Sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and organized by the Work Bureau of the Academic Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the General Office of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the China Science News, the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, and the Yantai Municipal People's **, the 2023 China's Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress News and the World's Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress News were announced in Yantai, Shandong Province on January 11, 2024.
Let's take a look at China's top ten scientific and technological progress news in 2023
The world's first first-class nuclear power plant was put into commercial operation.
Shenzhou-16 returned to the first manned mission in the application and development stage of the space station.
Two-dimensional transistors that surpass the limits of silicon-based are introduced.
Chinese scientists have found that alkali tolerance genes can increase crop yields.
The results of Tianwen-1 reveal the climate change of Mars.
China's first 10,000-meter deep exploration well was drilled.
The first discovery of nickel oxide superconductors in the liquid nitrogen temperature zone.
FAST detects evidence of the presence of nanohertz gravitational waves.
The world's first full-link, full-system space solar power station ground verification system was completed and put into use.
Scientists elucidate the molecular mechanisms of olfactory perception.
Let's take a look at the details——
1.The world's first first-class nuclear power plant was put into commercial operation.
China's national science and technology major project with completely independent intellectual property rights - Huaneng Shidaowan high-temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear power plant demonstration project was put into commercial operation on December 6, becoming the world's first nuclear power plant to realize the commercial operation of modular nuclear power technology, marking China's global leadership in the field of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear power technology, and is of great significance to promoting China's realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and building an energy power.
High-temperature gas-cooled reactors are internationally recognized as the most advanced reactors in nuclear power technology, and are an important direction for the future development of nuclear power in the world. In the event of the loss of all cooling capacity, the reactor can be kept safe without any intervention, without core meltdown and radioactive material leakage. The demonstration project is the world's first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor project, located in Rongcheng City, Shandong Province, led by China Huaneng, jointly built by Tsinghua University and China National Nuclear Corporation, and was listed as a major national science and technology project in 2006 and started construction in 2012. China Huaneng has concentrated the upstream and downstream superior resources of the industrial chain, jointly carried out key technology research and core equipment development, and developed more than 2,200 sets of the world's first (set) equipment, with a equipment localization rate of 934%。
2.Shenzhou-16 returned to the first manned mission in the application and development stage of the space station.
At 8:11 on October 31, Beijing time, the return capsule of the Shenzhou-16 manned spacecraft successfully landed at the Dongfeng landing site, and the on-site medical supervision and medical insurance personnel confirmed that the astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao were in good health, and the Shenzhou-16 manned mission was a complete success.
The Shenzhou-16 manned spacecraft was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on May 30, 2023, and then docked with the Tianhe core module to form a combination. As the first batch of astronaut crews to carry out manned missions in the application and development stage of the space station, the three astronauts stayed in orbit for 154 days, during which they carried out one out-of-cabin activity and the fourth space teaching activity of the Chinese space station, and cooperated with the completion of multiple cargo out-of-cabin missions of the space station, laying the foundation for the normalization of the implementation of the space station mission.
With the close cooperation of the astronaut crew and ground scientific research personnel, a number of space science experiments such as human factors engineering, aerospace medicine, life ecology, biotechnology, materials science, fluid physics, and aerospace technology have been carried out, and important progress has been made in the fields of space life science and human body research, microgravity physics and new space technology. An important step in the shift from input to output.
3.Two-dimensional transistors that surpass the limits of silicon-based are introduced.
Chips are the basic core of the information world, and traditional transistors are close to the physical limit, which restricts the further development of chips. Atomic-thick 2D semiconductors are theoretically more potential in the future, but due to their technical bottlenecks, all 2D transistors are not comparable to the industry's silicon-based devices.
The team of academician Peng Lianmao and researcher Qiu Chenguang of Peking University has constructed a 10nm ultra-short channel ballistic two-dimensional indium selenide transistor. He creatively proposed the "rare earth yttrium-doping induced two-dimensional phase transformation theory" and invented the "atomic-level controllable precision doping technology", thus successfully overcoming the international problem of metal and semiconductor contact in the two-dimensional field, and for the first time making the actual performance of the two-dimensional transistor exceed the silicon limit of the industry's silicon-based 10-nanometer node FIN transistor and the international semiconductor roadmap, and reducing the working voltage of the two-dimensional transistor to 0At 5V, the ballistic rate at room temperature was increased to 83%, the highest record of all transistors, and the fastest and lowest energy consumption 2D transistor in the world was developed. The results were published in Nature on March 22.
