Tag Archives: China

On the morning of Sept. 20, Zhang Xizhong received a call from the community director of the No. 2 community on Fushi Road in Tiancun Subdistrict of Beijing and was told that the drainpipe was locked up in Mr. Wang’s apartment. In just half an hour, Z… read more

China’s Long-March 2C rocket has blasted off from the Xichang satellite launch center in Sichuan Province, successfully sending three remote sensing satellites into the orbit. China’s Long-March 2C rocket blasted off from Xichang satellite launch … read more

A grand ceremony was held to mark the 2,568th anniversary of the birth of Confucius in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, on Sept.28.

Under the theme of “Happiness in the Family, Harmony with the Neighbors,” the ceremony received visitors from home and abroad at the Southern Confucius Ancestral Temple, one of the two temples in China belonging to direct decendents of Confucius.

The annual memorial ceremony held in Quzhou has been selected as a China Intangible Cultural Heriatage since 2011, and it calls on people to commemorate Confucius in the contemporary China.

“The Chinese people have since ancient times attached great importance to family. For over 800 years, Quzhou has carried on this traditon from age to age,” Kong Xingkai, director of the management committee of Quzhou Southern Confucius Ancestral Temple and the 75th generation in the lineal descent of Confucius, said in his speech.

Kong also spoke about the expanded influence of Confucianism. “The thoughts and values created by Confucius still carry a profound impact on Chinese people’s way of life today and are closely related to the contemporary development. Therefore we should call on more people to participate in these cultural activities.”

Since 2012, Quzhou has put in a couple years of dedicated efforts to build its cultural industry park in a bid to carry on Confucinism teachings and lead the local economic transformation and advancement.

As the only state-level cultural industry trial park in Zhejiang Province, Quzhou has built many cultural establishments aimed at carrying forward Chinese traditional culture by teaching visitors about Confucianism and allowing them to experience the cultures of Ming and Qing dynasties.

Chinese researchers said Thursday they might have solved the mystery of why the Zika virus causes microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

In a study published in the U.S. journal Science, a team led by Cheng-Feng Qin of the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology reported that one single genetic change, likely acquired in 2013, gave the mosquito-borne virus the ability to cause severe fetal microcephaly.

“Our findings offer a reasonable explanation for the unexpected causal link of Zika to microcephaly, and will help understand how Zika evolved from an innocuous mosquito-borne virus into a congenital pathogen with global impact,” Qin said.

Zika was first identified in 1947 in Uganda, and until its recent emergence in the Americas, was a little known one that sporadically causes mild infections.

Then, it rapidly swept through South and Central America in 2015, and due to its link to congenital brain abnormalities, especially microcephaly during pregnancy, the World Health Organization declared in early 2016 the current epidemics a public health emergency of international concern.

However, scientists remain unable to determine why the virus evolved into a pathogen triggering severe neurological syndromes.

By comparing contemporary Zika virus strains from the 2015 and 2016 South American epidemics with an ancestral Cambodian virus that was circulating in 2010, Qin and colleagues found one critical mutation that conferred the ability to cause microcephaly in mouse models of fetal infection.

That one change, S139N, which replaced a serine amino acid with an asparagine at the 139th position of a Zika protein called prM, also made the virus more lethal to human neuron precursor cells in culture compared with the ancestral form.

Zika accumulated numerous changes throughout its genome between 2010 and 2016, of which S139N caused substantially more severe microcephaly and embryonic lethality in mouse models.

Evolutionary analyses revealed that the S139N change likely arose sometime around 2013, which coincided with initial reports of microcephaly.

It was then stably maintained during subsequent spread to the America.

“The discovery should provide guidance for the study of pathogenetic mechanisms of the Zika virus and for the development of vaccines and treatments,” Qin said.

China’s transportation network is preparing for an expected travel rush during the upcoming eight-day combined National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday period.

From Thursday, railways nationwide will begin to receive around 130 million passengers during an 11-day period as Chinese visit tourist destinations or return to their hometown, according to the China Railway Corporation (CR).

The number of railway passengers is expected to peak on Sunday with 16 million tickets having already been sold, according to data released by CR.

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Oct. 4 this year, coinciding with the week-long National Day holiday, which adds an extra day to make eight days off work, starting Sunday.

From Oct. 1 to 8, around 710 million tourist trips will be made across China, according to predictions by China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).

Tourist attractions should manage traffic and entrance flows to receive visitors within their capacity, the CNTA said in a circular Thursday.

The CNTA also demanded local travel agencies pay close attention to safety conditions at tourist attractions and are prepared for emergencies.

The National Day holiday, which runs from Oct. 1 to 7, is one of China’s two “Golden Weeks,” during which passenger flow, tourism revenue and retail sales usually surge.