof. Jiang Xiaoyuan and his doctoral students at the Shanghai Observatory revised the dating of King Wu's punitive expedition against King Zhou solely by astronomical methods. King Zhou and King Wu were two emperors in the Shang Dynasty and the ensuing Zhou Dynasty respectively. To people's surprise, the timetable which Prof. Jiang et al re-obtained by studying celestial phenomena coincided with that recorded in ancient books and inscribed on unearthed bronze ware, and also agreed with the conclusions of studies of chronological tables using C¹⁴ radiometric techniques.

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