Return The first is the Beijing Base of Geoscience, Natural Resources and Environmental Science, which focuses on studies of East Asia and participates in global research. The Base aims at high-level achievements to match those in the world in geophysics, tectonics, mineral formation studies, mineral exploitation, and construction of data-bases of natural resources and the eco-environment. Another base is the Northwest R&D Base of Natural Resources and Eco-Environment. West China enjoys unique natural conditions and resources advantages, while it also faces serious problems such as drought due to lack of water, which leads to the disparity in economic development between the eastern and western regions of the country. The Base will cover a large area extending across Shaanxi Province, Gansu Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. From west to east and according to different local natural conditions, the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, the Lanzhou Institute of Desert Research and the Lanzhou Institute of Environmental Protection will concentrate on agriculture in oasis, arid and semi-arid regions as their study topics, respectively. The three institutes will work to define the causes and solutions of desertification through studies of wind erosion, water erosion and movement of sand dunes. The Xi'an Institute of Earth Environment will be established, concentrating on studies of loess, ice cores, and lake and sea sediments. Comprehensive analysis capabilities will be improved through networking among the institutes. It will be possible to obtain data for the study of global change from different places, times and scales.
The third base will be located in the southwest of China, where there are bountiful biological resources. The base will focus on the studies of rational exploitation of biological resources and the protection of bio-diversity. The Base will be a research network embracing the Kunming Institute of Zoology, which studies molecular and cellular evolution and protective biology; the Kunming Institute of Botany, which focuses on floristic regionalization and phytochemistry; and the Xishuangbanna Botanical Garden, which concentrates on eco-grouping and migration protection. These studies are closely connected with the study of origin, evolution and protection of bio-diversity. The institutes will operate independently as well as in a coordinative manner within a network. On the other hand, the Academy hopes to cooperate with Yunnan Province in establishing a bio-diversity information center to realize information sharing and comprehensive analysis of bio-species, distribution, genetics, and ecosystems. The Base will hopefully become an international research center on bio-diversity.
Changes of Global Environment Recorded in Ice Cores
It was disclosed at a recent seminar that Chinese scientists have obtained ice cores at the highest altitude ever on the Earth at the Dasuopu Glacier, and they have found evidence of the impact of industrialization. The concentration of methane in the ice cores is higher than that in the Arctic region, and the lead content is increasing, which confirms that environmental pollution is becoming more and more serious and that the temperature on the earth is rising. Wang Lianning, an associate research fellow at the Lanzhou Institute of Glaciology and Cryopedology, said at the annual meeting of studies on the Tibetan Plateau that because little thawing occurred in the formation of the ice cores, it became the most faithful recorder of the atmosphere in the past tens of thousands of years.
As the best research material of many disciplines, ice cores are called the archives of paleoclimatology. The Dasuopu Glacier, located in the middle ranges of the Himalayas, is a valley iceberg of length 10.5km and area 21km2. From 1990 to 1997, Chinese scientists twice climbed up to the ice platform of this iceberg at an altitude of 7,100m, and succeeded in drilling and obtaining six ice cores, of which the shortest was 6m in length and the longest was 164m. Their resolution "age" could reach 20,000 to 30,000 years. More than 120 kinds of organic chemical compounds, including normal paraffin hydrocarbons and residues from burning of oil during the Gulf War, have been found in the ice cores. It is the first time in the world that so many compounds have been found in mountain ice cores.
Direct Cooling of Superconducting Magnets
Collaboration between the Cryogenic Laboratory and the Institute of Electrical Engineering in the development of a refrigerating machine at liquid nitrogen temperatures and small-scale superconducting magnets has resulted in a successful experiment on the direct cooling of a small-scale superconducting magnet by a G-M refrigerating machine. The superconducting magnet is designed to produce a field intensity of 5T with NbTi wiring, and is 256mm high with an inner diameter of 50mm, outer diameter 150mm, and overall weight about 15kg.
It is the first time in China that the G-M refrigerating machine has been used to directly cool a small-scale superconducting magnet, signifying new progress in the research and application of the refrigerating machine within the liquid nitrogen temperature region in the Cryogenic Laboratory. The costs of liquid nitrogen and the related recovery system can be saved by using the G-M refrigerating machine as the cooling source, and operation is simple. The technology can conveniently provide liquid nitrogen temperatures for laboratories and civil facilities, such as nuclear magnetic resonance detectors.
