China Science & Technology Forum

[JSCh]

Genome of orchid Apostasia shenzhenica sequenced
September 14, 2017 by Bob Yirka report

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A flowering plant of Apostasia shenzhenica Credit: Zhong-Jian Liu and Li-Jun Chen

(Phys.org)—A large international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the orchid Apostasia shenzhenica. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes the approach they used and what they learned during the process.

To say that orchids are prevalent in the world today is an understatement—as the researchers note, they currently constitute approximately 10 percent of all flowering plant species and have colonized all but the most extreme habitats on Earth. Because of its strong ability to migrate and change to suit diverse conditions, it has aroused the interests of scientists for many years. In this new effort, the researchers focused their work on Apostasia shenzhenica, a type of orchid found in southeast China. It is mostly green with yellow blossoms. Learning about the genomic makeup of the flower reveals the way it has evolved to adapt so well to new conditions.

The researchers report that they used 10x genomics scaffolding to conduct both short and long-read sequencing to develop a genome sequence for the plant. They report also that they used the results of their work to compare the plant with other orchids to isolate parts that were the same versus those that were different using transcriptome data.

The team found that A. shenzhenica offered strong evidence of its inclusion in the family of orchids—large parts of the genome were virtual copies of those of other orchid types. They also found, as suspected, that it split off from other orchids millions of years ago—close to the point in time when orchids first came to exist. They also found that orchids underwent a major extinction period after which the plants differentiated and subsequently evolved into five subfamilies. They suggest that it was during this period that features such as the famous "lip" developed.

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The plants of Tie Pi Shi Hu Dendrobium catenatum (Epidendroideae) were growing on the tree. The whole genome of this species has been re-sequenced for this study. Credit: Zhong-Jian Liu and Li-Jun Chen

The team's findings suggest the plant is a good candidate for further research because it might offer evolutionary clues such as the factors that led to orchids having pollonia (masses of pollen) and lighter seeds than other plants. It might also explain another well-known trait—the ability to use other plants for support.

More information: Guo-Qiang Zhang et al. The Apostasia genome and the evolution of orchids, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature23897



https://phys.org/news/2017-09-genome-orchid-apostasia-shenzhenica-sequenced.html

 

[JSCh]

Mass movements of microbes
14 September 2017
Posted by Chris Smith.

Human population, agriculture, tourism and trade are moving microbes around the world at unprecedented levels, scientists are warning.

Human population now tops 7.5 billion people, and, combined with the animals we rear agriculturally, we outweigh - thirty-five fold - all other mammals in the wild. Human activities move more sand and rock than all natural processes combined, and current estimates suggest that natural erosion displaces only about 20 billion tonnes of material per year, considerably less than the 75 billion tonnes of soil lost owing to agriculture.

Tourism and travel are also booming: more than 1.2 billion international tourist movements happen each year. Meanwhile, boats are dumping millions of tonnes of ballast water - replete with cargoes of exotic microbes - in remote geographies, and hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of agricultural land are now irrigated by wastewater supercharged with bacteria, antibiotics, heavy metals and disinfectants.

Together, these factors are dramatically and rapidly reshaping the microbial ecosystem, a team of researchers, including Macquarie University's Michael Gillings, argue in a perspective published this week in the journal Science.

This, they say, is driving antibiotic resistance and a loss of microbial diversity. It also threatens to jeopardise the natural biogeochemical relationships that underpin processes like nutrient cycling, the carbon cycle and nitrogen fixing. And because these changes are occurring literally at the microscopic scale, the authors point out, they are easy to overlook.

"Human activity," say the researchers, "is having the same effects on the otherwise invisible microbial world as it is on the world of larger organisms: increasing homogeneity, extinctions of endemic organisms and instability in ecosystem processes."

Gillings and his colleagues point to the wide-scale spread of a genetic component called the class 1 integron as an objective measure of the extent of the problem. This DNA element plays a key role in helping bacteria to acquire and deploy new tricks and traits, like acquiring the genes for antibiotic resistance from their environment.

Winding back the genetic clock, the class 1 integron appears to have originated by chance in a single cell in a single place earlier in the last Century. Now it's in every continent, in a diverse range of bacteria and a range of different hosts, including in the bugs we carry.

"Realisation of the global extent of pollution with these xenogenetic [foreign] elements, and the organisms that carry them, should stimulate questions at a much more global scale," says the researchers, concluding with the poignant counsel that "microorganisms usually perform their essential ecosystem services invisibly, but we ignore them at our peril..."


Mass movements of microbes | Science Articles | Naked Scientists

Yong-Guan Zhu, Michael Gillings, Pascal Simonet, Dov Stekel, Steve Banwart and Josep Penuelas. Microbial mass movements. Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aao3007.​

 

[JSCh]

China makes breakthrough in anti-corrosion coating
Source: Xinhua| 2017-09-17 14:58:26|Editor: Mengjie



SANSHA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- China has achieved a major breakthrough in heavy-duty anti-corrosion coating by using modified graphene, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The results were achieved by scientists led by researcher Wang Liping and academician Xue Qunji through years of research and development.

