beijingwalker
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China and USSR took different paths,there is absolutely no comparison between them.
Why China > Soviet Union
- Thread starter Martian2
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Martian2
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My list of Why China > Soviet Union
Aside from nuking the crap out of everybody, which the Soviet Union wins hands down, China is clearly superior to the Soviet Union.
1. China is still here after 5,000 years. The Soviet Union was born in 1917 and died in 1991. It's like a mayfly. It disappeared in the blink of one person's lifetime.
2. China's GDP will hit $8 trillion this year. At its peak, the Soviet Union only managed a $1 trillion GDP in 1983. (See GDP milestones)
3. China can co-exist with the United States. China seeks cooperation with the West. The Soviet Union sought confrontation and wanted to export communist revolution.
4. China is a business. China Inc. seeks win-win solutions. The Soviet Union was an aggressive and expanding conqueror. It finally invaded one too many countries in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and died there.
5. Chinese technological achievements surpass the Soviet Union in many areas. Some examples are world's fastest supercomputer (which the Soviet Union was never good at), world's fastest high-speed-rail (HSR), billion-dollar oil-rigs (which the Soviets could never build), and destroyers with AESA radars.
6. Everyone knows China will conduct a Moon landing around 2025. The Soviets could never accomplish this feat.
7. Chinese Jialong submersible passed 7,000 meters, which is beyond Soviet capabilities.
8. No Soviet city ever looked like Shanghai or Shenzhen.
9. China can build modern 10,000-pound satellites with 32 transponders and a 15-year-lifetime. The Soviets were never good at building satellites. Their satellites were primitive.
10. China's rocket-launch record of 1.5 failures during the last 15 years is reliability that the Soviets could never hope to match.
Aside from nuking the crap out of everybody, which the Soviet Union wins hands down, China is clearly superior to the Soviet Union.
1. China is still here after 5,000 years. The Soviet Union was born in 1917 and died in 1991. It's like a mayfly. It disappeared in the blink of one person's lifetime.
2. China's GDP will hit $8 trillion this year. At its peak, the Soviet Union only managed a $1 trillion GDP in 1983. (See GDP milestones)
3. China can co-exist with the United States. China seeks cooperation with the West. The Soviet Union sought confrontation and wanted to export communist revolution.
4. China is a business. China Inc. seeks win-win solutions. The Soviet Union was an aggressive and expanding conqueror. It finally invaded one too many countries in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and died there.
5. Chinese technological achievements surpass the Soviet Union in many areas. Some examples are world's fastest supercomputer (which the Soviet Union was never good at), world's fastest high-speed-rail (HSR), billion-dollar oil-rigs (which the Soviets could never build), and destroyers with AESA radars.
6. Everyone knows China will conduct a Moon landing around 2025. The Soviets could never accomplish this feat.
7. Chinese Jialong submersible passed 7,000 meters, which is beyond Soviet capabilities.
8. No Soviet city ever looked like Shanghai or Shenzhen.
9. China can build modern 10,000-pound satellites with 32 transponders and a 15-year-lifetime. The Soviets were never good at building satellites. Their satellites were primitive.
10. China's rocket-launch record of 1.5 failures during the last 15 years is reliability that the Soviets could never hope to match.
Hello_10
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it was a final touch, i may say, which gave a 'final push' to Britain to leave India
rest, we have one more history of 'British Lifestyle' till 16th/17th century as below, before they came to India, when India and China were the richest
Poverty in the Middle Ages
However in the Middle Ages poverty was common. England was basically a subsistence economy where each village made most of the things it needed and most of the population were subsistence farmers. They grew as much food as their families needed (if they were lucky).
Surprisingly, perhaps, examining Medieval skeletons shows that most people had an adequate diet, except in times of famine.
However life must have been very hard for the disabled. There were many disabled beggars in Medieval towns.
The Church tried to help the poor. The Church taught that it was a Christian duty to give to the poor. In monasteries a monk called an almoner gave alms to the poor. However in the Middle Ages fearful poverty was an inescapable part of life.
Things did improve after the Black Death of 1348-49. In England about one third of the population died. Afterwards there was a shortage of workers so wages rose. In the 15th century wage labourers were better off then in the 13th century.
A History of Poverty
Jackdaws
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It is unfair to compare the technological achievements of the Soviets and the Chinese - the Soviets were cutting edge in many fields - especially space exploration and satellite technology even surpassing the Americans at times. No one can take that away from them. While commendable, the Chinese have not matched American technical prowess in space technology.
There is simply no comparison between China and the SU or even current russia. China has far surpassed them in economic terms. In terms of military tech I think it will take another 10-15 years to surpass the russains, but ultimately it will happen and there is no stopping them. And yes population is always is factor and a ever decreasing birthrate in the west is also at china's advantage. Hope china quickly abolishes the 1 child policy and allow a free choice to how kids a couple wants. After neither land nor resource is a problem for china now.
Hello_10
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its not just the space techs but also in the areas of Defense tech. like, we find selling rate of Mig29s much higher than Chinese Top Gun J10s, while Mig29s were developed in 80s by SU? SU used to have many aircrafts carriers while China got their first one this year, but interestingly it is also the Soviet Era carrier which Ukraine got in 1990
. with many other arms techs. SU had a wide range of manufacturing industries till 1990, including High End Technological Machineries, like, this is a defense forum and do people know that China and Pakistan used to import engine for JF17s and J10s from Russia even till 2010? while SU had its own similar 4th gen aircrafts, Mig29s, SU27 etc till 80s whose every tech including engines/machines was made by SU itself? 
BTW, does anyone here knows that SU was the second largest economy of the world after US till 1990?
do you people know that SU used to won highest number of medals in Olympic, while China was still on second last year, (first time they reached this level), even if they won highest Gold first time?
have a look as below, per capita income of Russia/SU in January 1991 was 12 times higher than China. China, whose per capita income on PPP was 12% less than India in January 1991 itself
China has to travel a distance to catch up with what SU was in 80s itself. its not just Space Research, MIR station, defense techs, but also, the level of manufacturing techs like different machines SU used to make, CHina is now coming to that level, and still has to do more to get the level SU had till 80s
Hello_10
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look, techs of SU were fit in comparison to US, and many times they exceeded performance of US also. China will be said to be truly superior to SU only when they will reach a level when they will have coped with current US in terms of techs and exceeding also, like how SU was in 80s. people say that India was dependent on SU for defense techs and space research techs but have a look on even Germany/ Japan, they are also dependent on US for defense and space research to an extent even right now. and in 80s, we do accept that India got favor from SU but if China couldnt earn that type of favor then it was their fault to live with poor defense techs in 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and its they to blame to reach space just few years before while an Indian had reached the space in 80s?
