China Scientist Awards Blog

  China ‘poised to lead’ creation of quantum-proof telecoms security protocol China is expected to play a leading role in creating a “ quantum-proof” communication protocol, after  scientists   from the country presented a design blueprint at a major international conference on telecoms standards. The protocol aims to help the world fend off potential attacks from quantum computers that could break traditional communication encryption methods. The draft design, presented at an event in Sweden earlier this month, was unanimously approved, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday.  This means Chinese scientists will lead the international effort to develop the protocol, the report said.  According to Zhang Lulu, who was part of the Chinese delegation at the conference, the proposal aimed to ensure “post-quantum ” security. “The proposal submitted by Chinese experts aims to provide guidance for the migration of global communication networks to post-qua...

  China’s GPS rival secures US$1.78 billion as BeiDou system widens reach China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) received commitments of 12.7 billion yuan (US$1.78 billion) for new projects during an event in central China’s Hunan province this week, as Beijing rallies international partnerships to  compete with the US-backed Global Positioning System  (GPS). The deals were “conclusively signed” during the Third International Summit on BDS Applications, including 7.83 billion yuan of investment for the Chinese system’s adoption for industrial and consumer use, the state-backed Hunan Daily reported on Friday.  An early warning system under Indonesia’s disaster prevention agency was one signatory, though the value of the contract was not disclosed. Event organisers published 10 major application scenarios for the 30-year-old BeiDou system, including those which could be employed overseas.  Xiang Libin, vice-chairman of the National Development and Refo...

 This small ground beetle is rekindling debate on Darwin’s theory of evolution When a mass extinction event 66 million years ago wiped out three-quarters of the world’s plants and animals – including the  dinosaurs  – among the survivors was a tiny, black beetle. The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event triggered one of the most profound restructurings of Earth’s natural environment, and those species that survived had to change and evolve as they adapted to the new world order, following Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. But that tiny beetle could be turning Darwin’s theory on its head. According to two recent studies conducted by several Chinese researchers and their international collaborators, this common insect has remained unchanged for at least 100 million years. In fact, it is in a state the researchers call “evolutionary stasis”. The studies, published in Palaeoentomology and The Innovation in April and May respectively, were led by Cai Chenyang, a researc...