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<title>People's Daily Online</title><link>http://english.people.com.cn/</link>
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<description>People's Daily Online</description>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/index.html</link>
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<title>U.S. scientists say China quake was rare, unexpected event</title>
<NEWS_ID>6442488</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6442488.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:02:34 +0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[A group of scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in a report that the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that plagued China's Southwest Sichuan province was rare in its nature and hard to predict. 

    "The earthquake is ...]]></description>
<full-text><![CDATA[A group of scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in a report that the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that plagued China's Southwest Sichuan province was rare in its nature and hard to predict. 

    "The earthquake is rare because it has a long recurrence interval, it is unusual to see strike-slip and thrust motions combined in the same break like this, and also unusual because probably several faults ruptured along the northwestern margin of the Sichuan basin," Leigh Royden, professor of geology and geophysics from the MIT research group told Xinhua in an interview Thursday. 

    According to the report appearing in the July issue of GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, the quake resulted from faults with little seismic activity, and similar events in that area occur only once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years, on average. 

    The team has been doing extensive research in that region of China and the Tibetan plateau for more than two decades, but had found no hints that suggested such a large earthquake might strike the area. 

    They operated an array of 25 broadband seismograph stations in this region of western Sichuan for more than a year. 

    "Nobody was thinking there would be a major seismological event" in that area, Royden said. "This earthquake was quite unusual," and may have involved a simultaneous rupture of two or more separate but contiguous faults. 

    "Our study results show that this earthquake happened in a place, probably THE place, where the relative motions across faults are among the slowest in the eastern Tibetan plateau," said Royden. 

    "The motions at the earthquake site are very slow, probably around 1 mm per year. But the very large difference in elevation between the plateau and the Sichuan basin means that the stresses could be very high, so could explain the large magnitude earthquakes there," Royden continued. 

    The region is extremely unusual geologically, according to Royden, because of the very steep slopes at the boundary between the Sichuan Basin to the east and the Tibetan plateau to the west. The elevation rises sharply by about 3,500 meters over a span of only about 50 kilometers. 

    The motions are related to the distant India-Eurasia collision and the fact that the high part of the Tibetan plateau has a weak crust underneath that is moving east to get out of the direct collision zone, said Royden. 

    The area where the quake occurred is part of the boundary between two of the Earth's tectonic plates, where the Indian and Asian plates converge in an ongoing collision that has created the Himalayan mountains and the Tibetan plateau. 

    But in central and eastern Tibet, unlike most other areas of continental collision, much of the movement of crust is hidden from view. Instead of thickening the entire crust by folding and faulting, the surface of the eastern Tibetan plateau is undeformed and is being lifted upward by thickening a weak crustal layer more than 15 km below the surface. 

    The crust in this deep weak layer is flowing eastward. But, in the area where the earthquake occurred, this flowing material is obstructed by a major obstacle, the Sichuan Basin. 

    "The crust and mantle beneath the basin appears to form a hard, cold knot" that extends to 250 km depth, Royden said, that forces the flow to "wrap around the knot." The huge elevation difference between the surface of the plateau and the Sichuan Basin provides the underlying stress that led to the quake. 

    It is a rare event. "While statistically it looks like there should not be a repeat of the Wenchuan earthquake soon, earthquakes can come in clusters," Royden warned. And unfortunately, it is at least now impossible to say that there will not be an earthquake, "this is true anywhere in the world (due to the difficulty of prediction)." 

    "The Chinese people have to be prepared and build high quality buildings on solid bedrock to minimize the loss of life from earthquakes," Royden said. 

    The magnitude-s t]]></full-text>
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<title>China pledges geospace support on climate change, environment protection </title>
<NEWS_ID>6442003</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6442003.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:24:33 +0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[China will deepen international cooperation on climate change, environmental protection, disaster relief and other global issues, Vice Premier Li Keqiang said Thursday. 

    Li made the remarks in a meeting with the foreign delegates to  ...]]></description>
<full-text><![CDATA[China will deepen international cooperation on climate change, environmental protection, disaster relief and other global issues, Vice Premier Li Keqiang said Thursday. 

    Li made the remarks in a meeting with the foreign delegates to the 21st congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). 

    Li said space technology played an important role in the modernization construction of China. 