India and China were similarly affected due to Western Organized Wars in between 19th to mid 20th century. neither of these two countries were left with enough capabilities
. and SU was having equal status as US till 1990. and until China exceed the performance of US, they can't be said to be above SU. and I expect them to do so within next 10-12 years but it will be a tough task indeed 
Ottoman-Turk
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F this show me in 1500 when ottomans were taxing every country going from bosphorus and around our seas
that gdp estimates of wiki is total bull s... nigeria in 2050 will be 5th in world , anyone will laugh at that , soviet lived like 60 years and died as an old granny , Turkey is coming after 623 years of Ottoman
Why China > Soviet Union - The Daily Beast
"Why China > Soviet Union
by Ryan Prior Jun 26, 2012 12:30 PM EDT
Members of the Guards of Honour of the Three Services of the Chinese People's Liberation Army march during a training session at a barracks in Beijing on July 21, 2011 (LIU JIN / AFP / Getty Images)
This week Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan, published a research letter with a graph showing the history of the world by GDP. It inspired Derek Thompson at The Atlantic to write a great series of posts. The charts show that population was the primary determinant of prosperity in pre-industrial society, but after the 1800s, productivity became significantly more important:
Even from just a cursory look at Cembalest's original chart, another interesting trend is visible:
Russia, which has a population approximately half of the U.S. (140 million), never rivaled U.S. GDP throughout the Cold War. China today boasts a greater share of world GDP than the Soviets ever did at their 1950s peak. And the Chinese share only shows signs of growing ever more.
Two important differences in the emerging U.S.-China rivalry as compared to the U.S.-Soviet one. 1.) The Chinese population is more than three times the U.S. population, while ours was double that of Russia. 2.) Chinese GDP is now booming as Soviet GDP never did."
that gdp estimates of wiki is total bull s... nigeria in 2050 will be 5th in world , anyone will laugh at that , soviet lived like 60 years and died as an old granny , Turkey is coming after 623 years of Ottoman
Martian2
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It's unfortunate the Soviet Union no longer exists. There are claims that I want to make, but I can't.
I want to say:
1. China's Three Gorges Dam generates far more electricity than the largest Soviet dam.
2. China cloned the world's first rabbit before the Soviets.
3. China cloned the world's first transgenic pigs (which proves the principle of gene replacement therapy) before the Soviets.
4. China's superconductivity research is more cutting-edge than the Soviets.
5. China has better telescopes.
6. China has a better synchrotron.
7. Chinese robots can outplay Soviet robots in pingpong.
8. China has the world's most efficient dye-based solar cell technology.
None of these claims can be made, because the Soviet Union is gone. I can't tell you how frustrating this is.
----------
Three Gorges Dam generates the electricity of 21 Hoover Dams
The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River is an American icon. It generates a massive 4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. Astonishingly, China's Three Gorges Dam produces the electricity of 21 Hoover Dams at 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours.
China's Three Gorges Dam is "the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind."
"One of the nation's best-known engineering marvels, the Hoover Dam"
China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity - CNN
"China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity
October 26, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff
China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water project, was fully filled Tuesday, state media said.
The water level hit the dam's design capacity of 175 meters (574 feet) at 9 a.m. Tuesday, said the corporation that developed the dam.
The 175-meter milestone will "enable the project to fulfill its functions of flood control, power generation, navigation and water diversion to the full," said Cao Guangjing, chairman of the China Three Gorges Corporation.
When the dam in central China reaches full generating capacity next year, it will produce 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the Xinhua news agency said. That's enough to meet Beijing's needs for a year.
By comparison, the United States' Hoover Dam produces about 4 billion kilowatt-hours each year, enough to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California.
The 2,309-meter-wide (1.4 mile-wide) Three Gorges project, built in the upper-middle reaches of China's longest river, began storing water in 2003. Water is diverted to the parched farmlands and cities of China's north.
The Yangtze River has been responsible for some of the worst floods on record, with hundreds of thousands of people killed over the past century alone. The Three Gorges Dam relieves 15 million people and 1.5 million hectares of farmland in the Jianghan Plain from the threat of flood, the developer says.
Critics say the dam worsens pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste. They also warn that an accident or natural disaster could create a catastrophe in the densely populated region. Smaller dams could have met China's needs, critics say.
An estimated 1.2 million people had to move to make way for the Three Gorges, which inundated 632 square kilometers (244 square miles) of land. Historians decried the loss of centuries of relics and antiquities, and the loss of a way of life for myriad rural residents in hundreds of villages, towns and cities."
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China Gets Success In Cloning World's First Rabbit - Science Ahead
"China gets success in cloning world's first rabbit
Parul G | Jul 24 2007
After research of more than three decades in cloning and producing the first cloned animal, a goat in 2000, China has once again been successful in cloning world’s first rabbit. The Chinese scientists have produced the cloned female rabbit biologically, using the somatic cells of a rabbit fetus.
Dr. Li Shangang who conducted the experiment of rabbit cloning is a researcher at the National Center for Molecular Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Beijing Institute of Animal Sciences.
Dr. Li and his team chose the back skin cells of a 20-day old rabbit embryo. They cultured these cells into fibroblast cell lines. Then these fibroblast cells (donor cells) were fused with an enucleated rabbit’s oocyte (immature egg cell of animal ovary) through electric pulse. Thus cloned embroys were produced which were later transferred into the rabbit’s oviduct. The female clone rabbit was born after a month-long normal pregnancy on February 12 and had weighed 60 grams at birth. Now the rabbit is doing well and is at an animal center in Shanghai.
The first animal to be cloned using somatic cells was the sheep - Dolly in 1996. Since then many other animals as mice, cattle and pigs have been cloned by scientists.
In 2002, French scientists too had claimed to produce the world’s first cloned rabbit but that was done by using cells from an adult female rabbit. However, the Chinese rabbit is the world’s first clone rabbit that has used “fibroblast” cells from a fetal rabbit.
On the achievement, Wang Hongguang, director of the China Center for Biotechnology Development affiliated to the Ministry of Science and Technology said:
Chinese cloning research has reached a global advanced level. We can reproduce almost all the cloning results in top-class laboratories around the world. However, we are lacking in original creations such as the newly cloned rabbit.
Rabbits are considered significant research tools because of their shorter gestation period than other big mammals such as sheep or cows.
Malaysia has also turned to cloning and is in efforts to clone some of its threatened leatherback turtles to save them from extinction.
Source: Reuters"
"China's Liberation Daily reports today that the world's first transgenic-cloned rabbit is now three months old and living happily in Shanghai. The rabbit was cloned from the skin cells of a 20-day-old embryo, which were then implanted into the oviduct of a female rabbit."
(The photo shows the cloned rabbit (left) and her surrogate mother.
Posted by Xujun Eberlein)
World's 1st GM cloned rabbit may reproduce in 3 months -- china.org.cn
"As rabbits share similar genes with humans, the genetically-modified cloned rabbit is expected to be used for research into cardiovascular and eye diseases as well as some genetic ailments, said Dr. Li Shangang with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences."
