Technology News | 310 kg of natural sapphire rough stone discovered in Sri Lanka

【Today’s cover】

In the early morning of the 14th, the Geminid meteor shower appeared at the foot of Yulong Snow Mountain in Lijiang City, Yunnan Province. This is the last large-scale meteor shower of the year. The Geminid meteor shower, one of the three major meteor showers in the northern hemisphere, reached its peak on the 14th. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Hu Chao

News Station

Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Deng Hua

●On the 14th, the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission announced that an inbound person returned to Guangzhou after completing centralized quarantine in another city, and the result of routine nucleic acid test for the new coronavirus during home quarantine was positive. The Guangzhou Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted whole genome sequencing and sequence analysis of the new coronavirus on the nasal swab of the case. After review by the provincial and municipal centers for disease control and prevention and confirmation by the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the new coronavirus detected was the Omicron variant. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

●At 00:09 on the 14th, the Long March 3B carrier rocket ignited and took off from my country's Xichang Satellite Launch Center, successfully sending the Tianlian-2 satellite into the predetermined orbit. The launch mission was a complete success. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

●On the 14th, the maglev aerial rail train "Xingguo" applied to the first permanent magnetic maglev technology engineering demonstration line in mainland China, the Jiangxi Xingguo permanent magnetic maglev technology engineering test line, officially rolled off the production line in Jiangxia District, Wuhan. The vehicle applies permanent magnetic levitation technology to aerial rail vehicles, and has the characteristics of energy saving and environmental protection, non-contact traction, and strong climbing ability. (Source: China News Service)

Pure Technology

●Recently, Stanford University School of Medicine released a new study claiming that clonal hematopoiesis can prevent Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that the two molecular features of Alzheimer's disease - amyloid plaques and tau protein - are lower in the brains of people with clonal hematopoiesis than those without clonal hematopoiesis. The relevant research results have been published in medRxiv. (Source: China Science Daily)

●Recently, the shellfish genetic resources and breeding research team of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences published a research paper online in Genomics. The study classified and identified the main cell groups of the adductor muscle of the Yesso scallop, mapped the differentiation trajectories of cell groups such as nerves, muscles and hemolymph, and revealed that mesenchymal stem cells are involved in diverse gene transcription regulation. This not only lays the foundation for the research of shellfish cell types, stem cell maintenance and cell differentiation, but also provides an important scientific basis for the cultivation of excellent scallop varieties. (Source: China Science Daily)

New findings

Image source: Shaanxi TV News

●On the 14th, the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and other institutions released the latest archaeological results of the Western Han Dynasty Imperial Mausoleum Project. The Jiangcun Tomb in Bailuyuan, Xi'an is the imperial mausoleum of Emperor Xiaowen of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Heng. Not far from the Jiangcun Tomb, during the excavation of the Nanling Mausoleum of Empress Dowager Bo, the mother of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, archaeologists excavated three outer storage pits on the west side of the burial mound and unearthed hundreds of gold and silver ornaments with exotic decorative styles. Empress Dowager Bo was buried with a large number of rare gold objects in the grassland style. (Source: Shaanxi TV News)

Grand View Garden

Image source: CCTV News video screenshot

●On the 12th local time, the Sri Lanka National Gem and Jewelry Authority showed the public a huge blue corundum rough stone, also known as a sapphire rough stone. The rough stone weighed 310 kilograms and was found in the Balangoda area of ​​Sri Lanka three months ago. Local gem experts said that this may be the largest natural sapphire rough stone in the world. (Source: CCTV Finance)

After the new coronavirus sample is sprayed with fluorescent dye containing antibodies, it will glow on the mask filter under ultraviolet light. Source: Japan Times website

●Recently, a development team led by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, president of Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan, developed a mask that detects the new coronavirus using antibodies extracted from ostrich eggs. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the area on the mask where the virus is attached will glow. The researchers hope that this innovation will help people achieve low-cost virus testing at home. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

See the world

●On the 14th local time, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization confirmed that the highest temperature in the Arctic region in 2020 reached 38 degrees Celsius, setting a new record. This new record was measured in the area within the Arctic Circle in Siberia. The head of the agency, Tasra, said that this new record "sounded the alarm for our changing climate." (Source: China News Service)

Editor: Wang Yu

Reviewer: Wang Xiaolong

Final review: Liu Haiying

Source: Science and Technology Daily