    Chinese topographic technicians applied advanced technologies, such as aerial surveys, remote sensing and spatial positioning, immediately after the devastating May 12 earthquake to gather effective and accurate information of the affected area, Li said. 

    Li said China would support the peaceful exploitation of space and take an active part in international scientific research and exploration programs. 

    Ian Dowman, ISPRS president, briefed Li on the 21st ISPRS congress from July 3 to 11 in Beijing, saying the ISPRS would boost cooperation with China. 

    The ISPRS is an international NGO devoted to the development of international cooperation in the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences. Its membership comprises national organizations and professional societies representing more than 100 nations and regions. 
 
Source: Xinhua]]></full-text>
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<title>Over 120,000 take college entrance exams in Sichuan, Gansu</title>
<NEWS_ID>6441859</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/6441859.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:12:38 +0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[More than 120,000 high school students in the quake-hit zones of Sichuan and Gansu provinces took the national college entrance examination yesterday, almost a month after examinees in the rest of the country sat for it.

In Sichuan, 96,4 ...]]></description>
<full-text><![CDATA[More than 120,000 high school students in the quake-hit zones of Sichuan and Gansu provinces took the national college entrance examination yesterday, almost a month after examinees in the rest of the country sat for it.

In Sichuan, 96,421 students from 40 cities, districts and counties in Chengdu, Deyang, Mianyang, Guangyuan, Ya'an, as well as in the Aba Tibet and Qiang autonomous prefecture, started taking the three-day examination in 77 test centers.

About 82,000 students are sitting for the exam in prefabricated rooms set up in playgrounds, squares and other open spaces, said Liu Min, deputy chief of the Sichuan educational test institute.

To prevent heatstroke, all the prefabricated rooms in Mianyang have been equipped with air-conditioners. Electric fans are also available in the rooms in Guangyuan, the northernmost city of Sichuan bordering Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

"Other than ceiling fans, each prefabricated room in Deyang has blocks of ice to keep the place cool," Liu told China Daily.

The rest of the students in Sichuan are taking the exam in classrooms designed to withstand aftershocks.

The prefabricated rooms are also strong enough to withstand 8-magnitude quakes.

"All students have taken part in emergency drills in case a major aftershock occurs," he said.

In Chongqing High School, the largest test center in Chongzhou, a city under the administration of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, all items usually hung on walls including fireproof equipment and decorative frames have been removed for fear of hitting students in an aftershock.

In the Aba region, where roads have often been blocked by landslides, four helicopters from the Chengdu Military Area Command flew in more than 4,000 exam papers last Friday.

Local police and college admission office staff escorted the transportation of the papers.

"It is the first time employees from the security bureau have guarded the examination papers day and night," Liu said.

Exam papers were transported to the other quake-hit zones by road, he said.

In Anxian county of Mianyang, 2,000 students took the exam in a hall converted from a pharmaceutical factory workshop.

"It might well be the largest exam hall in Chinese history," said Yu Sanxia, an 18-year-old student from Anxian High School taking the exams at the site.

Gansu province also arranged for 24,000 students from 17 counties to take the exams. Most of the 810 test centers are using prefabricated rooms.

In the city of Longnan, 676 prefabricated rooms have been built for 19,915 candidates. Electric fans and anti-heatstroke measures have also been provided in each room.

In mountainous Wudu district, southeast of Gansu bordering Sichuan, two off-road vehicles have been prepared for three exam centers. The vehicles are on standby to pick up candidates if the students come up against landslides on their way to the exam centers.

The government has also given additional benefits to quake-hit exam candidates.

The China Education Development Foundation has given each examinee a daily food subsidy of 10 yuan ($1.50) during the three-day exam, the Ministry of Health said on its website.

The Education Ministry has also required all Chinese universities to modify their enrolment by increasing the number of places for Sichuan students by 2 percent.

Source: China Daily 
]]></full-text>
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<title>Scientists obtain first look at Mercury's composition</title>
<NEWS_ID>6441777</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90876/6441777.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:40:03 +0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[By measuring the charged particles in the planet Mercury's magnetic field, a University of Michigan sensor enabled the first observations about the surface and atmospheric composition of the closest world to the sun. 