----------
Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait
"The piglets were displayed earlier this week. When irradiated under ultraviolet radiation, the green fluorescence protein the piglets possess is visible. (China Daily via Reuters)"
Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait - SFGate
"Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait
Inherited altered genes could lead to breeding organs for humans, researchers say
January 10, 2008|By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
A researcher holds two piglets born to a cloned pig under ultraviolet light to show their inherited green glow. Associated Press photo
Credit: Associated Press
Beijing - — A cloned pig whose genes were altered to make it glow fluorescent green has passed on the trait to its young, a development that could lead to the future breeding of pigs for human transplant organs, a Chinese university reported.
The glowing piglets' birth proves transgenic pigs are fertile and able to pass on their engineered traits to their offspring, according to Liu Zhonghua, a professor overseeing the breeding program at Northeast Agricultural University.
"Continued development of this technology can be applied to ... the production of special pigs for the production of human organs for transplant," Liu said in a news release posted Tuesday on the university's Web site.
Calls to the university seeking comment Wednesday were not answered.
The piglets' mother was one of three pigs born with the trait in December 2006 after pig embryos were injected with fluorescent green protein. Two of the 11 piglets glow fluorescent green from their snout, trotters and tongue under ultraviolet light, the university said.
Robin Lovell-Badge, a genetics expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, said the technology "to genetically manipulate pigs in this way would be very valuable."
Lovell-Badge had not seen the research from China's cloned pigs and could not comment on its credibility. He said, however, that organs from genetically altered pigs would potentially solve some of the problems of rejected organs in transplant operations.
He said the presence of the green protein would allow genetically modified cells to be tracked if they were transplanted into a human. The fact that the pig's offspring also appeared to have the green genes would indicate that the genetic modification had successfully penetrated every cell, Lovell-Badge added.
But he said much more research and further trials - both in animals and in humans - would be necessary before the benefits of the technology could be seen.
Other genetically modified pigs have been created before, including by Scotland's Roslin Institute, but few results have been published.
Tokyo's Meiji University last year successfully cloned a transgenic pig that carries the genes for human diabetes, while South Korean scientists cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays."
----------
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
"Superconductivity Found in One-Atomic-Layer
Not long ago, a study, led by XUE Qikun, CHEN Xi, and JIA Jinfeng at Tsinghua University Dept. of Physics, in collaboration with a team headed by MA Xucun with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics, Prof. WANG Yayu, Tsinghua University Dept. of Physics, Prof. LIN Haiqing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Prof. LIU Ying of the Pennsylvania State University Department of Physics and Material Research Institute, has found superconductivity in one-atomic-layer metal films grown on Si substrates. One-atomic-layer is the ultimate thickness a practical material can reach. The finding, published in the recent online issue of Nature Physics, renders a solution to the question concerning how thin a superconductor can be."
Superconductivity: One layer is enough : featured highlight : NPG Asia Materials
"Superconductivity: One layer is enough
NPG Asia Materials featured highlight | doi:10.1038/asiamat.2010.78
Published online 24 May 2010
Superconductivity has been observed in films as thin as one atomic layer.
Fig. 1: Scanning tunneling microscope image of a single atomic layer of lead (in the striped incommensurate phase) on silicon (image size is 50 nm × 50 nm).
Superconductivity is a fascinating phenomenon. The signatures of superconductivity, such as its vanishing electrical resistance and expulsion of a magnetic field, as well as its potential for diverse applications, have intrigued scientists for decades.
Nowadays, as low temperature ‘standard’ superconductors become better understood, attention has begun to focus on complex high-temperature superconductors. It is accepted that in these materials, lattice vibrations (referred to as phonons) mediate the formation of electron pairs, which is essential for the emergence of a superconducting phase. However, despite this recent trend in research, standard superconductors can still present intriguing results, as shown by Qi-Kun Xue and colleagues who have demonstrated that superconductivity can be observed even in single atomic layers of lead and indium1.
Two-dimensional (2D) superconductivity is a rather fragile state of matter. It is therefore natural to wonder what is the minimum thickness needed to observe this phenomenon, or whether a single layer of ordered metal atoms, which represents the ultimate 2D limit of a crystalline film, could be superconducting. The team studied single-layer films of lead (Fig. 1) and indium grown on Si(111). Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy at high energy resolution, they observed a region of zero conductance for low applied voltage, terminated on each side by sharp peaks — the signature of superconductivity. Furthermore, the films exhibited vortices when a magnetic field was applied, confirming the existence of a superconducting phase.
Through angular-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, the team found that for each metal the electron–phonon coupling was greatly enhanced with respect to the bulk case. This implies that the covalent silicon–metal bonding has a strong role in providing the mechanism for electron pairing, while the metal itself mainly provides the necessary carriers.
“Our work sheds new light on the mechanism of superconductivity at reduced dimensionality, especially the crucial role played by the interface,” says Xue. “The tunable atomic and electronic structures in these well-defined 2D materials provide an ideal platform for testing various theoretical models when dealing with 2D many-body physics. In addition, the exploration of one-atomic-layer superconductors grown on silicon may also help to develop superconducting electronic circuits compatible with silicon technology.”
Reference
1. Zhang, T.,1,2 Cheng, P.,1 Li, W.-J.,2 Sun, Y.-J.,1 Wang, G.,1 Zhu, X.-G.,1 He, K.,2 Wang, L.,2 Ma, X.,2 Chen, X.,1* Wang, Y.,1 Liu, Y.,3 Lin, H.-Q.,4 Jia, J.-F.1 & Xue, Q.-K.1,2* Superconductivity in one-atomic-layer metal films grown on Si(111). Nature Phys. 6, 104 (2010). | article
Author affiliation
1. Key Lab for Atomic and Molecular Nanoscience, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
3. Department of Physics and Material Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
4. Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
*Email: xc@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
This research highlight has been approved by the author of the original article and all empirical data contained within has been provided by said author."
I want to say:
1. China's Three Gorges Dam generates far more electricity than the largest Soviet dam.
2. China cloned the world's first rabbit before the Soviets.
3. China cloned the world's first transgenic pigs (which proves the principle of gene replacement therapy) before the Soviets.
4. China's superconductivity research is more cutting-edge than the Soviets.
5. China has better telescopes.
6. China has a better synchrotron.
7. Chinese robots can outplay Soviet robots in pingpong.
8. China has the world's most efficient dye-based solar cell technology.
None of these claims can be made, because the Soviet Union is gone. I can't tell you how frustrating this is.
----------
Three Gorges Dam generates the electricity of 21 Hoover Dams
The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River is an American icon. It generates a massive 4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. Astonishingly, China's Three Gorges Dam produces the electricity of 21 Hoover Dams at 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours.
China's Three Gorges Dam is "the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind."