Changbaishan Open Station of Forest Ecology
Since its opening up several years ago, the Open Station of Forest Ecology at Mount Changbaishan has accomplished a series of topical studies on the structure, function and mechanisms of the eco-system of dark coniferous forests, which constitutes a great contribution to the protection of natural forests and the sustainable development strategy of China. The Changbaishan Open Station of Forest Ecology is CAS's only open station located in the Changbaishan virgin forests doing research on the eco-system of forests. Combining studies at international frontiers with the present conditions of forestry development in China, the Station has carried out a series of strategic, forward-looking, comprehensive and long-term fundamental and applied research subjects on global change, bio-diversity and sustainable development. Scientists have not only studied the diversified characteristics of organisms (plants, animals and microorganisms), but have also recorded a number of new families, genera and species. They have also conducted studies on the distribution pattern of bio-diversity and the function of eco-systems. In the field of dynamic and preservation mechanisms of dark coniferous forests, they have explored the population competition, characteristics and dynamics of forest windows and their roles in the stability of forests. They have also obtained a great amount of fundamental information and data on energy and matter circulation. The Station attaches great importance to the integration of theory and practice in the continuous management of dark coniferous forests, while they have trained a great number of young specialists, including 20 doctorate and graduate students.
New Explanation of Formation of Ozone Valley over Tibetan Plateau
Why is there an ozone valley over the Tibetan Plateau in summer? Studies by Chinese scientists reveal that thermal and dynamical actions are the main reason for the formation of this ozone valley. Summer is when the atmosphere is the most intensively heated by the ground; the up-going transportation of matter below 18km in the atmosphere is strong, so air at a low-altitude with a low content of ozone is brought upwards, thus diluting the concentration of ozone there. It is reported that the content of ozone over the Tibetan Plateau is dwindling by 2.7% every 10 years.
Back in the 1960s, under the direction of CAS Member Ye Duzheng, Chinese scientists began systematic studies on the Tibetan Plateau, which is dubbed "the roof of the world". They pointed out that the Tibetan Plateau is a thermal source to the atmosphere, and its dynamical and thermal actions produce great impact on the atmospheric circulation in East Asia and even the whole world. Since 1995, Zou Han, a research professor from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, and his research group have, on the basis of large amounts of data, established and proved the theory that large-scale geomorphology leads to the deficiency and abnormal change of ozone. Studies show that many similar plateaus and mountain ranges in the world such as the Rocky Mountains and the Andes Mountains have thermal and dynamical actions on atmospheric circulation, which results in deficit of ozone to various degrees over these regions. At the same time, the deficit of ozone changes with the seasons; in spring the deficit is the gravest and in autumn it is the slightest, which is typical also of the Tibetan Plateau.
Small Fry Labeled with Fluorescence
Some 20 thousand Chinese sturgeon fry, 9 to 12 cm in length, have been released in the Yangtze River after being fluorescence labeled, signaling a breakthrough in the large-scale label-breeding technology of rare species of fish in China. The Chinese sturgeon is a first-class endangered animal in China, and has been listed in IUCN's red book for endangered animals on the brink of extinction. It lives offshore of China and Japan, and its spawning area is downstream of the Jinshajiang River which is part of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and upstream of the Pearl River. Since a barrier was formed by the newly constructed Gezhouba Dam, Chinese sturgeons have found new spawning areas, and they reproduce naturally every year. Since 1984, the Institute of Chinese Sturgeons (i.e. the former Department of Fishery of the Gezhouba Engineering Bureau) has released infant Chinese sturgeons to make up for the small number of naturally reproduced fry. According to Chang Jianbo, director of the project studying the effects of artificial reproduction and breeding of Chinese sturgeons and deputy director of the fish department of the CAS Institute of Hydrobiology, the aim of fluorescent labeling of artificially bred Chinese sturgeons is to distinguish them from the naturally reproduced ones, so as to make a precise assessment of the present conditions and effects of the artificial breeding of Chinese sturgeon resources.