Identified by the Chinese Society for Corrosion and Protection, the new coating can be used in the state grid, petrochemical engineering, and marine engineering and equipment.

It will change the monopoly by foreign products in heavy-duty anti-corrosion coating in China and protect engineering equipment in the country's tropical marine areas.

According to the CAS, China has an anti-corrosion coating market worth 200 billion yuan (30.6 billion U.S. dollars), including heavy-duty coating with an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent.

 

[JSCh]

China plans to launch 'brain project' by year end
2017-09-18 12:42 Ecns.cn Editor: Mo Hong'e ECNS App Download

(ECNS) -- China plans to launch its own version of BRAIN, or Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, by the end of this year, said Muming Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The China Brain Project has been in planning for three years and is now included as a key Science & Technology project of the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), Poo told China Business News.

In 2015, Chinese scientists proposed targeted research into the neural basis of cognitive function, with the additional goals of improving diagnosis and prevention of brain diseases, and driving artificial intelligence research through computing and system simulation.

Poo said China's investment in the project would be equivalent to the amount allocated for the U.S. BRAIN initiative announced by the Obama administration in 2013, and that China would also encourage private capital participation, although details were yet to be ironed out.

Scientists believe the China Brain Project would increase understanding of the reasons behind Alhzeimer's, depression and other diseases, and also provide a huge boost to the development of artificial intelligence in China.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences kicked off its Mapping Brain Functional Connections (MBFC) project in 2012 to focus on the analysis and simulation of the connectome pathway and network structure of specific brain functions.

Yang Xiongli, an academic at Fudan University, said brain research and application could promote the development of many fields.

Currently, China lags behind in brain research projects. Wang Zuoren, deputy Party chief at the Institute of Neuroscience, said the U.S. invests $5 billion a year in neurosciences, excluding private capital, but China only invests 200 million yuan.

In a paper published last month, Poo said China aimed to take a leading role in brain research in 15 years.

 

[Keel]

Chinese hospital treats US cancer patient with experimental therapy
Xinhua | Updated: 2017-09-11 10:49
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2017-09/11/content_31843874.htm

A Chinese hospital has used an experimental therapy to treat an American patient with bone marrow cancer, the first time a foreigner has received such therapy at a Chinese institution, the hospital said.

Craig Chase, 56, from California, was discharged on Aug 30 from Jiangsu People's Hospital in Nanjing, in Jiangsu Province, after receiving treatment for myeloma cancer.

Before he was discharged from hospital, his blood test results were within normal range.

"The medical treatment has been successful," said Dr. Chen Lijuan, who carried out the CAR-T trials.

Chase underwent repeated chemotherapy and received an autologous stem cell transplant in June 2015. However, the conventional treatment failed to contain the disease.

In June, he learnt about the CAR-T trial treatment in China and through his American doctor contacted Li Jianyong, director of the hematology department at Jiangsu People's Hospital. Li is a famed blood disease expert in China. Li directed Chase to Chen.

The hospital started to treat myeloma cancer patients by using CAR-T therapy from April this year.

Before Chase, five patients had received the therapy with four having excellent results, but the doctors had never treated a foreign citizen, Chen said.

"His illness was rather serious, and it was already late stage. The therapy is still in experimental phase, so we were under a lot of pressure," she said.

CAR-T, chimeric antigen receptor, involves removing T-cells from a patients' blood, reprogramming them into the body to attack infected cells.

"T-cells are like the police force in our body. CAR-T arms the cells with positioning and ballistic device. When the T-cells are re-injected in the body, these cell police can precisely locate the cancer cells and terminate them," she said. "CAR-T has received a lot of attention, but using CAR-T to treat multiple myeloma is still in the trial phase and not yet mature."

Chase started CAR-T treatment on Aug. 11, and doctors will continue to monitor his health, she said.

Craig Chase, a patient from California, the United States, in a hospital in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. [Photo: sczkzz.com]
http://chinaplus.cri.cn/news/china/9/20170903/23132.html

 

[JSCh]

Scientists talk China-UK healthcare tech collaboration
by Catherine Jessup Sep 18, 2017 15:11

Surgeons using a da Vinci surgical robot in Fujian, China. China News Service China News Service

‘Biologically-inspired robots’ and tumour-zapping ultrasound devices were two of the projects highlighted by scientists who spoke at the ‘One Belt One Road Summit’ in Oxford on Thursday.

Hosted by the University of Oxford’s law faculty, the event brought together researchers in science, the digital economy and the arts among other fields to talk about past and future joint projects between China and the UK.

Surgical robots were one of the inventions featured in the discussions on science. Already in use in hospitals around the world, these systems allow surgeons to use VR screens and haptic devices to move high precision robot hands.

“Using a robot like this gives surgeons more space to work, which allows for greater accuracy in difficult operations,” explained Jindong Liu, a Research Fellow at the Hamlyn Centre, a healthcare technology research centre at Imperial College London.

Dr Liu’s talk highlighted the importance of Chinese collaboration in this research. “In the UK, the small patient pool means it takes longer for these devices to be tested out,” he explained. “Through working directly with hospitals in China, we can trial these devices further and get them to a point where they’re ready for use and can be made available more widely.”