"One of the nation's best-known engineering marvels, the Hoover Dam"
China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity - CNN
"China fills Three Gorges Dam to capacity
October 26, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff
China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water project, was fully filled Tuesday, state media said.
The water level hit the dam's design capacity of 175 meters (574 feet) at 9 a.m. Tuesday, said the corporation that developed the dam.
The 175-meter milestone will "enable the project to fulfill its functions of flood control, power generation, navigation and water diversion to the full," said Cao Guangjing, chairman of the China Three Gorges Corporation.
When the dam in central China reaches full generating capacity next year, it will produce 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the Xinhua news agency said. That's enough to meet Beijing's needs for a year.
By comparison, the United States' Hoover Dam produces about 4 billion kilowatt-hours each year, enough to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California.
The 2,309-meter-wide (1.4 mile-wide) Three Gorges project, built in the upper-middle reaches of China's longest river, began storing water in 2003. Water is diverted to the parched farmlands and cities of China's north.
The Yangtze River has been responsible for some of the worst floods on record, with hundreds of thousands of people killed over the past century alone. The Three Gorges Dam relieves 15 million people and 1.5 million hectares of farmland in the Jianghan Plain from the threat of flood, the developer says.
Critics say the dam worsens pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste. They also warn that an accident or natural disaster could create a catastrophe in the densely populated region. Smaller dams could have met China's needs, critics say.
An estimated 1.2 million people had to move to make way for the Three Gorges, which inundated 632 square kilometers (244 square miles) of land. Historians decried the loss of centuries of relics and antiquities, and the loss of a way of life for myriad rural residents in hundreds of villages, towns and cities."
----------
China Gets Success In Cloning World's First Rabbit - Science Ahead
"China gets success in cloning world's first rabbit
Parul G | Jul 24 2007
After research of more than three decades in cloning and producing the first cloned animal, a goat in 2000, China has once again been successful in cloning world’s first rabbit. The Chinese scientists have produced the cloned female rabbit biologically, using the somatic cells of a rabbit fetus.
Dr. Li Shangang who conducted the experiment of rabbit cloning is a researcher at the National Center for Molecular Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Beijing Institute of Animal Sciences.
Dr. Li and his team chose the back skin cells of a 20-day old rabbit embryo. They cultured these cells into fibroblast cell lines. Then these fibroblast cells (donor cells) were fused with an enucleated rabbit’s oocyte (immature egg cell of animal ovary) through electric pulse. Thus cloned embroys were produced which were later transferred into the rabbit’s oviduct. The female clone rabbit was born after a month-long normal pregnancy on February 12 and had weighed 60 grams at birth. Now the rabbit is doing well and is at an animal center in Shanghai.
The first animal to be cloned using somatic cells was the sheep - Dolly in 1996. Since then many other animals as mice, cattle and pigs have been cloned by scientists.
In 2002, French scientists too had claimed to produce the world’s first cloned rabbit but that was done by using cells from an adult female rabbit. However, the Chinese rabbit is the world’s first clone rabbit that has used “fibroblast” cells from a fetal rabbit.
On the achievement, Wang Hongguang, director of the China Center for Biotechnology Development affiliated to the Ministry of Science and Technology said:
Chinese cloning research has reached a global advanced level. We can reproduce almost all the cloning results in top-class laboratories around the world. However, we are lacking in original creations such as the newly cloned rabbit.
Rabbits are considered significant research tools because of their shorter gestation period than other big mammals such as sheep or cows.
Malaysia has also turned to cloning and is in efforts to clone some of its threatened leatherback turtles to save them from extinction.
Source: Reuters"
"China's Liberation Daily reports today that the world's first transgenic-cloned rabbit is now three months old and living happily in Shanghai. The rabbit was cloned from the skin cells of a 20-day-old embryo, which were then implanted into the oviduct of a female rabbit."
(The photo shows the cloned rabbit (left) and her surrogate mother.
Posted by Xujun Eberlein)
World's 1st GM cloned rabbit may reproduce in 3 months -- china.org.cn
"As rabbits share similar genes with humans, the genetically-modified cloned rabbit is expected to be used for research into cardiovascular and eye diseases as well as some genetic ailments, said Dr. Li Shangang with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences."
----------
Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait
"The piglets were displayed earlier this week. When irradiated under ultraviolet radiation, the green fluorescence protein the piglets possess is visible. (China Daily via Reuters)"
Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait - SFGate
"Glowing cloned pig passes on the trait
Inherited altered genes could lead to breeding organs for humans, researchers say
January 10, 2008|By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
A researcher holds two piglets born to a cloned pig under ultraviolet light to show their inherited green glow. Associated Press photo
Credit: Associated Press
Beijing - — A cloned pig whose genes were altered to make it glow fluorescent green has passed on the trait to its young, a development that could lead to the future breeding of pigs for human transplant organs, a Chinese university reported.
The glowing piglets' birth proves transgenic pigs are fertile and able to pass on their engineered traits to their offspring, according to Liu Zhonghua, a professor overseeing the breeding program at Northeast Agricultural University.
"Continued development of this technology can be applied to ... the production of special pigs for the production of human organs for transplant," Liu said in a news release posted Tuesday on the university's Web site.
Calls to the university seeking comment Wednesday were not answered.
The piglets' mother was one of three pigs born with the trait in December 2006 after pig embryos were injected with fluorescent green protein. Two of the 11 piglets glow fluorescent green from their snout, trotters and tongue under ultraviolet light, the university said.
Robin Lovell-Badge, a genetics expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, said the technology "to genetically manipulate pigs in this way would be very valuable."
Lovell-Badge had not seen the research from China's cloned pigs and could not comment on its credibility. He said, however, that organs from genetically altered pigs would potentially solve some of the problems of rejected organs in transplant operations.
He said the presence of the green protein would allow genetically modified cells to be tracked if they were transplanted into a human. The fact that the pig's offspring also appeared to have the green genes would indicate that the genetic modification had successfully penetrated every cell, Lovell-Badge added.
But he said much more research and further trials - both in animals and in humans - would be necessary before the benefits of the technology could be seen.
Other genetically modified pigs have been created before, including by Scotland's Roslin Institute, but few results have been published.
Tokyo's Meiji University last year successfully cloned a transgenic pig that carries the genes for human diabetes, while South Korean scientists cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays."
----------
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
"Superconductivity Found in One-Atomic-Layer
Not long ago, a study, led by XUE Qikun, CHEN Xi, and JIA Jinfeng at Tsinghua University Dept. of Physics, in collaboration with a team headed by MA Xucun with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics, Prof. WANG Yayu, Tsinghua University Dept. of Physics, Prof. LIN Haiqing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Prof. LIU Ying of the Pennsylvania State University Department of Physics and Material Research Institute, has found superconductivity in one-atomic-layer metal films grown on Si substrates. One-atomic-layer is the ultimate thickness a practical material can reach. The finding, published in the recent online issue of Nature Physics, renders a solution to the question concerning how thin a superconductor can be."
