The Chinese university badminton team, facing strong pressure from the Chinese Tapei team, maintained their lead in the sport at the FISU Games on Monday, as they totaled four gold, three silver and one bronze medal in badminton.
China's female singles player Han Yue continued her fine form on Monday as she won the women's singles title with a stylish 2-0 victory over her opponent Kim Ga-ram of South Korea.
Coasting to the final by winning all the previous four matches by straight 2-0 wins, Han said she gave her all for the final.
"As it is the final of the tournament, I have to go all out. I prepared for a tough match but it turned out to be an easy one," the Tongji University student told reporters.
"I feel honored to have participated in the University Games during my college years. This is a very valuable experience."
Speaking about the home advantages she enjoyed at the Chengdu Games, Han, 24, said she had to channel the pressure into impetus for the home game.
"Certainly, there is pressure since it's a home game. But the gold medal is important to me so I have to push myself more," Han said.
"I'm thankful to coaches Li Xuerui and Wang Shixian for providing me with valuable advice during the matches."
Li is a former Olympic champion, while Wang has won several major international accolades for China.
Han has already set her sights on the badminton world championships that kick off on August 21 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"I will focus on preparing for this year's event as it is already very close," Han said.
Also on Monday, Team China secured the doubles gold and silver medals as Chinese pair Liu Wenmei and Liu Xuanxuan defeated teammates Xia Yuting and Du Yue 18-21, 21-19 and 21-14 in the women's competition.
Ren Xiangyu and Tan Qiang overshadowed peers Zhou Haodong and He Jiting 23-21 and 21-16 in the men's event.
In the men's singles final, the last match of the badminton tournament, China's Wang Zhengxing defeated Thailand's Teeraratsakul Panitchaphon 21-16, 21-14 claim gold.
The Austrian Cultural Center in Beijing recently invited artists Honey and Bunny to organize the performance art exhibition "Diets, resources, and aesthetics" at the Markor Cave Museum. This exciting event was organized to commemorate the International Day of Food Loss and Waste Awareness.
Food waste, environmental protection, food distribution, and sustainable use of resources are global issues that have attracted the attention of all sectors of society, and can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, including ethics, science, and art. This theme was deeply explored through "eating" art performances and food design, which were rich, revelatory experiences for audiences.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relationships between China and Austria in 1971, cultural exchanges between the two countries have been very active, and this performance art exhibition is a witness to the friendly exchanges between the two peoples.
A series of photographic artworks created by the artists Honey and Bunny on the subject of food are on display at the exhibition, complimenting wonderful performances through conversation sessions and performance art pieces, inspiring a deep understanding among audience and their reflections on "Diets, resources, and aesthetics." This exhibition is not only a friendly international art and culture exchange feast, but also deepens cultural cooperation between China and Europe.
Situated in Li county in Northwest China's Gansu Province, commonly seen as the birthplace of China's Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) culture, a local archaeological site has recently been found to have been a large-scale architectural complex used for sacrificial ceremonies.
The Sijiaoping Ruins are located on an excavated flat platform on the top of a mountain in the county. The ancient man-made platform covers an area of 28,000 square meters and was encircled by a rammed earth wall. At the center of the site is a square platform with annexes on either side of it.
Archaeologist Wang Meng told the Global Times that the entire configuration of the site delivers a "sense of grandeur and solemnity." The symmetrical and square designs are often seen in many ancient Chinese designs, especially in high-grade and royal architecture. The "symmetrical" design is particularly common as it embodies Chinese people's belief in harmony.
Exquisitely made ancient objects like eaves tiles, also known as wadang, decorated with cloud patterns and tiles featuring a rope pattern were found scattered inside the ruins. Those artifacts gave experts the clues they needed to narrow down the specific time period of the site.
Hou Hongwei, the lead expert of the Sijiaoping archaeological project, said that the tiles and eaves tiles were "very similar" to the ones discovered in the mausoleum of the Qin Dynasty Emperor Qin Shi Huang.
"According to the production techniques and decorative details on those unearthed building materials, we can preliminarily identify the Sijiaoping site as a high-level ceremonial building from the Qin Dynasty," the expert said.