Chinese president Xi Jinping visited the Hamlyn Centre in 2015 and during his visit UCF, a major Chinese financial services group, announced that it would donate US$4.1m to support research both there and at Imperial’s Data Science Institute.

Another invention discussed by the panel of researchers was High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound, or HIFU, which researchers have been trialling as a non-invasive method of treating harmful tumours.

“Ultrasound waves are used for medical scans because they can transmit harmlessly through living tissue,” explained David Cranston, Clinical Director of the HIFU unit at the University of Oxford, which has been testing ultrasound equipment developed in China. “When these same ultrasound beams are focused, they can be used to ‘cook’ tumours, without causing damage to the tissue surrounding them.”

Oxford University acquired the first Chinese HIFU machine in the western hemisphere, which was developed by researchers in Chongqing. Since 2002, the HIFU unit has been used in a range of clinical trials for illnesses including prostate cancer, liver and kidney tumours.



Scientists talk China-UK healthcare tech collaboration | gbtimes.com

 

[JSCh]

Scientists Produce a Second-generation Flagellin-rPAc Fusion Protein, KFD2-rPAc
Sep 14, 2017

Dental caries, one of the most common global chronic diseases distributed unevenly among populations, is still a major oral health problem in most industrialized countries.

It affects 60–90% of school-age children and the vast majority of adults, thus an anti-caries vaccine has long been attractive for broad-based dental health in caries prevention, and in the treatment of large infected populations. Dental lesions of caries usually result from the localized dissolution and destruction of teeth caused primarily by Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) infections.

In a present study, the research group led by Prof. YAN Huimin from Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences characterized the second-generation flagellin-rPAc fusion protein, a vaccine candidate designed to avoid an undesired flagellin-specific antibody response and inflammatory side effects while inducing efficacious antibodies against PAc and providing high protective efficacy against dental caries.

To reduce the immunogenicity of flagellin, the scientists constructed a second-generation flagellin-rPAc fusion protein, KFD2-rPAc, in which rPAc replaced D2/D3, the main antigenicity domains of KF.

Results in this study demonstrated that the immunogenicity of flagellin itself is substantially reduced in KFD2-rPAc. KFD2-rPAc induced over 10-fold less flagellin-specific antibody responses in mice and rats. The significantly lowered immunogenicity of flagellin partly makes KFD2-rPAc more feasible for multiple administrations without interference by pre-existed antibodies.

In conclusion, KFD2-rPAc, the second-generation flagellin-rPAc fusion protein, induced low potential systemic inflammatory responses and low flagellin-specific antibody responses, but high immune protection against caries. These advantages make KFD2-rPAc a promising anti-caries vaccine candidate.

The results have been published in Scientific Reports entitled "Second-generation Flagellin-rPAc Fusion Protein, KFD2-rPAc, Shows High Protective Efficacy against Dental Caries with Low Potential Side Effects".

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the "One-Three-Five" Strategic Planning Program of Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and grants from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

KFD2-rPAc induced a much lower systemic inflammatory response. (Image by ZHONG Maohua)



Scientists Produce a Second-generation Flagellin-rPAc Fusion Protein, KFD2-rPAc---Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

China produces its first neutron beams
By ZHANG ZHIHAO | China Daily | Updated: 2017-09-02 06:46

China has become the latest country to create neutron beams－which can examine subatomic materials without damaging their structure－an advance expected to lead to new discoveries in material science, clean energy and medicine.

The beams were first produced on Aug 28 at the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan, Guangdong province, making China the fourth country in the world, after the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, to have a neutron beam source.

"This is a major milestone for Chinese scientists. The lab will help us solve some of the nation's most difficult scientific issues," said Chen Hesheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the manager of the project.

"It will also help the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to upgrade its industries and support their high-end scientific research and development," Chen said.

The China Spallation Neutron Source cost 1.87 billion yuan ($280 million) and took around six and a half years to build. It will be fully operational next year and Chinese scientists from more than 70 projects and 22 universities have applied to use it. The facility would also be open to foreign researchers, he said.

Neutrons and protons are found at the nucleus, or the core of an atom－the basic building block of materials. While protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no electric charge, and have strong penetrative capability.

As a result, unlike X-rays, whose ionized radiation can rip through the atomic structures of biomaterials like proteins, neutron rays can just pass through the material without damaging the structures, Chen said.

However, some neutrons will hit the atomic nucleus in the material and "bounce" harmlessly away at an angle in a phenomenon called neutron scattering, hence creating the "spallation". Using detectors, scientists can count these scattered neutrons, measure their energies and the angles at which they scatter, and map their final positions.

This way, scientists can glean details about the nature of the examined materials－from its atomic arrangement to movements.

"This will help scientists discover new chemical mechanisms for producing clean energy, new material for more powerful electronics, or create stronger and more durable material for engines," Chen said.

Another promising application is creating new therapies to treat tumors that are difficult to operate on by hand, such as brain tumors, said Fu Shinian, a researcher at the academy's Institute of High Energy Physics.