Chang Jianbo is also in charge of the study to detect the number of fish schools using the sonar finder downstream of the Gezhouba Dam, and to monitor the relationship of artificially reproduced individuals by the DNA fingerprint probe technique. Next year, Chang and his colleagues will make more efforts to seek explicit answers to long-unresolved questions in the protection of Chinese sturgeon resources, including the number of schools of Chinese sturgeons, the ratio of artificially bred Chinese sturgeons in the population of infant Chinese sturgeons offshore the Chongming Island, and the effects of breeding of Chinese sturgeons of different sizes.
How Many Pounds Does a Virus Weigh?
The smallest balance in the world has been developed by American, Chinese, French and Brazilian scientists in the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. As soon as this was made known in Science (Mar 5 1999, 1513-1516), it caught great attention from the media; Newsweek and BBC both sought interviews with the research team.
This major achievement was made with the cooperation of Prof. Deherr at the Department of Physics and Prof. Wang Zhonglin at the Department of Materials. The balance makes use of the elasticity of carbon nanotubes and the electromagnetic vibration effect. The experiment was carried out in a refitted transmission electron microscope at the Department of Materials. The balance can weigh a single virus with a mass of 2x10-16 grams. The invention will undoubtedly find important roles in biology and medical science. The researchers have also discovered that carbon nanotubes have extremely high elasticity limits and rigid limits.
Wang Zhonglin cooperated with the CAS Laboratory of Electron Microscopy. He is one of the overseas scientists supported by the Cooperative Research Fund for Overseas Young Scholars sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and also the only winner of the Batt Prize of the American Society of Electron Microscopy.
A high-performance distributed numerical software, developed by the Parallel Software R&D Center at the Institute of Software, has been lately approved in an appraisal by specialists in Beijing. The large-scale distributed memory parallel computer (MPP) marks the frontier in the development of high-performance computers, indicative of the comprehensive power of a nation and constituting a commanding height in modern science. It is of high scientific importance and has wide application prospects in the petroleum industry, weather broadcasting, structural analysis and fundamental research.
The work signifies that China's scientific computation ability has been elevated to the medium- and large-scale parallel computing level. The achievement made by the team led by Prof. Sun Jiachang is based on parallel computation and software technology. To cater to the needs of users, they have developed three types of distributed parallel numerical software, holding the sole copyright ownership. The products are fully documented in conformity with international practice and are widely used at home and abroad. The software has brought encouraging social and economic benefits, laid a foundation for further research and development of parallel computation and software, secured a position for China in the field, and earned some 870 thousand US dollars from 1996 to 1998. A talented team in R&D of parallel software has also been formed.
Full Cooperation between Academy and Capital City
The CAS and the Beijing municipal government have signed an agreement of cooperation, whereby a committee for comprehensive cooperation has been set up, with Beijing Mayor Liu Qi and CAS President Lu Yongxiang as co-chairmen. Cooperative projects have been put forward by the Economy and Trade Commission and the Science and Technology Commission of Beijing, and the CAS Bureau of High-Tech Industry and Development. Cooperative efforts would focus on ten main fields of high technology, involving commercialization of research results, setting up of R&D centers, and application of GPS in the modernization of the city's management and infrastructure.
The two sides agree to promote technology innovation and nurture high-tech enterprises with independent intellectual property rights and market competitiveness; to support research institutions and enterprises to establish joint technology innovation centers; to encourage collaboration among industrial, educational and research entities, and to stimulate system innovation and comprehensive reform. Priority will be given to system and mechanism innovation in S&T and the economy, and the establishment of a cooperation fund. The Beijing municipal government would provide an annual fund of 2 million yuan in the first three years for the Academy to screen and initiate projects that are market competitive and are likely to turn into new growth points. Joint efforts will be made in building the Zhongguancun area into a world-class science park of the 21st century, and in setting up a wide-band multi-media communications platform covering the whole Zhongguancun area with an optic-fiber network. Both sides will engage in regular exchange of information and personnel to improve management of science and high technology.
Scientific Basis for Exploitation of Water Resources in Northwest
The two research projects of "Rational Use of Water Resources of Heihe River and Social-Economic and Eco-Environment Development" and "Ice and Snow Water Resources of Northwestern Mountain Areas, Forecast of Runoff Change Processes and Tendencies" have provided a scientific basis for the exploitation of water resources in Northwest China. The two projects are headed, respectively, by CAS Member Cheng Guodong and Research Professor Kang Ersi of the Lanzhou Institute of Glaciology and Geocryology. Beginning with the Ninth Five-Year Plan, China has invested over 20 million yuan on the first project, which consists of 20 sub-topics involving the Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Shaanxi areas.
