Young Scientist

(FILE)

He Xionglei, a professor at the School of Life Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in south China's Guangdong Province, has made significant progress with his research group in how chromatin structure regulates DNA mutations. The findings were published in the journal Science, one of the two most influential academic journals in the world, on March 9, according to the official website of SYSU. This is the first time that an academic from SYSU has published a paper in the elite journal.

He, 35, received his bachelor's and master's degrees from SYSU and earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan in the United States. In 2007, He returned to China and was hired as a professor at SYSU, the youngest professor in the history of SYSU.

Against Bribery

Seven ministerial-level officials were investigated for suspected embezzlement or bribery in China last year, said the country's top procurator on March 11.

Prosecutors nationwide investigated a total of 2,524 officials above the county head level, said Cao Jianming, Procurator General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, while delivering a work report at the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

According to him, efforts to crack down on bribe-taking and giving were intensified last year, with 4,217 bribe givers being prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 6.2 percent.

More Transparency

The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) plans to select five qualified accounting firms to provide services such as annual auditing, auditing of special programs and off-office auditing, according to a notice the RCSC published on March 13.

The RCSC will receive bids from across the country for 20 days following the publication of the notice, and the selection process will comply with national regulations regarding government procurement, it says.

The RCSC will publicly announce the five bid winners, which are required to be among the top 100 accounting firms included in the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It will sign a three-year service protocol with the five firms and assign auditing tasks according to their offer, professional strengths and service level.

This is the first time the charity has publicly called tenders for its auditing services.

Female Astronauts

Authorities have completed the initial selection of crew members for China's first manned space docking mission, and the roster includes female astronauts, according to an official with knowledge of the matter.

But the final three-person crew will be decided "on the very last condition," said Niu Hongguang, deputy chief of China's manned space program.

The manned spacecraft Shenzhou-9 will take its crew members to the Tiangong-1 space module lab between June and August this year. Tiangong-1 was launched in September last year and completed the country's first space docking with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft last November.

Forest Coverage

China aims to increase its forest coverage to more than 23 percent and lift the forested land area in the country to 223 million hectares by the end of 2020, according to Jia Zhibang, Administrator of the State Forestry Administration.

Citing a national afforestation outline for the 2011-20 period, Jia made the remarks during an interview with Xinhua News Agency. He said that the public will be mobilized to plant 26 billion trees over the next 10 years.

China's forest coverage had reached 20.36 percent, or 195 million hectares, at the end of 2008, according to official figures.

Vehicle Emission Control

Beijing is likely to introduce new vehicle emission permits that could be as strict as those in Europe, in response to concerns over the city's air pollution.

The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau has released a draft of the new standard, which specifies strict limits for a variety of vehicle emissions, including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitric oxide and particulate matter.

If adopted, the "Beijing V emission standard" could help reduce the emission of nitric oxide by 25 percent. Nitric oxide is one of the main causes of the tiny pollution particles in the air, 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, known as PM2.5.

New Discovery

A team of Chinese and American scientists revealed the plumage and feather color of a 120-million-year-old small theropod dinosaur in an article published in Science magazine on March 9.

The microraptor, a theropod dinosaur, was discovered to have had iridescent feathers, according to the research project jointly led by Meng Qingjin, Director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History (BMNH), and Mark Norell, a dinosaur expert with the American Museum of Natural History.

The microraptor fossil studied in the project is a specimen held by the BMNH.

The study proposes that the plumage of the "four-winged" dinosaur was predominantly iridescent, and that the colors of the feathers would change depending on the angle from which they were viewed.

Coldest Winter

The average temperature in China this winter was the lowest in 27 years, the People's Daily reports.

Between December 1, 2011, and February 29, 2012, the average temperature in the country was 4.8 degrees below zero degrees Celsius, 1 degree lower than that of the same period of the previous years, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

The National Climate Center said during the last five years, China had experienced three cold winters in which the average temperatures were at least 0.5 degrees Celsius lower than that of the same period between 1981 and 2010.