The Boron Neutron Capture Therapy takes advantage of boron's properties to accurately latch onto cancer cells. Then doctors can shine neutron beams at the tumor, triggering the boron to kill the cancer cells while leaving surrounding cells intact, Fu said.

Despite these promising applications, creating neutron beams is no easy task. In China's neutron source, scientists have to accelerate a group of protons close to the speed of light, use them to smash into a target tungsten block, and knock the neutrons out of the target's atomic nucleus.

Then these neutrons are "sucked" into various branches and channeled into different lab equipment for research, said Chen. All of the equipment used to generate the neutron beams is more than a dozen meters underground, trapping the tiny amount of harmful radiation created in the process.

China's neutron source will be free to the public, only collecting a small fee from companies with special needs.

View attachment 422426

First Successful Operation of CSNS Cryogenic System
Sep 18, 2017

The cryogenic system for the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) cryogenic system has been successfully operated over the past four weeks since August 16th.

Cooling of the CSNS cryogenic system was started on August 16th. After 25 hours, the temperature of the whole system had decreased smoothly to 18K. The heater of the hydrogen circulation cold box was loaded to 700 W, then the cryogenic system was switched to a stable state and send out the ‘Ready’ signal.

On August 28th, a neutron beam was successfully obtained at CSNS for the first time. The cryogenic system worked steadily, and satisfied the requirements for neutron physics. After targeting, the cryogenic system kept running and the two hydrogen pumps were tested separately and proved stable.

First operation results showed that the performance of the cryogenic system met the technical specifications and requirements.

The cryogenic system was warmed up again on September 13th, completing the first round of testing. The stability and reliability of the CSNS cryogenic system were tested and proven.

Experience gained during this operation period will lay a solid foundation for long-term stable operation in the future. For the next step, the CSNS cryogenic system will run in conjunction with beam tuning for the target station and spectrometer.


First Successful Operation of CSNS Cryogenic System---Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Breakthrough technology puts China in elite science club
Source:Global Times Published: 2017/9/18 19:43:39

The pictured is part of the 'super microscope' in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province. Photo: VCG

China celebrated a major scientific breakthrough on August 28, 2017, when the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) produced its first neutron beam.

The CSNS will provide powerful support to high-value scientific projects and seeks to make great contributions to China's sustainable development and national security.

Hailed as a "super microscope", the CSNS offers an excellent resource for scientists looking to probe the micro-cosmos.

Going local

The discovery and application of neutrons were one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century, said Chen Hesheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

As well as being non-destructive, neutrons are electrically neutral and have high penetrativity, and are thus able to differentiate between light elements, isotopes and neighboring elements. As a result, neutron scattering is one of the best approaches to studying material structures and dynamic properties.

"When projected onto samples, the neutrons react with the nucleus and magnetic moments and then produce scattering," said Chen, adding that scientists study the microstructures and law of motion of each material by measuring the energy and momentum changes in the scattering.

Though neutrons are tiny particles, a spallation neutron source is a bulky device that integrates the most advanced technologies. China is the fourth country in the world to have developed its own spallation neutron source after the UK, the US, and Japan.

Because of the high costs of some key components offered by foreign companies, Chinese researchers of the CSNS decided to develop their own technologies to manufacture the parts. Through cooperation with a number of institutions, they finally succeeded after years of endeavor, said Fu Shinian, vice general manager of the CSNS.

"By breaking down a series of technical barriers, we have localized over 96% of the parts, and the development of some of the devices is taking the lead in the international community," Chen introduced.

Wide application

After 10 years of construction, the CSNS will be soon completed and make its first step toward industrialization.

The technology is expected to usher in a new era of oncotherapy in the next five years. "Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a technology used to treat tumors through neutron beams," said Zhang Zhongneng, chairman of the pharmaceutical manufacturing company HEC Group.

"It is able to kill cancer cells without damaging peripheral tissues, featuring a high level of safety, high precision and low cost," he added.

HEC Group has signed a cooperative agreement with the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out a BNCT treatment project by exploiting the spallation neutron source. A commercial BNCT treatment center is scheduled to be established, said Wang Yifang, president of the IHEP.

However, life sciences are not the only field in which the CSNS can be applied. As a new platform of interdisciplinary studies, it can be broadly used in a number of sectors including materials science, chemical engineering, resource and environment and new energy.

The spallation neutron source can also be used for the study of the formation mechanism and stability condition of methane clathrate, offering a scientific basis to promote a more secure and effective exploitation of combustible ice, Chen explained.

Innovation hub

China has a unique advantage over the three other spallation neutron sources in that it enjoys close integration with the manufacturing industry.

Dongguan, southern China's Guangdong province, where the CSNS is located, is home to 2,028 high-tech companies. The city is planning to build a 45.7-square kilometer industrial park for neutron technology, said Huang Qinghui, deputy mayor of Dongguan.

Currently, the industrial park is bringing together a batch of internationally influential companies. Huawei, a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company, will send a total of 30,000 researchers to the park. The industrial park will attract more personnel upon completion, becoming a hub for 600 scientists to carry out their research simultaneously.