Rational exploitation of water resources in the northwest is crucial to local social and economic development. The two research projects carried out by the Lanzhou Institute provide comprehensive answers to problems concerning the present situation, the eco-environment, developmental trends and social impact of the Heihe River, and ice and snow water resources and runoff in the mountainous areas in Northwest China, forming a scientific basis for decision-making for the nation's Tenth Five-Year Plan. The research helps the local governments to develop their economy in an appropriate manner and in preventing over-exploitation of water resources, which might otherwise cause degeneration of land and grassland, leading to desertification.
Shenyang Branch Promotes High-tech Industrialization
CAS Shenyang Branch has been crowned with success in its efforts for high-tech industrialization. The companies that the Branch set up in cooperation with local enterprises have helped the latter gain over 2 billion yuan of benefits in 1998 alone. Long-term collaboration has been established between the Branch and the Shenyang Water Pump Factory, the Liming Motor Manufacturing Company, a high voltage switch factory, a machine tool company, Jinbei Company of the First Motors Group, and the Huarun Refrigeration Group. In the meantime, feedback from these enterprises in terms of technology demand helps the development of institute-owned companies and relevant technology.
The Shenyang Institute of Automation has been manufacturing industrial robots for spot welding and arc welding, automatic guided vehicles for assembly lines and store-houses, and all kinds of underwater robots. The Institute now has an assembly line with an annual production capacity of 300 sets of these robots. It manufactured 45 sets in 1997. Total sales were 40 million yuan in 1997 and 70 million yuan in 1998.
The Shenyang Changpu S&T Co., Ltd. is a share-holding company run by the Institute of Corrosion and Protection of Metals (ICPM) and two local firms. Plate bubble nickel technology developed by ICPM has an annual output of 300 thousand square meters, with a total production value up to 30 million yuan. Continuous bubble nickel manufacturing is an industrial project of the State Planning and Development Commission with an investment of 55 million yuan. An assembly line with an annual output of 800 thousand square meters is to be built, the annual output value being estimated to be 200 million yuan.
The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics has established a manufacturing base of a high-efficiency low-toxicity fertilizer in the Dalian Development Zone. Its products are exported to Southeast Asia and Korea.
The Kejin New Materials Development Company under the Shenyang Institute of Metals Research now has a small-scale production center with an annual output value of 40 million yuan. It produces more than 20 kinds of alloy materials for pumps, aircraft motors and chemical industrial equipment.
"Hekang" and "Feilong" bio-fluids produced by the Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology are well accepted by the society after years of marketing. In 1998, the Institute signed two more contracts with local firms in Shenyang to set up new share-holding enterprises.
CAS and Anhui Jointly Construct "Science Island"
The CAS and the Anhui provincial government have recently agreed to make joint efforts to establish the Science Island, a base for science discovery commercialization, innovation demonstration, information exchange and personnel training, in 3-5 years' time. The Science Island will become an R&D base in Anhui with advanced bio-technology, information technology, new materials and new energy technology, which will add significant contributions to the economic development of the Province. Both sides will explore more collaboration opportunities in the fields of agriculture, renovation of traditional industries, new materials research and information industry. In technology innovation, the institutes under CAS's Hefei Branch are encouraged to infuse new technologies into local enterprises by all means and to maintain information exchange with local enterprises. In addition, the institutes and local firms will jointly train personnel and set up new open labs. In agricultural research, high quality seeds and an intelligent agriculture information system are to be popularized all over the Province. In nano-material manufacturing research and application, electronic information, biotechnology and laser application, the goal is to set up a number of large and highly beneficial high-tech enterprises.
The first batch of projects of the Science Island involves ion beam biotechnology, an intelligent agricultural information system, nano-material development and application, laser application in environment protection, pharmacy and medicine, and development and application of sensors and testing technology.
Preparation to Build World's Largest Radio Telescope
Pre-research of key technologies for the world's largest proposed radio telescope - the 500m aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) - started early this year. At the general assembly of URSI held in Japan in 1993, scientists from 10 countries including Australia, Canada, China, France and USA proposed to jointly build a large radio telescope (LT) with a receiving area of one square kilometer. The new LT will be able to explore farther and deeper into space. Since 1994, the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, the Institute of Remote Sensing Application of CAS and the Guizhou Provincial Science and Technology Committee have been collaborating in choosing an ideal site for the LT project in the karst area of southern Guizhou Province. At the 3rd international meeting of the LT project held in Guiyang, 1995, the participants showed great interest in the progress made in choosing the site in Guizhou.
