First, various highlights in space exploration. At beginning of this year the Huygens probe successfully landed on Titan. The US NASA's Deep Impact smashed into Tempel 1 on July 4. By August 16 Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev working in the international space station has set a new world record of flying 803 days in the space. On October 17 China's Shezhou-VI manned spacecraft landed safely.

Second, the Computing Technology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences succeeded in developing Longxin II high-performance general-purpose CPU chip, which has reached the level of Pentium III. The new Longxin with even higher-performance will debut soon.

Third, the Qinghai-Tibet railway was open to traffic on October 15, which marked breakthrough in solving three worldwide problems, namely, lack of oxygen in high altitude, permanent frozen soil and fragile ecological system.

Forth, US scientists created quark-gluon plasma (QGP) with a Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This is a completely new form of matter that has existed far and wide ten millionths of a second after the birth of the universe.

Fifth, French, Spanish and Irish scientists were able to store information on a molecular carrier with laser light, taking molecular component application research a huge step forward.

Sixth, the US University of California at Los Angeles invented the world's first nano valve.

Seventh, Hewlett Packard invented a new component that can substitute transistor. The new component, called "crossbar latch", can raise the performance of the computer by thousands of times.

Eighth, Australian physicists succeeded for the first time in "freezing" beam of light for one second using a new light trapper. This lays down foundation for making storage equipment for light computers or quantum computers.

Ninth, Japanese scientists discovered a key protein that helps bind sperm and egg. The discovery paved the way for developing treatment for new male sterility and contraceptive methods.

Tenth, scientists recovered the Spanish flu virus breaking out in 1918 and pinpointed its genetic sequence. They found that the Spanish flu may be transmitted from fowls to human. The discovery may help predict and deal with the threat of bird flu.

By People's Daily Online