According to Huang, the CSNS project contributed to China's rapid development of the technology and industrial application of neutron scattering, particularly in the Greater Pearl River Delta region.

 

[JSCh]

VCU physicists discover a tri-anion particle with colossal stability
The particle could be used in battery creation and for other industrial purposes

A rendering of protons, neutrons and electrons in an atom. By Leah Small

Monday, Sept. 18, 2017

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have achieved a feat that is a first in the fields of physics and chemistry — one that could have wide-ranging applications.

A team in the lab of Puru Jena, Ph.D., a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics in the College of Humanities and Sciences, has created the most stable tri-anion particle currently known to science. A tri-anion particle is a combination of atoms that contains three more electrons than protons. This discovery is novel because previously known tri-anion particles were unstable due to their numerical imbalance. These unstable particles dispel additional electrons, interrupting chemical reactions.

Jena partnered with Tianshan Zhao, a graduate student in the physics department; Jian Zhou, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow; and Qian Wang, Ph.D., a physics professor at Peking University, to use quantum mechanical calculations to create computer models to prove the stability of the BeB11(CN)12 tri-anion. This tri-anion is made of the elements boron and beryllium and the chemical compound cyanogen.

Not only can it keep three electrons but the third electron is extremely stable.

The researchers’ work will be featured on the cover of Angewandte Chemie, a world-renowned chemistry journal, on Oct. 17. The team’s article was designated a VIP paper by the publication, which means it is considered among the top five percent of papers for its contribution to the study of chemistry.

“This is very important in this field, nobody has ever found such a tri-anion,” Jena said. “Not only can it keep three electrons but the third electron is extremely stable. The guiding principles we have used in this paper will help with the design of other tri-anions. The question is: What do we do with this knowledge?”

Real world applications

The tri-anion may have a number of industrial applications. So far, Jena and his team have hypothesized that the particle may be used in the creation of an aluminum ion battery, which has distinct advantages over the widely used rechargeable lithium ion battery. Aluminum is in greater supply than lithium and is less reactive. During the chemical reaction that would power the battery, the tri-anion would make the battery conductive by moving from one of its electrodes to the other.

While a battery is the only demonstrated use so far, existing applications for other particles with one additional electron, called mono-anions, and two additional electrons, called di-anions, show the potential of Jena’s work.

“Such particles are very important for many reasons. Number one, they make salts. Secondly, they are used in all kinds of chemical compounds, such as those in floor cleaners as oxidizing agents that kill bacteria,” Jena said. “They are also used to purify air, which is a billion-dollar industry, and in mood enhancers, similar to what Prozac does. The potential uses are endless.”


VCU physicists discover a tri-anion particle with colossal stability | VCU News

Journal Reference:

1. Tianshan Zhao, Jian Zhou, Qian Wang, Puru Jena. Colossal Stability of Gas-Phase Trianions: Super-Pnictogens. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2017; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201708386

 

[JSCh]

Tianhe-2 Supercomputer Being Upgraded to 95 Petaflops
Michael Feldman | September 20, 2017 05:46 CEST

The number two-ranked Tianhe-2 supercomputer, installed at the National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, is being upgraded to 94.97 petaflops, nearly doubling its current peak performance of 54.9 petaflops.

The news comes out of the International HPC Forum (IHPCF), via a series of tweets from Satoshi Matsuoka posted on Tuesday. During the morning session, it was revealed that the upgraded system, dubbed Tianhe-2A, will sport the new Chinese-made Matrix-2000 GPDSP accelerators. They will replace the existing Intel Knights Corner Xeon Phi coprocessors that were installed in the Tianhe-2 back in 2013.

The original plan was to upgrade the system with the newer Knights Landing devices. But after the US government instituted an embargo on these chips to certain Chinese supercomputing sites, including the Guangzhou center, the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) had to come up with plan B. In this case, that meant developing their own coprocessor. That turned out be the Matrix-2000, a DSP-type chip, tweaked for more general-purpose computation.

According to slides presented at the forum, each Matrix-2000 will deliver 2.4576 teraflops (peak), which more than doubles the 1.0 teraflops delivered by the original Xeon Phi chip. The Matrix-2000 consists of 128 cores, each one providing 16 double precision flops per cycle. Those flops are delivered by a 256-bit vector unit, which as Satoshi notes, is in line with the Knights Corner chip it replaces.

At least for the time being, the system will retain the original host CPUs from Tianhe-2, which are Intel Xeon processors. Each supercomputer node will pair two of those Intel CPUs with two Matrix-2000 coprocessors, hooked in via PCIe. The node count is being increased from 16,000 to 17,792.

Other enhancements include an interconnect that is 40 percent faster interconnect (to 14 Gbps) and has 50 percent lower latency (1 us). This is likely the TH-Express-2+ that NUDT has talked about before. In addition, main memory has been bumped from 1.4 to 3.4 petabytes, slightly improving the bytes-to-flops ratio of the Tianhe-2. Storage has also been enhanced in both capacity and I/O bandwidth. All the particulars are below, courtesy of James Lin, who tweeted some nice screen images from the presentation.