Besides the visible structures, the Qin ceremonial site also contained a half-crypt space. The space was covered with tiles on both the walls and floor. Experts predict it was once a water pool. The pool was most likely closely tied to the Qin people's "belief in the virtues of water," Hou remarked. While the function of the Sijiaoping ruins is only recently identified, their importance had already been noticed by scholars when the site was first discovered in 2019.
The Sijiaoping site was discovered near another site, the Dabaozi Mountain site, which is also in Gansu Province. The Dabaozi Mountain site is a tomb cluster covering some 18 square kilometers.
Archaeologist Xue Ruiming told the Global Times that the Dabaozi Mountain site reveals that Li county was once the "center of the Qin regime during the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC)."
The Sijiaoping architectural complex was established after the Qin Kingdom was unified. The Sijiaoping site is the only "systematic" and complete building complex from the time period discovered to date. It demonstrates the burial and ritual traditions of the Qin.
"The close connections between the two sites help our contextual analysis of the Qin Dynasty's burial and ritual traditions. Such a discovery contributes to scholar's analysis of early Chinese sacrificial traditions," said Xue.
Unlike Western ceremonial buildings that often carry a religious mission, ancient ritual buildings in China reflect the country's ancient philosophy.
Their unique shapes and configurations during different historical periods were manifestations of ancient Chinese people's perspectives on people-to-people relations, the dynamic between human beings and nature and ethics.
Compared to the Qin Dynasty's "solemn" style, ceremonial buildings of the Xia Dynasty (c.2070BC-c.1600BC) were more pragmatic as they hosted collective activities. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770BC-256BC), the design of ritual buildings paid closer attention to the ease of transportation.
While terrorist attacks and violence linked to racial division continue to increase in Europe and the US, Chinese experts warned on Tuesday that the Israel-Palestine conflict has brought to light the deep-rooted divisions within Western societies, as well as the contradictions of ethnic antagonism, and the Western countries should reflect on this, rather than evade the problem.
Two Swedish nationals were shot to death and a third one was wounded in central Brussels on Monday night, and a man who identified himself as a member of the Islamic State claimed responsibility in a video posted online, Reuters reported.
The suspected assailant fled the scene after the shooting spree as a soccer match between Belgium and Sweden was about to start, prompting Belgium to raise its terror alert to the highest level. Hours later on Tuesday, Belgian police said that the suspected gunman was shot dead by police in a cafe, Reuters reported.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened security concerns in some European countries linked to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A man of Chechen origin stabbed to death a teacher and severely wounded two other adults on Friday at a school in northeastern France, an act that President Emmanuel Macron denounced as "Islamist terror," said AFP.
What's more, an Illinois landlord accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounding his mother was charged with a hate crime after police and relatives said he singled out the victims because of their faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas.
"Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis," the sheriff's statement said.
Experts believed that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the trigger, but the deep divisions in the societies of the US and Europe are the source of increased ethnic hatred. Such a division will inevitably affect the strategic coordination and strategic autonomy between the US and Europe.
In recent days, police in US cities and federal authorities have been on high alert for violence driven by anti-semitic or Islamophobic sentiments. FBI officials, along with Jewish and Muslim groups, have reported an increase of hateful and threatening rhetoric.
Because Western societies have maintained an attitude of taking sides concerning the issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the existing disputes between the two countries have intensified, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The US and Europe are most affected because the problem was actually created by the two, Li noted. "The US and Europe need to face up to and resolve their own divisions first, rather than evading problems and stirring up conflict elsewhere."
The 8th Contemporary Mexican Film Cycle will kick off in several Chinese cities, brining filmgoers and Mexican cultural enthusiasts in China six classic Mexican movies, the Global Times learned from Mexican Consulate General in Shanghai.
Started in 2013, the film cycle China is held to celebrate Día del Cine Mexicano, or the National Mexican Cinema Day, which falls on August 15 each year.