    "We now know mo ...]]></description>
<full-text><![CDATA[By measuring the charged particles in the planet Mercury's magnetic field, a University of Michigan sensor enabled the first observations about the surface and atmospheric composition of the closest world to the sun. 

    "We now know more about what Mercury's made of than ever before," said U-M professor Thomas Zurbuchen, who is project leader of the Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS), a soda-can sized sensor on board the MESSENGER spacecraft, which performed the first of three scheduled Mercury flybys in January, 2008. 

    A paper on FIPS' results from this flyby is published in the July 4 edition of Science. 

    Since the Mariner 10 spacecraft's 1975 discovery of Mercury's magnetic field, scientists have speculated about how this magnetic field and the solar wind interact with the planet's surface and exosphere, or thin atmosphere. 

    FIPS detected silicon, sodium, sulfur and even water ions around Mercury. Ions are atoms or molecules that have lost electrons and therefore have an electric charge. 

    Because of the quantities of these molecules that scientists detected in Mercury's space environment, they surmise that they were blasted from the surface or exosphere by the solar wind. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun. It buffets Mercury, which is closer to the sun than the Earth, and it causes particles from Mercury's surface and atmosphere to sputter into space. FIPS measured these sputtered particles. 

    "This flyby got the first-ever look at surface composition (of the planet)," Zurbuchen said. "The Mercury magnetosphere is full of many ionic species, both atomic and molecular, and in a variety of charge states. What is in some sense a Mercury plasma nebula is far richer in complexity and makeup than the Io plasma torus in the Jupiter system." 

    Io is a volcanically active moon of Jupiter that is often considered one of the most exciting space environments, Zurbuchen said. Images and other measurements made by MESSENGER suggest that Mercury's surface composition was determined at least in part by volcanic processes. 
 

Source:Xinhua]]></full-text>
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<title>Video: Quake survivors take college exam</title>
<NEWS_ID>6441682</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6441682.html</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:17:56 +0800</pubDate>
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Source:CCTV.com]]></full-text>
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<title>National science foundation to invite foreign experts for research evaluation</title>
<NEWS_ID>6441513</NEWS_ID>
<link>http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6441513.html</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:36:55 +0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[China's prestigious science foundation plans to invite leading global scientists to evaluate its self-funded research projects. 

    Chen Yiyu, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) chairman, was quoted by the People's Dail ...]]></description>
<full-text><![CDATA[China's prestigious science foundation plans to invite leading global scientists to evaluate its self-funded research projects. 

    Chen Yiyu, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) chairman, was quoted by the People's Daily on Thursday as saying, "We'll invite the world's leading scientists in various disciplines to judge the merits of the programs we have sponsored." 

    "The international think-tank for performance evaluation will be formed as early as 2010," he said, citing the foundation had carefully studied evaluation procedures from equivalent organizations in the United States, Japan and Germany. 

    Copying the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), China set up the NSFC in 1986. It was widely rated as having research funding policies closest to the practices in industrialized countries. 

    The major difference between the NSFC and other Chinese funding channels is that the NSFC bases its fund granting decisions on transparent and independent reviews of outside scientists, whereas others choose grant recipients after close-door meetings. 

    The NSFC also uses public money to invest in research in basic science and applied technologies. Its funding preferences focus on cutting-edge research on academic frontiers. 

    Chen said the NSFC would grant 6.4 billion yuan (928 million U.S. dollars) in the fiscal year, an annual increase of 28 percent. The biggest portion would go to frontier research programs, which cost nearly 4.4 billion yuan. The average grant for key projects would reach 1.85 million yuan each. 

    China spent record 366.4 billion yuan on science research and development in 2007, or 1.49 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), making China the heaviest R&D spender among developing economies. 

    Although praised for its transparency and professional fund management, the NSFC only allocated a tiny portion of the country's total R&D funding. 

    Much bigger players are the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, the military and universities. 

    Many criticized the prevailing funding mechanism, charging it with squandering public money by paying excessive salaries and benefits for researchers and triggering cheats who win big grants. 

    One notorious case in 2006 saw a dean at Shanghai's Jiaotong University fake computer chips to justify tens of millions in research funds granted from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The dean was sacked from the post after an investigation. 
 
Source:Xinhua]]></full-text>
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