The International LT Promotion Committee (China) was established in Beijing in October 1995, consisting of scientists and technologists in astronomy, geography, electronics and other relevant fields. At the annual academic meeting of the Committee, scientists suggested to build the 500m-diameter FAST in the karst depression in Guizhou first. Based on this project, which is to be completed around 2003, efforts will be made to build the international LT in Guizhou, China. Guizhou Province and the Ministry of Science and Technology have proposed to list the project in the nation's Tenth Five-Year Plan. The CAS has approved for FAST pre-research to be included in its Pilot Program of the Knowledge Innovation Project. Research Professor Nan Rendong of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory has been appointed chief scientist of the project. Currently, work is being done in three sub-topics centered around related key technology.
Zhao Qiguo Wins Nikkei Laurels
Zhao Qiguo, CAS Member and former director of the Nanjing Institute of Soil Science, has won the Nikkei (Japan-Economy) Asia Award. The award was established in 1996 to commend those who have made outstanding contributions to the development of Asian economy in science and technology, business and cultural circles. One laureate is picked from each of the three circles every year. Zhao Qiguo is a celebrated specialist on red soil and has been concentrating on research of tropical red soil in China for many years. Through detailed analysis of the salt, aluminum and iron content in red soil he has discovered that China's red soil embodies the "unity of the opposites" of ancient weathering and modern rubification. Through careful study of the relationships between the growth of tropical plants and the distribution and characteristics of red soil, he proposed to use the heat quantity and soil nature as the evaluation standards for the application level of tropical crops. Based on this theory and with his guidance, China has successfully planted large-scale rubber forests north of latitude 18¡ãnorth, making the country the fourth largest natural rubber producer in the world. Cooperating with other scientists, Zhao has also made an overall and in-depth survey on soils in China (except for some particular regions in Tibet) and has drawn the Atlas of Soils in China.
As a world-known scholar, Zhao has attended academic seminars and conducted research in 35 countries and regions, contributing greatly to the solution of problems of erosion, degradation and acidification of soil in China and the world over. Zhao himself regards his winning of the award as "an affirmation of all Chinese scientists in soil survey and research".
Equal Emphasis on Management and Development of Loess Plateau
The International Seminar on the Control and Sustainable Development of the Loess Plateau was recently held in Beijing. At the seminar, Sun Honglie, CAS Member and Chairman on the Chinese side of the International Cooperation Committee of the Environment and Development of China proposed that management and development of the Loess Plateau be supplementary and that commodity production and ecological construction be taken into consideration at the same time. He said that the Loess Plateau is the cradle of Chinese culture. The State has attached great importance to the management of the Loess Plateau. But problems concerning the Plateau are long-standing ones, so to grasp the key issue and realize effective management are still points that need to be tackled.
Sun said that we used to study management within the scope of the planned economy. But with the rapid development of the market economy, management of the Plateau should meet the needs of the market economy. After 10 days of on-the-spot investigation and discussion, the working group and the specialists concerned arrived at the conclusion that irrational exploitation of soil and cultivation of large areas of sloping land have led to serious water and soil erosion. Scientists present at the seminar agreed that in the management of the area, priority consideration should be given to the development of commodity production. It is difficult to carry out ecological construction without the development of commodity production. Equal attention should be paid to ecological construction and development of commodity production, and input and output should be carefully analyzed. The dissemination of new measures warrants attention, as does the training of the farmers.
As to financial input, Sun said that over the years the government has established many experimental and demonstration areas, and has developed different management and development modes fitting different regions as well as modes with both ecological and economic benefits. However, the popularization of these modes has been very slow due to insufficient input. Measures should be taken so that research achievements made in the past years can be fully utilized in ecological construction and development of the Plateau.