Superconductivity: One layer is enough : featured highlight : NPG Asia Materials
"Superconductivity: One layer is enough
NPG Asia Materials featured highlight | doi:10.1038/asiamat.2010.78
Published online 24 May 2010
Superconductivity has been observed in films as thin as one atomic layer.
Fig. 1: Scanning tunneling microscope image of a single atomic layer of lead (in the striped incommensurate phase) on silicon (image size is 50 nm × 50 nm).
Superconductivity is a fascinating phenomenon. The signatures of superconductivity, such as its vanishing electrical resistance and expulsion of a magnetic field, as well as its potential for diverse applications, have intrigued scientists for decades.
Nowadays, as low temperature ‘standard’ superconductors become better understood, attention has begun to focus on complex high-temperature superconductors. It is accepted that in these materials, lattice vibrations (referred to as phonons) mediate the formation of electron pairs, which is essential for the emergence of a superconducting phase. However, despite this recent trend in research, standard superconductors can still present intriguing results, as shown by Qi-Kun Xue and colleagues who have demonstrated that superconductivity can be observed even in single atomic layers of lead and indium1.
Two-dimensional (2D) superconductivity is a rather fragile state of matter. It is therefore natural to wonder what is the minimum thickness needed to observe this phenomenon, or whether a single layer of ordered metal atoms, which represents the ultimate 2D limit of a crystalline film, could be superconducting. The team studied single-layer films of lead (Fig. 1) and indium grown on Si(111). Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy at high energy resolution, they observed a region of zero conductance for low applied voltage, terminated on each side by sharp peaks — the signature of superconductivity. Furthermore, the films exhibited vortices when a magnetic field was applied, confirming the existence of a superconducting phase.
Through angular-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, the team found that for each metal the electron–phonon coupling was greatly enhanced with respect to the bulk case. This implies that the covalent silicon–metal bonding has a strong role in providing the mechanism for electron pairing, while the metal itself mainly provides the necessary carriers.
“Our work sheds new light on the mechanism of superconductivity at reduced dimensionality, especially the crucial role played by the interface,” says Xue. “The tunable atomic and electronic structures in these well-defined 2D materials provide an ideal platform for testing various theoretical models when dealing with 2D many-body physics. In addition, the exploration of one-atomic-layer superconductors grown on silicon may also help to develop superconducting electronic circuits compatible with silicon technology.”
Reference
1. Zhang, T.,1,2 Cheng, P.,1 Li, W.-J.,2 Sun, Y.-J.,1 Wang, G.,1 Zhu, X.-G.,1 He, K.,2 Wang, L.,2 Ma, X.,2 Chen, X.,1* Wang, Y.,1 Liu, Y.,3 Lin, H.-Q.,4 Jia, J.-F.1 & Xue, Q.-K.1,2* Superconductivity in one-atomic-layer metal films grown on Si(111). Nature Phys. 6, 104 (2010). | article
Author affiliation
1. Key Lab for Atomic and Molecular Nanoscience, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
3. Department of Physics and Material Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
4. Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
*Email: xc@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
This research highlight has been approved by the author of the original article and all empirical data contained within has been provided by said author."
Desert Fox
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Yes they did, in WW2 they begged US and Britain to open a second front on Nazi Germany. And don't forget that Soviet Union received billions of dollars in military aid from the US under the Lend Lease Act, otherwise without this aid the Soviet Union would have become history in 1942-43, as Hitler said; "All you need to do is kick the door in and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down", until of course the US intervened.
Martian2
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[Here is the rest of my post from #40. I had reached my picture limit.]
Beautiful pictures of China's LAMOST telescope. It's better than Sloan.
LAMOST Progress : All the MB (spherical primary) segments are in place on June 19, 2008
China's LAMOST telescope in Xinglong, China
Heidi Newberg, Astronomy, Supernova, Dark energy, Careers Q&A, Naturejobs
"Published in Nature 466, 279 (7 July 2010) | 10.1038/nj7303-279a
Virginia Gewin
Heidi Newberg, a physicist and astronomer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has won a National Science Foundation grant to create the first partnership between a US team and a Chinese-led astronomy project.
Were you always planning to become an astronomer?
No. I went to graduate school in the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, but I didn't know what I wanted to study. After my first year, I got a job with the Berkeley Automated Supernova Search, analysing images. I had no background in astronomy and didn't even know what supernovae were, but it sounded interesting because it was unexplored and would make use of my analytical thinking skills. Later, I began working on the distant-supernovae search, which ultimately became Berkeley's Supernova Cosmology Project. The distant-supernovae search did not achieve success until after I had left and started my postdoc at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, but later versions of the search benefited from the wrong turns we made starting out. Eventually the data were used in the discovery that the Universe is accelerating. Those findings led to the idea of 'dark energy'. My career has been shaped by a theme ? although projects can seem bleak at the start, continuing to work on them can lead to an important result.
How were supernovae found?
First we had to work out what was going wrong. We couldn't have done it without constant funding for the supernova group from the US Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ? there has to be a way to keep going long enough to get things to work. You need to learn from your mistakes. One thing we learned is that to find a supernova, you can't record images of the sky once, and come back the next year and expect things to be the same. Too many things in the sky change to be able to tell which objects are supernovae and which aren't. We learned to capture an image of the sky before and after a full Moon to get the best spectra for finding supernovae.
Describe how an early achievement helped to chart your career course.
As a graduate student, I had the task of redesigning a filter wheel that was part of an instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope, one of the first Southern Hemisphere telescopes to offer high-resolution and computer-controlled spectrographs. I hadn't worked on hardware. I didn't know anything about optics or filter wheels, but I talked to the engineers and got answers. It came together, but the challenges showed me that with projects that push the envelope of what is known and possible, you are going to have to learn new things.
How did you forge the partnership with China?
It came together from both sides. I had been analysing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in Sunspot, New Mexico, but data collection ended in 2008. So I was looking for a new project. I was interested in working on the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in Xinglong, China, because I wanted to continue with a galactic evolution project that I was exploring using Sloan data. But I needed data at a bigger scale, taking measurements on millions of stars. Using LAMOST I will have that, because it can take 4,000 spectra at once. I was also approached by the Chinese delegates as they talked to people involved in building Sloan, to learn how to make LAMOST successful. They contacted me because they wanted people to help them build the software.
What are the challenges in being a member of the first US team to join a Chinese-led astronomy project?
The Chinese structure for science is not similar to US or European structures. In China, individuals rather than teams are in charge. In US and European collaborations, committees are formed with representatives who have voting rights. It is like a democracy. With such different structures, it has been a challenge to define everyone's objectives, responsibilities and rights. The US National Science Foundation expects us to spell out the details in a proposal which might be funded up to a year later, whereas the Chinese organizations want to start working together and see how the relationship evolves, so there is a mismatch.