The film cycle presents audiences in China with the latest Mexican film productions by some of Mexico's most outstanding directors. They are committed to exploring various forms of film expression, showcasing to the world the colorful and infinite possibilities of today's Mexican film industry, said the Mexican Consulate General in Shanghai
The film cycle will be held in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. In Shanghai, the first film - Alamar (To the Sea) directed by Pedro González-Rubio - will be screened on Saturday afternoon at The Miguel de Cervantes Library.
Alamar was shot at Banco Chinchorro, which was listed as a biosphere reserve by the UNESCO in 2004. It tells the story of a five-year-old Italian-Mexican boy reuniting and going sea fishing with his fisherman father during holidays.
The other five movies scheduled to be screened are: Noche de fuego (Prayers for the Stolen), El camino de Xico (Xico's Journey), Güeros, Post Tenebras Lux (Light after Darkness), and A morir a los desiertos (To Die in the Desert).
El camino de Xico will be screened with a Chinese dubbing track. The remaining films will be screened in Spanish with Chinese subtitles.
The film cycle is jointly being held by the representative office of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in China, the Mexican Embassy in China, as well as the Mexican consulates general in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The public can register to the screenings in Shanghai through the WeChat account of the Miguel de Cervantes Library
A giant engraved "Great Stone" stands at the entrance of the China-Belarus Industrial Park in Minsk, capital of Belarus. Advertisements for "Great Stone" can also be seen on highways linking the city center to the park. The name "Great Stone" was given by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to the park as it embodies "the cornerstone of the friendship between the peoples of China and Belarus." Nobody could ever have imagined the forest would one day turn into a shining pearl of the Belt and Road Initiative. From a "piece of white paper" to "a shining new city," what has made the industrial park what it is today? What difficulties did the park weather to keep thriving amid today's complicated geopolitical atmosphere? Reporters from the Global Times entered the largest foreign investment project in Belarus to find out the secret of its prosperity.
Miraculous development
At the entrance of the park, there's a giant display board that says "time is money, efficiency is life" in both Chinese and Russian. In Belarus, local people, amazed by the speed of construction of the industrial park, developed an idiom that says, "You will never step into the same China-Belarus Industrial Park."
The park is located near the center of Belarus and sits on transport links within easy reach of the Moscow-Berlin international highway to Russia and Central Europe. The Belarus government set up a customs office inside of the park, to speed up customs clearance and provide quick service for commerce, bonded warehouse storage and others.
Foundation of the park was laid in 2014. Since the second half of 2015, the China-Belarus Industrial Park has developed rapidly. Developed within the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the park has witnessed rapid expansion.
In an exclusive interview with the Xinhua News Agency earlier this year, Lukashenko noted it is the largest project attracting investment in Belarus and a landmark cooperation project within the BRI framework as it was promoted by the two heads of state personally and prized by the two governments.
As of August, a total of 114 enterprises had settled in the China-Belarus Industrial Park, involving various fields such as machinery manufacturing, e-commerce, new materials, traditional Chinese medicine, artificial intelligence and 5G network development. Intended investment exceeds $1.3 billion.
If there's any secret behind the park's rapid development, it is the high-quality coordination between China and Belarus, as well as support from leaders from both countries, head of the park's administration Alexander Yaroshenko told the Global Times.
Yaroshenko once served as deputy minister of the Ministry of Economy of Belarus and was appointed as head of the park's administration in 2016. "When President Lukashenko handed me this job, he told me, 'We have a bunch of deputy ministers, but we have only one China-Belarus Industrial Park, so your job as head of the park's administration is very important.' So you can see how much importance he attached to the industrial park and his high expectations," said Yaroshenko.
Rapid development of the park also mirrored the elevation of bilateral ties. According to statistics, the bilateral trade volume between China and Belarus in 2022 reached $5.08 billion, setting a new record. On a diplomatic level, the two countries established an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership in 2022.
Special appeal
Enterprise in the park come from 16 countries. Apart from China and Belarus, there are companies from the US, EU, Switzerland and Singapore, Yaroshenko, standing in front of a world map, introduced to the Global Times reporters. "Our industrial park is very international."
