FRIENDLY SPARRING: Chinese soldiers take part in a China-India joint anti-terrorism drill in southwest China's Sichuan Province on November 5. The two countries each sent a 144-strong company to participate in the training program, code-named Hand-in-Hand 2013 (XINHUA)

Rare Fossil

Scientists have found the oldest fossil of insects copulating in northeast China, according to a study published on November 6 in the U.S.-based scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Fossil records of mating insects are uncommon. During the study, Dong Ren and his colleagues at the Beijing-based Capital Normal University, presented the fossil of a pair of copulating froghoppers, a type of small insect that still exists today and hops from plant to plant much like tiny frogs.

The fossil of the two froghoppers has them preserved in a belly-to-belly mating position with the male reproductive organ still inserted into the female, researchers said.

"The fossil that we found is incredibly rare, and it provides an interesting glimpse into insect behavior and is a source of data that will be crucial in understanding their mating habits during the Middle Jurassic period," Ren announced during a statement.

This is the earliest record of copulating insects to date, and suggests that froghoppers' genital symmetry and mating position have remained unchanged for over 165 million years, the research team added.

Joint Research

A transportation research center was jointly launched by China's Tsinghua University, Britain's University of Cambridge and the U.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology on November 5 in Beijing .

It was established under the framework of the Low Carbon Energy University Alliance that was founded in 2009 by the three educational organizations.

The center will focus on future transportation studies, which include smart, green, low-carbon and ecological transportation, said Wu Jianping, director of the center.

Wu pledged to establish a world-class academic exchange platform where leading experts in the world can carry out short-term research and give lectures.

Fewer Cars

The Beijing Municipal Government will reduce the new car registration quota by 37.5 percent starting from 2014, making way for more new-energy vehicles as part of its efforts to curb air pollution.

According to measures for implementing the city's five-year vehicle emission reduction plan (2013-17), the number of new registrations available for cars will be cut from the current 240,000 a year to just 150,000 by 2017.

The plan, released on September 12, ruled that the total number of vehicles in Beijing is to be restricted to around 6 million by the end of 2017.

The city had 5.4 million vehicles at the end of October this year, according to figures from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau.

Among the 600,000 vehicles that will be allowed onto the road within the next four years, 170,000 will be new-energy vehicles, at category that includes battery-powered electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell cars.

In 2014, 20,000 new car registrations will be allotted to new-energy vehicles, with a further 30,000 to follow in 2015.

In 2016 and 2017, the figure will be doubled to 60,000.

Going Overseas

China's homegrown Beidou Satellite Navigation System will begin its first overseas operations in Thailand early next year.

The announcement was made in Bangkok on October 30 by China's Wuhan Information Technology Outsourcing Service and Research Center in conjunction with the Geo-informatics and Space Technology Development Agency under Thailand's Ministry of Science and Technology.

China and Thailand signed a $319-million agreement in March, which has established their commitment to cooperating on the construction of Thailand's geospatial system, giving the country access to China's advanced technology, products and services.

The two sides have agreed to start building a model satellite station based on Beidou in an industrial estate in east Thailand's Chon Buri Province next month and nationwide construction of others will begin early next year, said Liu Junyi, Deputy Director of the Wuhan Information Technology Outsourcing Service and Research Center.

It will be the first time that the Beidou has been used outside China.