4.Chinese scientists have found that alkali tolerance genes can increase crop yields.
China's saline-alkali land area of 100 million hectares, accounting for nearly one-tenth of the world's total saline-alkali land, global climate change, lack of fresh water and the extensive use of chemical fertilizers, so that the salinization of arable land is accelerated. In order to make better use of saline-alkali land resources, the research team of researcher Xie Qi of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has cooperated with a number of domestic scientific research institutions and universities, and has found that the main alkali tolerance gene AT1 can significantly increase the yield of sorghum, rice, wheat, corn, millet and other crops on saline-alkali land, and has a significant application prospect in the comprehensive utilization of improved saline-alkali land, which is expected to play an important supporting role in China's food security. The results were published March 24 in Science.
5.The results of Tianwen-1 reveal the climate change of Mars.
Among the planets in the solar system, Mars is the most similar to Earth, and the current situation and evolution of Mars are considered to represent the "future of the Earth", and the exploration of the climate evolution of Mars has long attracted much attention. Aeolian sand processes have shaped the widely distributed aeolian sand landforms and sediments on the surface of Mars, and recorded the climatic and environmental characteristics and climate change processes of Mars in the late and modern evolutionary periods. However, due to the lack of in-place, close-up detailed and systematic scientific observations, we know very little about the process of Martian aeolian sand activity and the recorded paleoclimate.
In response to this scientific problem, the team of Li Chunlai from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with the team of Guo Zhengtang of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Tibetan Plateau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Brown University and the Tianwen-1 mission engineering team, aimed at the rich aeolian and sand landforms in the southern part of the Martian Utopia Plain, and carried out high-resolution remote sensing and close-range joint detection by using the orbiter high-resolution camera, the Mars rover navigation terrain camera, the multispectral camera, the surface composition analyzer, and the meteorological measuring instrument. The morphology, surface structure, material composition and other information of the sand dunes were extracted, and the indicated wind direction and developmental age were analyzed, and the sequence evidence of significant changes in the wind field in the landing area was found, which was in good agreement with the ice and dust cover records distributed in the middle and high latitudes of Mars, revealing that the Zhurong landing area may have experienced two main climatic stages marked by wind direction changes, the wind direction changed by nearly 70 degrees from northeast to northwest, and the wind and sand accumulation changed from crescent-shaped bright sand dunes to longitudinal dark sand ridges. This climate transition occurred at the end of the last glacial period of Mars about 400,000 years ago, and it may be due to the change in the inclination of the axis of rotation, and Mars underwent a global climate transition from the low latitudes to the polar regions. This study will help improve our understanding of the history of Martian paleoclimate, provide a new perspective for the study of Martian paleoclimate, and also provide a reference for the future climate evolution direction of the Earth. The findings were published in Nature on July 7.
6.China's first 10,000-meter deep exploration well was drilled.
On the morning of May 30, PetroChina Tarim Oilfield Company's deep Taco 1 well was drilled into the ground. The drilling of Well Deepland Taco 1 aims to explore the 10,000-meter-level ultra-deep geological and engineering science theory, marking a new major breakthrough in China's deep exploration technology series and opening the "10,000-meter era" of drilling capacity.
The deep Taco 1 well is located in Shaya County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, close to the 1 billion ton ultra-deep oil and gas area buried at a depth of 8,000 meters. This well is designed to be 1 well deep110,000 meters, with a design drilling and completion period of 457 days, will set a record for the fastest drilling time of 10,000 meters of deep wells in the world.
The well adopts the world's first 1. independently developed by China20,000-meter ultra-deep well automatic drilling rig. Compared with ordinary drilling rigs, the lifting capacity of this drilling rig has increased from three to four hundred tons to a maximum of 900 tons, which is equivalent to lifting 150 adult elephants weighing 6 tons at the same time. In order to ensure that the 10,000-meter-level ultra-deep wells are "completed, fast, and well-laid", PetroChina has researched and developed a number of key core technologies and equipment such as the integrated platform for intelligent control, the industrial control system for independent decision-making of drilling, and the ultra-high and heavy-duty derrick base, and independently developed the world's leading intelligent drilling rig, which has successfully produced 1The 20,000-meter ultra-deep well automatic drilling rig provides equipment and technical support for the scientific exploration and research of 10,000-meter deep engineering.
7.The first discovery of nickel oxide superconductors in the liquid nitrogen temperature zone.