So have your goals changed?
No. No matter what the top layers look like, the scientists' expectations are similar. The challenge is getting the big organizations to recognize each other's systems rather than getting individuals to work together. I'll travel to China two to four times a year to make this programme a success.
What is your motto?
For the longest time, I told myself, ?I can do anything?. When I turned 40, I realized that there are some things I simply can't do. Yet my motto got me pretty far before I figured that out."
----------
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Science Researchers
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility is a third-generation synchrotron radiation light source. Until now, SSRF is the largest scientific platform for science research and technology development in China. (Photo: SSRF)
The photo taken on March 16, 2009 shows the interior of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). The 1.2 billion yuan (or $175 million U.S. dollars) synchrotron radiation project in Shanghai will be fully operational in late April. SSRF is a great tool for the Chinese science research community and industry. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)
Researchers perform experiments at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) in China on March 16, 2009. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Scientific Researchers---Chinese Academy Of Sciences
"Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Scientific Researchers
2010-01-29
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), a third-generation of synchrotron radiation light source passes national inspection on January 19 and will be open to home and abroad scientific research, according to Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINAP).
SSRF is the biggest scientific platform for science research in China up to now. The construction of the project started on Dec 25th, 2004 in Shanghai, and cost 1,200 million yuan (about 176 million U.S. dollars).
The facility consists of three accelerators: a 150Mev electron LINAC, a 180-meter booster that can increase the electron energy from 150MeV to 3.5GeV in 0.5 second, and a 3.5GeV electron storage ring with a perimeter of 432 meters. The project also includes 7 initial beamlines and experimental stations.
The mega experimental platform will then help carry out research on life sciences, medicine and pharmacy, new material, physics, chemistry, petrochemical industry and biotechnology.
[Many] hundreds of scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and industries in domestic and even overseas will be able to use the facility to [perform] research and experiments.
ZHANG Xiaoqiang, Vice Chairman of China?s National Development and Reform Commission, CAO Jianlin, Vice Minister of China?s Ministry of Science and Technology, JIANG Mianheng and ZHAN Wenlong, Vice Presidents of the CAS and experts from related areas attended the inspection and acceptance conference held in Shanghai."
Point Grey Research - Insights January 2007
"[It] will provide x-ray, infrared and ultraviolet beams of exceptional brightness. These will be used by scientists and engineers for research and development in many fields including biomedical science, medical research, environmental sciences and physical sciences.
...
What is a Synchrotron Light Source?
A synchrotron light source is a very large machine designed to produce intense beams of light. Millions of times brighter than an X-ray, synchrotron light is generated by using powerful magnets to accelerate electrons that are traveling near the speed of light. Infrared, ultraviolet and X-ray light is shone down beamlines to end stations (small laboratories) where scientists can select different parts of the spectrum to view the microscopic nature of matter, and investigate it at the scale of atoms and molecules. Synchrotron light is an indispensable tool in many research areas including physics, chemistry, materials science and crystallography, and is increasingly being used in medicine, geological and environmental studies, structural genomics and archaeology. Many everyday commodities, from chocolate to cosmetics, drugs, surgical tools, computers and mobile phones, have been developed or improved using synchrotron light."
----------
Future of Technology - Pingpong-playing robots debut
"Pingpong-playing robots debut
By John Roach
Humanoid robots that play ping pong using sophisticated technology may one day improve the ability of robots to perform helpful chores around the house before goofing off in the basement. (Zhejiang University)
Robots are already taking away jobs at factories. Now, it appears, they're ready to rule the table tennis court, too.
Two pingpong-playing humanoid robots named Wu and Kong debuted earlier this month at Zhejiang University in China where they showed off their skills in front of engineers and journalists.
The twin 5 foot, 3 inch, 121 pound robots have 30 individually-powered joints, giving them an impressive range of motion. Each arm, for example, can move seven directions, according to the university's description.
Key to their ability to serve and return balls with forehands, backhands, and stoic focus are eye-mounted cameras that predict the path of the ball so the robot get can ready for the next shot.
Each camera captures 120 images per second, which are transferred to the robots' processors that calculate the balls' position, speed, angle, landing position and path, the Xinhuanet news agency reports.
It takes 50 to 100 milliseconds for the robots to respond and their ability to predict the balls' landing position has a margin of error of just less than an inch.
As shown in this video, the robots can play with each other as well as humans. However, the robots lack the ability to curve, shank, or slice the ball, noted Zhang Yfeng, one of the designers.
The team hopes to improve the table tennis ability of the robots, though the game isn't the ultimate goal. Instead, they hope to transfer the technology next-gen helper robots, such as those envisioned for elder care.
But plop one of these pingpong-playing robots in the basement of a fraternity house along with the beer tossing fridge created a few years ago at Duke and some stressed out college students would likely find reason to smile."
----------
Solar cells: The dyes have it : research highlight : NPG Asia Materials
"Solar cells: The dyes have it
NPG Asia Materials research highlight | doi:10.1038/asiamat.2011.162
Published online 31 October 2011
Precisely engineered dye compounds take inexpensive, corrosive-free dye-based photovoltaic devices to record levels of efficiency.
The push–pull dye C229 is coupled with a cobalt-based electrolyte to achieve high solar energy conversion efficiency.
The dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is a next-generation photovoltaic technology with the potential to reduce the cost of solar energy production to levels comparable to that of fossil fuel-based electricity generation. DSCs use a mix of dye molecules and inexpensive titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles to convert sunlight into electricity, and can be easily and cheaply fabricated into thin, large-area sheets using simple screen-printing techniques. Despite the promise of this technology, however, achieving the high conversion efficiencies needed to approach commercial viability has meant using resource-limited materials such as ruthenium.
Peng Wang, Yu Bai and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun[1] have now found a way to achieve high DSC conversion efficiency without ruthenium by developing an all-organic dye that can be used with more readily available cobalt.
The best-performing DSCs at present use ruthenium dyes, coupled with an iodine-based electrolyte, to harvest light and transfer photogenerated free electrons into a surrounding mesoporous matrix of TiO2. The high price and restricted availability of ruthenium has led researchers to pursue alternative ‘push–pull’ dye sensitizers — organic molecules containing electron-accepting and -donating groups linked together by a conjugated bridge. Finding a suitable organic dye, however, has been a challenge.
Wang and his co-workers improved on previous strategies by incorporating an aromatic–sulfur bridging group into the push–pull dye C229. This modification enhanced the dye’s ability to collect red light from the visible spectrum, allowing it to absorb more solar light overall (see image). Combining this photo-sensitizer with cobalt phenanthroline as an electrolyte to regenerate the dye resulted in a DSC system with an energy conversion efficiency of 9.4% under typical daylight conditions — a new benchmark value for ruthenium-free DSCs and only marginally behind the best ruthenium-based systems. The use of a cobalt-based electrolyte also addresses another shortcoming of ruthenium-based DSCs: the need for an iodine electrolyte that is highly corrosive and reduces cell voltages.
