Fishing, pollution and other human activities along the Yangtze River in China are driving yet another species of freshwater cetacean to the brink of extinction. That is the conclusion of a six-week survey of the river’s middle and lower stretches by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) in Wuhan and the conservation group WWF in China.
Technology firms around the world are coveting 22-nanometer IC technology for its potential to hack the cost of manufacturing products like computers and cellphones that are heavily reliant on the minuscule circuits. China initiated its research in this field in 2009 as one of its major national scientific projects. The IMECAS said the full harnessing of 22-nanometer IC technology would mean huge savings for China in importing foreign technologies and boost China-made IC products'competitiveness.
Starting on November 11, researchers surveyed a 1,100-kilometer-long section of the Yangtze River between the city of Wuhan and Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze River. They spotted only 177 porpoises, says WANG Kexiong, associate researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
A research team, led by Institute of Zoology of Chinese Academy of Sciences and BGI, has successfully reconstructed a continuous population history of the giant panda from its origin to the present. The findings suggested whereas global changes in climate were the primary drivers in panda population fluctuation for millions of years, human activities were likely to underlie recent population divergence and serious decline.
Chinese researchers have devised a new technique for reprogramming cells from human urine into immature brain cells that can form multiple types of functioning neurons and glial cells. The technique, published today in the journal Nature Methods, could prove useful for studying the cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and...
Experts involved in a scientific survey said China's finless porpoise population has dropped significantly in the past few years, and they called for top protection of the endangered animal. Statistics from the survey conducted on a section of the Yangtze River in November show that the number of finless porpoises, has declined about 60 percent since 2006, said Wang Kexiong, a CAS researcher.
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