One of Yaroshenko's favorite stories when it comes to attracting investment goes like this. "Six years ago, owners of a US company came to the industrial park by private jet. Said he wanted to see the park with his own eyes. Later he told me he made a huge mistake, for he bought too little land in the park. 'I should have bought land twice as big here!'"
Apart from the advanced infrastructure, the park's considerate policy services are also what makes it so appealing to companies. The park has a "one-stop" efficient service system for enterprises. All approvals involving enterprises are completed in the park, providing full-process services such as investment negotiation, company registration, project access and land transfer.
"In the one-stop service hall, companies can complete all procedures within one or two hours. Yet in other places, it may take seven hours to a month," Deputy Director General of the Industrial Park Development Company Ren Fei told the Global Times. The one-stop service hall is a lesson learned from China's Suzhou Industrial Park. Moreover, companies who settle in the China-Belarus Industrial Park can enjoy preferential policies on visas, customs clearance and taxes.
The Belarusian company Human Craft, which manufactures medical prostheses, settled in the park at the end of 2022. Anton Naczyński, general manager of the company, told the Global Times that the reason the company chose this park is because the park's management helps every company develop and expand into the overseas market. He hopes that within such an environment, his company and Belarus' medical prostheses can reach the world's advanced level.
New Silicon Valley
However, the park has encountered challenges from COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine crisis in recent years. Yet Ren brushed off the impact of those events on its development.
"In 2017, there were 10 companies in the park. Since 2018, the number of companies settled in the park stayed at 18 to 20 annually. Despite the impact of COVID-19, 20 new companies chose our park in 2021, and the number in 2022 was 19," said Ren. He expects a record 23 or 24 new companies will be landing in the park this year.
The reason for such growth is the park's timely adjusting of measures to weather the impact of geopolitical shock and Western countries' sanctions. Ren said since the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the park has adjusted the source structure for attracting investment.
"Previously, many enterprises that came here were oriented toward the European and US markets. Now, the focus is mainly on the Eurasian Economic Union market, as well as investments from member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," said Ren.
Meanwhile, when facing sanctions from the West, several banks in Belarus have also received assistance from the park in accessing the Chinese yuan payment system. This has helped resolve many payment difficulties for enterprises through bilateral currency settlements, said Ren.
He also told the Global Times that they are intensifying efforts to address transportation issues through the China-Europe Railway Express, partially offsetting the impact of disrupted maritime shipping in Belarus following the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
In the eyes of many, the park is not only an industrial park, it is also an "intelligence new city" that is endowed with a beautiful and pleasant environment.
In the medium to long term, the park aims to attract more than 100,000 industrial population and become an international comprehensive development zone.
Shymanovich Aliaksandr, an employee from the China National Machinery Industry Corporation (Sinomach)'s Belarus branch, told the Global Times that the park is full of happiness because there are many green trees here, and one can breathe the freshest air at any time. The production space, living space, and natural space are also all well integrated.
Alexey Kliuchnikov, chief of the R&D department of YTO Technology, a leading agricultural machinery supplier in China that also opened an office in the industrial park, said that working in the company not only offers a significantly higher income compared to the average level in Minsk, but also provides many opportunities to exchange ideas with Chinese counterparts and learn the latest technologies.
"Our goal is to make this place a 'new Silicon Valley in Central and Eastern Europe,'" Ren said proudly. In his eyes, the park is not just a project, but a manifestation of the passion and ideals of a group of people.
A mite and a virus are in cahoots in an attack on honeybee health.
The parasitic mite Varroa destructor feasts on bees of all ages and reproduces on pupae. As the mite travels through bee colonies, it can spread deformed wing virus, which can cause crippled wings and death in extreme cases. By suppressing a bee’s immunity, the virus may improve a mite’s ability to feed and breed on baby bees, researchers in Italy report March 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Mites were more likely to become mothers on Italian honeybee larvae with higher levels of viral infection, the team found. The number of mites that successfully laid eggs soared from 22 percent on bee larvae that developed normally to 40 percent on bees with infections severe enough to cause crippled wings. Still, mite fertility decreased again on bees with very high levels of viral infection. Understanding the complexities of this mite-virus collusion could help explain the factors leading to colony losses and protect honeybees in the future, the researchers say.