Measurements and quantum calculations revealed that interactions between the cobalt electrolyte and the C229 dye helped lift the system’s reduction–oxidation potential above its ground state, making the cell more receptive to light across the solar spectrum. “This observation is very encouraging for developing dyes with smaller energy gaps,” notes Bai.
Reference
1. Bai, Y.[1,2], Zhang, J.[1], Hou, D.[1,2], Wang, Y.[1], Zhang, M.[1] & Wang, P.[1] Engineering organic sensitizers for iodine-free dye-sensitized solar cells: Red-shifted current response concomitant with attenuated charge recombination. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 11442–11445 (2011). | article
Author affiliation
1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China
2. Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 10039, China"
Beautiful pictures of China's LAMOST telescope. It's better than Sloan.
LAMOST Progress : All the MB (spherical primary) segments are in place on June 19, 2008
China's LAMOST telescope in Xinglong, China
Heidi Newberg, Astronomy, Supernova, Dark energy, Careers Q&A, Naturejobs
"Published in Nature 466, 279 (7 July 2010) | 10.1038/nj7303-279a
Virginia Gewin
Heidi Newberg, a physicist and astronomer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has won a National Science Foundation grant to create the first partnership between a US team and a Chinese-led astronomy project.
Were you always planning to become an astronomer?
No. I went to graduate school in the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, but I didn't know what I wanted to study. After my first year, I got a job with the Berkeley Automated Supernova Search, analysing images. I had no background in astronomy and didn't even know what supernovae were, but it sounded interesting because it was unexplored and would make use of my analytical thinking skills. Later, I began working on the distant-supernovae search, which ultimately became Berkeley's Supernova Cosmology Project. The distant-supernovae search did not achieve success until after I had left and started my postdoc at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, but later versions of the search benefited from the wrong turns we made starting out. Eventually the data were used in the discovery that the Universe is accelerating. Those findings led to the idea of 'dark energy'. My career has been shaped by a theme ? although projects can seem bleak at the start, continuing to work on them can lead to an important result.
How were supernovae found?
First we had to work out what was going wrong. We couldn't have done it without constant funding for the supernova group from the US Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ? there has to be a way to keep going long enough to get things to work. You need to learn from your mistakes. One thing we learned is that to find a supernova, you can't record images of the sky once, and come back the next year and expect things to be the same. Too many things in the sky change to be able to tell which objects are supernovae and which aren't. We learned to capture an image of the sky before and after a full Moon to get the best spectra for finding supernovae.
Describe how an early achievement helped to chart your career course.
As a graduate student, I had the task of redesigning a filter wheel that was part of an instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope, one of the first Southern Hemisphere telescopes to offer high-resolution and computer-controlled spectrographs. I hadn't worked on hardware. I didn't know anything about optics or filter wheels, but I talked to the engineers and got answers. It came together, but the challenges showed me that with projects that push the envelope of what is known and possible, you are going to have to learn new things.
How did you forge the partnership with China?
It came together from both sides. I had been analysing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in Sunspot, New Mexico, but data collection ended in 2008. So I was looking for a new project. I was interested in working on the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in Xinglong, China, because I wanted to continue with a galactic evolution project that I was exploring using Sloan data. But I needed data at a bigger scale, taking measurements on millions of stars. Using LAMOST I will have that, because it can take 4,000 spectra at once. I was also approached by the Chinese delegates as they talked to people involved in building Sloan, to learn how to make LAMOST successful. They contacted me because they wanted people to help them build the software.
What are the challenges in being a member of the first US team to join a Chinese-led astronomy project?
The Chinese structure for science is not similar to US or European structures. In China, individuals rather than teams are in charge. In US and European collaborations, committees are formed with representatives who have voting rights. It is like a democracy. With such different structures, it has been a challenge to define everyone's objectives, responsibilities and rights. The US National Science Foundation expects us to spell out the details in a proposal which might be funded up to a year later, whereas the Chinese organizations want to start working together and see how the relationship evolves, so there is a mismatch.
So have your goals changed?
No. No matter what the top layers look like, the scientists' expectations are similar. The challenge is getting the big organizations to recognize each other's systems rather than getting individuals to work together. I'll travel to China two to four times a year to make this programme a success.
What is your motto?
For the longest time, I told myself, ?I can do anything?. When I turned 40, I realized that there are some things I simply can't do. Yet my motto got me pretty far before I figured that out."
----------
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Science Researchers
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility is a third-generation synchrotron radiation light source. Until now, SSRF is the largest scientific platform for science research and technology development in China. (Photo: SSRF)
The photo taken on March 16, 2009 shows the interior of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). The 1.2 billion yuan (or $175 million U.S. dollars) synchrotron radiation project in Shanghai will be fully operational in late April. SSRF is a great tool for the Chinese science research community and industry. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)
Researchers perform experiments at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) in China on March 16, 2009. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Scientific Researchers---Chinese Academy Of Sciences
"Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility Opens to Scientific Researchers
2010-01-29
Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), a third-generation of synchrotron radiation light source passes national inspection on January 19 and will be open to home and abroad scientific research, according to Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINAP).
SSRF is the biggest scientific platform for science research in China up to now. The construction of the project started on Dec 25th, 2004 in Shanghai, and cost 1,200 million yuan (about 176 million U.S. dollars).
The facility consists of three accelerators: a 150Mev electron LINAC, a 180-meter booster that can increase the electron energy from 150MeV to 3.5GeV in 0.5 second, and a 3.5GeV electron storage ring with a perimeter of 432 meters. The project also includes 7 initial beamlines and experimental stations.
The mega experimental platform will then help carry out research on life sciences, medicine and pharmacy, new material, physics, chemistry, petrochemical industry and biotechnology.
[Many] hundreds of scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and industries in domestic and even overseas will be able to use the facility to [perform] research and experiments.
ZHANG Xiaoqiang, Vice Chairman of China?s National Development and Reform Commission, CAO Jianlin, Vice Minister of China?s Ministry of Science and Technology, JIANG Mianheng and ZHAN Wenlong, Vice Presidents of the CAS and experts from related areas attended the inspection and acceptance conference held in Shanghai."
Point Grey Research - Insights January 2007
"[It] will provide x-ray, infrared and ultraviolet beams of exceptional brightness. These will be used by scientists and engineers for research and development in many fields including biomedical science, medical research, environmental sciences and physical sciences.
...
What is a Synchrotron Light Source?