Source: James Lin,‏ @jameslinsjtu​

Even though peak performance is going to nearly double, the system’s total power draw of 18 MW is just slightly more than that of the original system. That gives it a power efficiency of more than 5 gigaflops per watt, which would place it somewhere around the number 20 slot on the Green500 list.

Ironically, the upgrade won’t improve the system’s position in the TOP500 rankings. The number one Sunway TaihuLight has a peak performance of 125.4 petaflops, and attains 93 petaflops on the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. It’s unlikely Tianhe-2A will come in at better than 70 or 80 petaflops on HPL.

Nevertheless, the upgrade further cements China’s status as a serious supercomputing power, and does so, once again, with domestically produced technology. The country is currently the odds-on favorite to stand up the first exascale system, which it intends to do in the 2019-2020 timeframe.



Tianhe-2 Supercomputer Being Upgraded to 95 Petaflops | TOP500 Supercomputer Sites

 

[JSCh]

China’s atomic clock passes space test
By Edwin Cartlidge
Sep. 20, 2017 , 1:03 PM

Clocks that use cold atoms form the backbone of the international time system here on Earth. Now, scientists in China have successfully demonstrated a cold atom clock in space, an achievement that could lead to more accurate terrestrial timekeeping and better tests of fundamental physics.

Most atomic clocks rely on a very steady tick: the frequency of fluorescent light emitted by cesium atoms after being excited by a microwave field. The frequency is steadier when the atoms move slowly, and so scientists first trap the atoms using intersecting laser beams and cool them down to a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero.

Because the laser beams would impair the frequency measurement, the atoms must be released from the trap before they are excited by the microwaves. Typically, they are nudged upward by another laser and zapped with microwaves as they rise and then fall back down to Earth. But the briefness of this free fall limits how long the atoms can be probed and, hence, the clock’s accuracy and stability. In orbit, however, the atoms are in continuous free fall and can in principle be probed over longer periods of time.

The Cold Atom Clock Experiment in Space (CACES) involves trapping, cooling, and probing rubidium atoms within a box that could fit in the trunk of a car. In orbit at an altitude of 400 kilometers, the experiment was launched on board China’s Tiangong-2 space laboratory last September. Now, a year later, it is performing just as expected, according to a paper posted to the arXiv server by scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics.

Shanghai team leader Liang Liu says that he and his colleagues “had to work night and day” to get CACES ready for launch. They “encountered tremendous technical difficulties,” he recalls, in shrinking the bulky and complex equipment needed to trap and cool atoms and also ensuring that the kit withstands the rigors of space. “Fortunately we did it, and after a year in orbit CACES is still working perfectly,” he says.

As such, Liu and co-workers have overtaken scientists working on a mission for the European Space Agency known as the Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES). Proposed in 1997, ACES has faced a series of funding and technical delays that mean it won’t arrive at the International Space Station for at least another year. In contrast, CACES has gone from conception to operation in just a decade.

The Chinese clock, however, is less advanced than its European counterpart, which will use cold cesium atoms. For one thing, its estimated stability—three parts in 1013—is a third of ACES design value, meaning it would take nine times as long to reach a given accuracy. In addition, CACES doesn’t transmit its ticking to Earth, so its accuracy can’t be regularly monitored. (It has a data link but not one that can send stable time and frequency information.) ACES, on the other hand, will communicate its timekeeping to Earth through a microwave link, allowing atomic clocks on the ground to be calibrated and also enabling tests of the theory of general relativity involving the effect of altitude on a clock’s ticking rate.

ACES Principal Investigator Christophe Salomon, an atomic physicist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, says that although Liu and colleagues have demonstrated the basics of a cold atom clock in orbit, they haven’t fully exploited that capability—the longest recorded time measurement was actually shorter than the 0.5 seconds typically reached on Earth. “They have made a nice technology demonstration,” he says, “but it is disappointing that they haven’t taken advantage of the microgravity.”

Stephan Schiller, an atomic physicist at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany, points out that, strictly speaking, CACES is not the first cold atom experiment to be carried out in space. In January, German researchers produced an exotic state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate by launching cold atoms on a sounding rocket from Sweden. But that flight lasted just 6 minutes—“a different ball park” to a year of tests, he maintains. “With their experiment,” he says, “the Chinese are at the forefront of space-based cold atom sensors worldwide.”

Next, Liu and colleagues plan to install a more stable clock with links to the ground on board China’s space station, which is due to start taking shape in 2020. Then both they and a group of European researchers led by Schiller aim to test orbital “optical clocks,” which would use a laser beam to probe atoms with higher frequency emissions in order to generate even more precise ticks than a microwave device. “There is an exciting future for high-precision clocks in space,” Schiller says.


China’s atomic clock passes space test | Science | AAAS

 

[Yukihime]

China High Speed Train 'Fuxing' EMU raised speed from 300km/h to 350km/h making it only 4.5 hours from Beijing to Shanghai

Journalist is streaming now using the built-in WI-FI provided in a 'Fuxing' train which runs at 350km/h.
Streaming: http://live.sina.com.cn/zt/l/v/news/fuxinggaotie/

Screen shows water glass, pen and even an cell phone can stand while the train is running at full speed.