On July 12, the journal Nature published the results of the cooperation between Professor Wang Meng and the team of Professor Wang Meng of Sun Yat-sen University, Tsinghua University, South China University of Technology and other units: the first discovery of nickel oxide superconductors that reached the liquid nitrogen temperature region at a pressure of 14 gpa. This is a new high-temperature superconducting system first discovered by Chinese scientists, and it is the second unconventional superconducting material in the liquid nitrogen temperature region discovered by mankind, which is an important breakthrough in the field of basic research.
This research result is expected to promote the cracking of the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity, make it possible to design and improve high-temperature superconducting materials, and enable superconductivity to achieve a wider range of applications in the fields of information technology, industrial processing, electric power, biomedicine, and transportation.
8.FAST detects evidence of the presence of nanohertz gravitational waves.
The China Pulsar Timing Array research team, composed of researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units, used the China Sky Eye FAST to detect the key evidence of the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, indicating that China's nanohertz gravitational wave research has reached the leading level in sync with the world. The research results were published in the Chinese astronomical academic journal Astronomy and Astrophysical Research** on June 29, Beijing time. On December 14, the relevant achievements were selected as one of the top ten scientific breakthroughs in 2023 by Science magazine.
At present, the study of nanohertz gravitational waves has become one of the focuses of international competitions in the field of physics and astronomy. However, nanohertz gravitational waves have extremely low frequencies and periods of several years, and wavelengths can reach several light-years, making their detection extremely challenging. Long-term time-measuring observations of a group of millisecond pulsars with extremely regular rotation using large radio telescopes are the only known nanohertz gravitational wave detection methods.
It is worth mentioning that similar results were announced at the same time by pulsar timing array groups such as the European Pulsar Timing Array, the Indian Pulsar Timing Array, the North American Nahertz Gravitational-Wave Observatory, and the Australian Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. According to Li Kejia, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at Peking University, four international teams independently obtained key evidence for the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, which allows the research results to corroborate each other and further improve the accuracy of this result.
9.The world's first full-link, full-system space solar power station ground verification system was completed and put into use.
Space Solar Power Plants (SSPS) are one of the ultimate answers to the energy crisis and sustainable development. On November 30, 2023, Engineering, the flagship journal of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, systematically reported on the day-by-day project completed by the team of academician Duan Baoyan of Xidian University, the world's first full-link, full-system SSPS ground verification system, and expounded the innovative design scheme, theoretical innovation, technological breakthrough, engineering implementation and experimental results of Omega SSPS. Long-range high-power microwave wireless energy transmission efficiency (distance 55m, transmit 2081 watts, beam harvesting efficiency 87.)3%, DC-DC transmission efficiency 1505%) and the main technical indicators such as the power quality ratio are leading in the world.
The long-distance high-power microwave wireless energy transmission technology that has been broken through in the daily project has broad application prospects. In space, it can help build space energy networks and space charging piles, and solve the power supply problems of space computing power, on-board information processing, space attack and defense, and ultra-long-range detection. In land, sea and air, it can provide wireless power supply for airships, drone swarms, marine mobile platforms, disasters and remote areas.
10.Scientists elucidate the molecular mechanisms of olfactory perception.
Most animals, including humans, have a master olfactory system to identify volatile odor molecules. A large number of olfactory receptors help animals recognize trillions of odor molecules through "combinatorically encoded" odor recognition. Olfactory receptors can be divided into three families, class I is the odor receptor (OR) family, class II is the trace amine-associated receptor (TAAR) family, OR and TAAR both belong to the class A G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family, and class III is non-GPCR olfactory receptors.
The team of Prof. Sun Jinpeng of Shandong University and the team of Prof. Li Qian of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine used cryo-electron microscopy to analyze the structure of the mouse TaAr9 (MtaAr9) receptor, a member of the TaAR family, and the structure of the GS Golf (olfaction-specific G) protein trimer complex under four different ligand binding conditions, and further combined with pharmacological analysis to reveal the molecular mechanism of the activation of the MtaAr9 receptor after sensing the ligand. At the same time, this study also proposed the structural mechanism of "combinatorial encoding" of olfactory receptors to recognize ligands, and elucidated the unique activation mode of class II olfactory receptors.
This study elucidated the molecular mechanism of odor perception by class II specific olfactory receptors, laid a theoretical foundation for the olfactory receptor family to recognize ligands, and is also of great significance for the development of new drugs targeting olfactory receptors. The findings were published in Nature on May 24.
China Education Daily reporter Wang Jiashi.
*: China Education News.