Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMHE) summarized the causes of the deadly Landslide taken place on Aug.7 in Zhouqu, Gansu province after two investigations there from Aug. 9 to 12. Zhouqu witnessed the deadliest landslide with high current velocity and huge destructive force in its history. IMHE sent two scientific expeditions to investigate the mechanism of the mudslide, revealing three major causes of the disaster.
A "peculiar asteroid" discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences was recently acknowledged by the International Minor Planet Center, according to relevant departments on Aug. 18. The asteroid has a very flat orbit and is the first "peculiar asteroid" China has ever found.
Scientists are calling the landslide that hit Zhouqu, in Gansu province, on 8 August the most devastating in China’s history. But worse could come if global warming and government inaction continue. The landslide was triggered by extraordinary rainfall over the summer — measuring 97 mm for one 40 minute period in parts of Gansu in the run up to the Zhouqu disaster. The flowing mud covered a five kilometre by 300 metre wide swathe of Zhouqu with 5 metres of mud. As of Wednesday afternoon, the death toll was 1,287 people and 457 missing were still missing.
SCIENTISTS from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica under the Chinese Academy of Sciences have begun research into a new superbug which resists almost all antibiotics, institute officials said yesterday. The bacteria, believed to have originated in India and which spread to other parts of the world after people traveled there for cheaper medical services, has so far infected 170 people and killed at least five patients in Britain.
The Yangtze River finless porpoise population is declining by 5 percent every year, said Wang Ding, deputy director of the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in an interview with the Beijing News published on August 15. He added that they may become extinct in the next 15 years.
A new study has found that emodin, a natural product that can be extracted from various Chinese herbs including Rheum palmatum and Polygonum cuspidatum, shows promise as an agent that could reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes. The study showed that giving emodin to mice with diet-induced obesity lowered blood glucose and serum insulin, improved insulin resistance and lead to more healthy levels of lipid in the blood. It also decreased body weight and reduced central fat mass.
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