 

[JSCh]

China Exclusive: China builds world-class astronomical base in Tibet
Source: Xinhua| 2017-09-21 13:19:44|Editor: Xiang Bo



By Xinhua writer Yu Fei

BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- With its thin air and clear sky, Ngari Prefecture is an ideal place for astronomers to gaze into the remote universe.

Chinese scientists are building a world-class observatory base at an altitude above 5,000 meters at Ngari, in the west of China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

They have launched a project to detect primary gravitational waves there. They also plan to conduct high-precision detection of cosmic rays and build China's largest optical telescope.

Xue Suijian, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), says astronomical observation requires clarity, transparency, tranquility and aridity of the atmosphere. A suitable site for multiple wave-length observation is a rare resource.

It's widely believed that the world's best astronomical observatories are located on Mauna Kea mountain, on Hawaii's Big Island, and in the desert in northern Chile. These two places, in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, are home to more than 90 percent of the world's large astronomical facilities.

However, due to objections from native Hawaiians, the world's largest optical telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), might be the last astronomical project to be built on Mauna Kea, says Xue.

Scientists are eager to find another good observatory base in the northern hemisphere.

Xue said NAOC began looking for a suitable site in western China in 2004, focusing on a ridge ranging from 5,000 meters to 6,200 meters above sea level in Ngari.

Now the Ngari Observatory is starting to take shape. Chinese universities and institutes, as well as research organizations from Japan and the United States, are joining NAOC with plans for projects there.

China's largest optical telescope, the 12-meter telescope, is expected to be built at the site. The project is included in China's large-scale sci-tech infrastructure plan for 2016 to 2020, says Xue.

Xue says NAOC will also cooperate with Tibet University and Ngari prefecture government to launch a project for the high-precision detection of cosmic rays above the 50 TeV energy region. Scientists from the University of Tokyo have pledged equipment worth tens of millions of yuan for the project.

Scientists are also building at Ngari the world's highest station to observe primary gravitational waves, dubbed "the first cry of the cosmos after the Big Bang."

Zhang Xinmin, lead scientist of the project with the Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), says detection of primary gravitational waves is of great significance to studying the origin and evolution of the universe.

Although the first detection of gravitational waves was announced on February 2016, no primary gravitational waves have been detected so far. But they remain a hot topic in international academic circles.

According to cosmic inflation theory, the universe expanded rapidly in a very short period after the Big Bang, and caused ripples in space-time. The primary gravitational waves generated by cosmic inflation should have left traces in the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

In May 2014, Zhang Xinmin proposed a CMB detection experiment in Ngari, arguing that as primary gravitational waves were very weak, the detection site should have thin air, and the drier the better.

Ngari is one of just four places in the world regarded as the best sites for primary gravitational wave detection, alongside Antarctica, Chile's Atacama Desert and Greenland.

Zhang had considered China's Kunlun Station in Antarctica to conduct the experiment, but the infrastructure there was insufficient.

The primary gravitational wave detection experiment, a joint China-U.S.project, was launched in late 2016.

The first stage of the project will see a telescope built at a site 5,250 meters above sea level to realize the first measurement of primary gravitational waves in the northern hemisphere. The telescope is expected to be installed at the end of 2019 and operational in 2020.

Scientists then plan to build a more sensitive telescope at a higher site to realize more accurate measurement of primary gravitational waves.

Scientists at the Institute of High Energy Physics of CAS and Stanford University are cooperating to design the telescope, which will be 2.7 times more powerful than the BICEP 3 telescope in Antarctica, says Zhang.

Xue says China should utilize the unique geographical advantage of the "Roof of the World." The series of projects, scheduled to run until 2030, could help promote Tibet's social and economic development.

 

[JSCh]

Super-Sticky Robot Clings Underwater Like 'Hitchhiker' Fish
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | September 20, 2017 02:05pm ET

A robot inspired by a hitchhiking fish can cling to surfaces underwater with a force 340 times its own weight.

The new bot was inspired by the remora, fish that cling to larger marine animals like sharks and whales, feeding off their hosts' dead skin and feces.

Remora fish do this with a specially adapted fin on their undersides called a suction disc, which consists of a soft, circular "lip" and linear rows of tissue called lamellae. The lamellae sport tiny, needle-like spinules. The remora can use tiny muscles around the disc to change its shape to suction itself to the host; the spinules then provide major gripping power by adding friction to the equation.

"Biologists say that it represents one of the most extraordinary adaptions within the vertebrates," said Li Wen, a robotics and biomechanics researcher at Beihang University in China and the lead author of a new paper describing the remora robot. [7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]

Fishy inspiration
Wen said he got the idea for a remora-inspired robot when he was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. He and his advisor were working on designing 3D-printed sharkskin. When looking up photos to use in a paper, Wen said, he kept seeing these odd little hangers-on in photos of sharks. They were remoras. Struck by the fact that no one had tried to make a biorobotic remora disc, Wen and his colleagues decided to tackle the project themselves.