Inter-Academy Agreement Signed between China and Russia
An agreement aimed at expanding the already existing cooperative relationship between the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was signed in Moscow by RAS President I. Osipov and CAS President Lu Yongxiang, who was attending the 275th Anniversary of RAS. The major cooperative project under the agreement involves inviting senior Russian scientists to conduct scientific research in China. The CAS set up a fund for senior visiting scientists in 1998, which offers voluntary foreign experts an opportunity to get involved in CAS research projects. Scholars from the RAS with degrees of doctor of science or candidate of science (Ph.D.) or senior professional rankings are eligible to apply for grants. Invited scholars will conduct research with Chinese scientists within the framework of major national science programs, state key projects, CAS key projects and other important research plans. Achievements made by senior visiting scholars in the form of papers, monographs, awards or patents will be jointly owned by both parties.
The Lu Jiaxi Fund is another channel to introduce outstanding foreign scientists to conduct collaboration or short-term research at the CAS. Those having degrees of doctor of science or candidate of science (Ph.D.) or senior professional rankings, aged between 35 and 55, are eligible to obtain support from the fund for their research at the CAS. Negotiations have also been conducted on the enhancement of joint programs for cultivating high-level young scientists. The CAS is to recruit 10 postgraduate students from the RAS every year, who will study and prepare their dissertations in China.
In addition, CAS President Lu Yongxiang extended his heartfelt congratulations on the 275th anniversary of the founding of the RAS and expressed his sincere admiration for the great contributions the RAS has made to both the development of world science and the progress of Russia.
Professional Machine Translation Taking Flight
The founding of the Huajian Machine Translation Co., Ltd. has been announced of late. Registered at the New Technology Development Zone of Beijing's Haidian District and with an initial investment of 100 million yuan, the company is so far the largest professional machine translation enterprise in China. Machine translation is a new technology for realizing automatic translation between human languages by means of the computer. The Huajian Machine Translation Co. is a joint venture of the Huajian Group of the CAS with three other major partners. The technology of the new company is supplied by the Huajian Group, China's largest R&D institution engaged in machine translation, whose staff consists mainly of young Ph.D. or Master's degree holders. The technology originates from the state-of-the-art invention in the field of Chinese-language-related machine translation that has carried away the first prize of the National S&T Progress Award. The firm is set to focus on R&D of Chinese-related machine translation, industrialize its application products, collaborate with related R&D institutions both at home and abroad and become a leading enterprise in the field.
Tang Peisong and Creative Botany
Sixteen years ago, Tang Peisong, a well-known Chinese physiologist, put forward the concept of creative botany for the first time. "In its history, botany has experienced three major periods: descriptive botany, experimental botany and creative botany, " said Tang, after analyzing the status and tendency of world botany in his thesis titled Prospectus for the Future Development of Botany in China. "In the past two decades, life science has gained surprisingly rapid development. A clear understanding on the chemical nature of life has been achieved and the new concepts and methodologies of molecular biology have been introduced to botany. All branches of botany, while doing their best to develop their own features, are going in the direction of integration at a new level. Botanists are making use of their accumulated knowledge and technology to exploit, transform and utilize the plant community on an unprecedented scale. All this indicates that botany has entered a new era, which I refer to as Creative Botany. "
Creative botany "refers to the period when the major problems of botany are studied from a new, comprehensive perspective and the plant community is transformed according to the human will by combining the methodologies of molecular botany and classic botany. " It has three features:
1. At this stage, new comprehensive research fields have resulted from the mutual penetration of classic botany and molecular botany;
2. Botanists have reached an unprecedented width and depth in their knowledge of botany from both micro and macro points of view; and
3. Botanists and agronomists join efforts to rationally exploit the diversified gene bank of plants at the utmost by combining both normal methods and biological technologies. This is a very remarkable feature of Creative Botany and a research focus attracting great international attention.
Tang Peisong has always advocated scientific innovation. His paper on research on the thermodynamics of cell moisture metabolism, which he co-authored with Wang Zhuxi, was published in 1941, and was recognized by the international academic community as being ten to twenty years ahead of his time. In the early 1980's, when he was already in his eighties, Tang was still organizing workshops and seminars to discuss the issue of Creative Botany. Whereas artistic creation may stem from aspiration of the moment, scientific innovation can only be the result of long-term accumulation.
The first infrared image of clouds obtained with the FY-1c meteorological satellite launched by a Long March 4-B rocket on June 10th, 1999.
Multi-channel scanning radiometer for the FY-1c meteorological satellite, developed by the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, CAS.