Where it rains, it rumbles. Rainwater and snowmelt help fuel intense earthquakes along a New Zealand tectonic fault, new research suggests.
Tracing the source of water flowing through New Zealand’s Alpine Fault shows that more than 99 percent of it originated from precipitation, researchers report April 19 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Scientists knew that underground fluids help trigger quakes, but the origins of these fluids have been uncertain. In this case, the nearby Southern Alps concentrate rainfall and meltwater on top of the Alpine Fault while the fault itself serves as an impermeable dam that traps the water. The fault “essentially [is] promoting its own large fluid pressures that can lead to earthquakes,” says study coauthor Catriona Menzies, a geologist at the University of Southampton in England. Identifying the fluid source will help scientists better predict the fault’s seismic cycle, she says.
New Zealand sits on the boundary where the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates collide. This collision generates a powerful earthquake along the Alpine Fault around once every 330 years, with the most recent temblor in 1717; it also gradually formed the Southern Alps as the two plates scrunched upward. Moist air condenses on its way up and over the mountains, causing torrential rainfall that typically exceeds 10 meters annually. Menzies and colleagues wondered how much rainwater makes its way to the fault. Fluids within a fault help induce quakes by altering the strength of rock and by counteracting the forces that hold two sides of a fault together (SN: 7/11/15, p. 10). Water divulges its origins in several ways. The researchers looked at water-deposited minerals in rocks, the relative abundance of helium in nearby hot springs and the various oxygen and hydrogen isotopes that made up the water — all fingerprints of the water’s source. Even though only about 0.02 to 0.05 percent of rainwater makes it to the fault’s depth, the work revealed that more water came from precipitation than from all other sources, such as water released from surrounding rocks and the underlying mantle. The 3-kilometer-tall Southern Alps may even serve as a water tower that boosts water pressure by heightening the stack of groundwater that sits on top of the fault.
While local geography makes the Alpine Fault unique, the new work provides a template for studying fluids in other earthquake-prone areas such as the recently active Japanese fault, says Patrick Fulton, a geophysicist at Texas A&M University in College Station.
Growth hormone mapped — Discovery of the complete chemical structure of the human growth hormone has been reported…. The discovery marks a major advance toward understanding how the powerful growth-promoting substance works and increases the chances for its eventual synthesis in the laboratory…. Some 5,000 fresh human pituitary glands were required to achieve the results. — Science News, May 21, 1966
Update In 1979, researchers produced a synthetic human growth hormone in the lab, using bacteria equipped with human hormone genes. Six years later, the synthetic growth hormone was approved for medical use; distribution of growth hormone collected from human pituitary glands had been halted after infected product was linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain-wasting disorder. Today, doctors use synthetic growth hormone to treat growth hormone deficiency, which can stunt growth in children. Because synthetic growth hormone can build muscle and trim body fat, it is prohibited as a doping agent by many sports organizations.
Nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States show laboratory evidence of Zika virus infection.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring 279 pregnant women, including 122 in U.S. territories, the government agency reported at a news conference May 20.
Those numbers are way up compared with previous counts: Last week, the CDC tallied 47 cases in the states and 65 in the territories. The increase reflects a change in reporting, rather than a spike in new cases, said CDC epidemiologist Margaret Honein, who heads the agency’s birth defects branch.
Before today, the CDC report included only pregnant women who had both positive lab test results and either symptoms or pregnancy complications linked to Zika. The new tally includes women without symptoms of infection.
“We’ve learned a lot in the past four months,” Honein said. Scientists have reported that asymptomatic mothers have given birth to Zika-infected babies with microcephaly or other birth defects, she said.
So far, less than a dozen of the 279 U.S. pregnancies have had adverse outcomes, but the agency wouldn’t specify what those outcomes were, or how many women have given birth, miscarried or terminated their pregnancies.
In the United States, Honein said, microcephaly typically affects six per 10,000 infants.