To do so, they had to come up with a way to create a disc with sections ranging from downright rigid to skin-soft. The researchers used 3D printing to pull off this feat, and then added approximately 1,000 faux spinules made of laser-cut carbon fiber. To allow the disc to move just like a real remora disc, the researchers embedded six pneumatic actuators — basically little air pockets — that could inflate and deflate on cue.

A look at the undulating remora robot dic.
Credit: Wang et al., Sci. Robot. 2, eaan8072 (2017)

The result looks a bit like one of those shaving razors with far too many blades, just larger. The robot measures about 5 inches (13 centimeters) from end to end.

Ride-along robot
To test this fishy bot, the researchers attached it underwater to a variety of surfaces, some rough, some smooth, some rigid and some flexible. These included real mako shark skin, plexiglass, epoxy resin and silicone elastomer. The robot clung quite nicely to all the surfaces, the researchers found.

The force needed to pull the remora robot off the smooth plexiglass was about 436 newtons, which translates to 340 times the weight of the robot itself. On rougher surfaces, the bot clung a little less tightly. It took about 167 newtons of force to pull the bot off real sharkskin, for instance.

Finally, the researchers attached their disc to a real remotely operated underwater vehicle and practiced attaching the ROV by the disc, to various surfaces. They had a 100 percent success rate attaching the disc to the same range of surfaces that they'd tested before, with an average time to attach of less than 4 seconds, the study said.

"The rigid spinules and soft material overlaying the lamellae engage with the surface when rotated, just like discs of live remora," Wen told Live Science.

While adhesive robots are nothing new, the remora is one of the first options roboticists have had for underwater attachments. Other sticky bots, like ones inspired by tree frogs and geckos, don't work well when submerged. The remora bot could be used to attach things to any broad underwater surface, Wen said, or to allow an underwater robot to cruise along on the underside of a boat.

Remora robots could even be used as tags for tracking the movements of marine animals, he said. After all, what's one more hitchhiker?


https://www.livescience.com/60465-robot-clings-underwater-like-hitchhiker-fish.html

 

[JSCh]

For the First Time, Signal Transfer Between Molecules Has Been Achieved
By Dexter Johnson
Posted 22 Sep 2017 | 16:00 GMT

Image: Nanchang University/Nature Nanotechnology
STM image of all the initial β-form molecules in the middle row that changed into the α-form owing to a single manipulation

The history of molecular computing and electronics has been a long and twisting road—one that was meticulously catalogued on the pages of IEEE Spectrum two years ago. While the future of molecular electronics and computing remains somewhat up in the air, a great deal of research is still being focused on the field.

There have been proof-of-concept molecular switches, molecular data storage bits, and diodes. However, one fundamental issue that has not been resolved is the transfer and exchange of signals between molecular devices for complex signal processing at room temperature.

Now researchers at Nanchang University in China have described, in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, a device that uses a particular kind of molecule that takes on two specific geometries when in contact with a copper surface. These two geometries can serve as the “0” and “1” of digital logic.

The work is based on a phenomenon known as in-plane molecular orientation, which occurs when an organic molecule lands on a solid surface. This adsorbed molecule might take different adsorption geometries. These adsorption geometries can be classified into several groups.

“In our case, the molecule we used has two distinguished adsorption geometries on a copper surface,” explained Li Wang, professor of physics at Nanchang University, in an e-mail interview with IEEE Spectrum. “One is left-handed, the other is right handed.” For the purposes of data storage or transfer, “We define left-handed geometry as ‘1’ and the right-handed geometry as ‘0’,” added Wang.

Wang and his colleagues discovered that the in-plane orientation of a molecule could be controlled by the in-plane orientations of two neighboring molecules due to their intermolecular interactions. The researchers exploited this intermolecular interaction as a way to build a logic gate in which an output signal is controlled by two input signals.

“For the first time, we have succeeded in realizing signal transfer and operation between molecules,” said Wang. “Our findings prove that a single molecule can present a certain signal and such signal can be utilized as a conventional signal to carry useful information to transfer and take part in complex operation processing.”

From this stepping stone, Wang believes in principle that as long as the molecules are coupled to each other in some way, much more complicated functions can be achieved, such as molecular computing.

The molecular devices that Wang and his colleagues fabricated in the lab were built by manipulating molecules one by one. For this kind of work to go beyond a mere prototype, it will de necessary to assemble the molecules into designed configurations with the expected intermolecular interactions, according to Wang.

In ongoing research, Wang and his colleagues intend to build more molecular devices with which they can exploit the intermolecular interactions in order to carry out different functions. “We will try to connect variable molecular devices into a whole system to achieve computing as common electronic devices can do,” he added.


For the First Time, Signal Transfer Between Molecules Has Been Achieved - IEEE Spectrum

Chao Li, Zhongping Wang, Yan Lu, Xiaoqing Liu & Li Wang. Conformation-based signal transfer and processing at the single-molecule level. Nature Nanotechnology (2017); DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2017.179​