A synchrotron light source is a very large machine designed to produce intense beams of light. Millions of times brighter than an X-ray, synchrotron light is generated by using powerful magnets to accelerate electrons that are traveling near the speed of light. Infrared, ultraviolet and X-ray light is shone down beamlines to end stations (small laboratories) where scientists can select different parts of the spectrum to view the microscopic nature of matter, and investigate it at the scale of atoms and molecules. Synchrotron light is an indispensable tool in many research areas including physics, chemistry, materials science and crystallography, and is increasingly being used in medicine, geological and environmental studies, structural genomics and archaeology. Many everyday commodities, from chocolate to cosmetics, drugs, surgical tools, computers and mobile phones, have been developed or improved using synchrotron light."
----------
Future of Technology - Pingpong-playing robots debut
"Pingpong-playing robots debut
By John Roach
Humanoid robots that play ping pong using sophisticated technology may one day improve the ability of robots to perform helpful chores around the house before goofing off in the basement. (Zhejiang University)
Robots are already taking away jobs at factories. Now, it appears, they're ready to rule the table tennis court, too.
Two pingpong-playing humanoid robots named Wu and Kong debuted earlier this month at Zhejiang University in China where they showed off their skills in front of engineers and journalists.
The twin 5 foot, 3 inch, 121 pound robots have 30 individually-powered joints, giving them an impressive range of motion. Each arm, for example, can move seven directions, according to the university's description.
Key to their ability to serve and return balls with forehands, backhands, and stoic focus are eye-mounted cameras that predict the path of the ball so the robot get can ready for the next shot.
Each camera captures 120 images per second, which are transferred to the robots' processors that calculate the balls' position, speed, angle, landing position and path, the Xinhuanet news agency reports.
It takes 50 to 100 milliseconds for the robots to respond and their ability to predict the balls' landing position has a margin of error of just less than an inch.
As shown in this video, the robots can play with each other as well as humans. However, the robots lack the ability to curve, shank, or slice the ball, noted Zhang Yfeng, one of the designers.
The team hopes to improve the table tennis ability of the robots, though the game isn't the ultimate goal. Instead, they hope to transfer the technology next-gen helper robots, such as those envisioned for elder care.
But plop one of these pingpong-playing robots in the basement of a fraternity house along with the beer tossing fridge created a few years ago at Duke and some stressed out college students would likely find reason to smile."
----------
Solar cells: The dyes have it : research highlight : NPG Asia Materials
"Solar cells: The dyes have it
NPG Asia Materials research highlight | doi:10.1038/asiamat.2011.162
Published online 31 October 2011
Precisely engineered dye compounds take inexpensive, corrosive-free dye-based photovoltaic devices to record levels of efficiency.
The push–pull dye C229 is coupled with a cobalt-based electrolyte to achieve high solar energy conversion efficiency.
The dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is a next-generation photovoltaic technology with the potential to reduce the cost of solar energy production to levels comparable to that of fossil fuel-based electricity generation. DSCs use a mix of dye molecules and inexpensive titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles to convert sunlight into electricity, and can be easily and cheaply fabricated into thin, large-area sheets using simple screen-printing techniques. Despite the promise of this technology, however, achieving the high conversion efficiencies needed to approach commercial viability has meant using resource-limited materials such as ruthenium.
Peng Wang, Yu Bai and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun[1] have now found a way to achieve high DSC conversion efficiency without ruthenium by developing an all-organic dye that can be used with more readily available cobalt.
The best-performing DSCs at present use ruthenium dyes, coupled with an iodine-based electrolyte, to harvest light and transfer photogenerated free electrons into a surrounding mesoporous matrix of TiO2. The high price and restricted availability of ruthenium has led researchers to pursue alternative ‘push–pull’ dye sensitizers — organic molecules containing electron-accepting and -donating groups linked together by a conjugated bridge. Finding a suitable organic dye, however, has been a challenge.
Wang and his co-workers improved on previous strategies by incorporating an aromatic–sulfur bridging group into the push–pull dye C229. This modification enhanced the dye’s ability to collect red light from the visible spectrum, allowing it to absorb more solar light overall (see image). Combining this photo-sensitizer with cobalt phenanthroline as an electrolyte to regenerate the dye resulted in a DSC system with an energy conversion efficiency of 9.4% under typical daylight conditions — a new benchmark value for ruthenium-free DSCs and only marginally behind the best ruthenium-based systems. The use of a cobalt-based electrolyte also addresses another shortcoming of ruthenium-based DSCs: the need for an iodine electrolyte that is highly corrosive and reduces cell voltages.
Measurements and quantum calculations revealed that interactions between the cobalt electrolyte and the C229 dye helped lift the system’s reduction–oxidation potential above its ground state, making the cell more receptive to light across the solar spectrum. “This observation is very encouraging for developing dyes with smaller energy gaps,” notes Bai.
Reference
1. Bai, Y.[1,2], Zhang, J.[1], Hou, D.[1,2], Wang, Y.[1], Zhang, M.[1] & Wang, P.[1] Engineering organic sensitizers for iodine-free dye-sensitized solar cells: Red-shifted current response concomitant with attenuated charge recombination. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 11442–11445 (2011). | article
Author affiliation
1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China
2. Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 10039, China"
Last edited by a moderator:
beijingwalker
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look, techs of SU were fit in comparison to US, and many times they exceeded performance of US also. China will be said to be truly superior to SU only when they will reach a level when they will have coped with current US in terms of techs and exceeding also, like how SU was in 80s. people say that India was dependent on SU for defense techs and space research techs but have a look on even Germany/ Japan, they are also dependent on US for defense and space research to an extent even right now. and in 80s, we do accept that India got favor from SU but if China couldnt earn that type of favor then it was their fault to live with poor defense techs in 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and its they to blame to reach space just few years before while an Indian had reached the space in 80s?
India and China were similarly affected due to Western Organized Wars in between 19th to mid 20th century. neither of these two countries were left with enough capabilities
that's very true,Soviet Union was a great nation full of pride and glory,what a pity..
Tshering22
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And yet your foreign policy is unable to do half of what USSR could do or even what today's Russia can do. By trading you cannot simply become a power. If it was that easy, Japan and Korea would have been 2 more quasi-superpowers decades before you came into the forefront. I am talking about pure capabilities. You share the trading trait a lot with the Japanese and Koreans.
But there's always more to it than just economy and trading or even for that matter military. You know what is that? Being ready to be a cushion for allies and ability to influence country-to-country decisions. China has a long way to go before that. Forget USSR, today's Russia has far more geopolitical respect than you could ever have. USSR is beyond your reach.
But there's always more to it than just economy and trading or even for that matter military. You know what is that? Being ready to be a cushion for allies and ability to influence country-to-country decisions. China has a long way to go before that. Forget USSR, today's Russia has far more geopolitical respect than you could ever have. USSR is beyond your reach.
gambit
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Good points. But he will continue to be myopic in this.
kawaraj
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China and USSR take different paths, one was lost to the U.S. superpower, one will gun down the U.S domination.
You can say of Germany and the US the same way before 1940.
the US pre WWII was exactly pursuing the same as China today is doing. there's a point when Quantity mass suddenly shift to Quality change.
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