Blogs / 80beats

A Virginia physicist and entrepreneur pled guilty yesterday to violating arms control laws by selling information on rocket technology to China, which prosecutors say will aid China in its space program. The scientist, Quan-Sheng Shu, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Shanghai; he’s also an expert on cryogenics and liquid hydrogen rocket systems. According to the Justice Department, China intends to use the technology to send space stations and satellites into orbit, as well as provide support for manned space flight and future lunar missions from its new Hainan space facility [The Virginian-Pilot]. An FBI press release regarding Shu’s case notes that an arm of the People’s Liberation Army is involved in the Hainan project.

Shu, who is the president of a high-tech company called AMAC International Inc., pled guilty to two counts of violating the federal Arms Control Act and one count of bribing Chinese officials, and faces up to 25 years of jail time and fines of up to $2.5 million. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for April 6, 2009.

(more…)

The toxic chemical melamine that has already contaminated Chinese milk and eggs may also have been widely used in animal feed, according to new reports from the Chinese state media. Chinese consumers were horrified when it was revealed in September that four babies had died and more than 50,000 were sickened due to tainted infant formula, and the outrage grew in October when eggs from four large companies were also found to be tainted. Since then, the widening scandal has caused companies across Asia to recall products made with Chinese milk or eggs, and the new reports suggest that there may be broader recalls to come.

Melamine can be used to make food products appear to have a higher protein content, and the new admission from the state-run media, which usually suppresses bad news, shows that the trick was commonly used. “The feed industry seems to have acquiesced to agree on using the chemical to reduce production costs while maintaining the protein count for quality inspections,” the state-run China Daily said in an editorial. “We cannot say for sure if the same chemical has made its way into other types of food,” the newspaper added [BBC News].

(more…)

Three Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Sunday after completing a mission that made China the third nation to send its astronauts outside their spacecraft and into the dangerous darkness of space on a spacewalk. The successful mission is being hailed as a national triumph in China, and the astronauts were bedecked with flowered garlands on their return and given a heroes’ welcome in Beijing.

State broadcaster CCTV showed the astronauts’ return Sunday after their Shenzhou 7 ship’s re-entry vehicle burst through the Earth’s atmosphere to make a landing under clear skies in the grasslands of China’s northern Inner Mongolia region. The vessel floated down gently while attached to a giant red-and-white striped parachute, marking the end of the 68-hour endeavor. “It was a glorious mission, full of challenges with a successful end,” said mission commander Zhai Zhigang, a fighter pilot. “We feel proud of the motherland” [AP].

(more…)

A physicist in Virginia has been arrested and charged with violating arms control laws by selling rocket technology information to China, which helped the country’s burgeoning space program. He has also been charged with bribing a Chinese official to win a contract for a company he represented. Quan-Sheng Shu, 68, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Shanghai, was arrested Wednesday morning and made an initial appearance that afternoon in U.S. District Court in Norfolk…. Shu appeared to be shaking and bewildered at his court appearance [Virginian-Pilot]. If convicted, Shu faces up to 25 years of jail time.

The arrest came at an awkward moment for the Chinese government, which spent today celebrating the successful launch of the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft carrying a full crew of three astronauts, one of whom will perform China’s first space walk in the coming days. While the technological data that Shu allegedly sold wasn’t used in the rocket that launched the Shenzhou 7, the juxtaposition of events undercuts the message the Chinese government hoped to broadcast today: that the country has come into its own as a mature, space-faring nation, and that it needs no outside assistance to achieve its goals.

(more…)

In a sign of China’s growing technological prowess, the Chinese space agency will soon launch its third manned mission into space. The Shenzhou 7 mission, to launch as early as Thursday, will be the first to carry a full complement of three astronauts, one of whom will perform China’s first space walk, or EVA for “extra-vehicular activity” [AP]. In 2003, China became the third nation to successfully launch astronauts into orbit, joining the United States and Russia.

The Shenzhou VII crew capsule will be boosted aloft by the Long March 2F rocket, which has 66 consecutive successful launches. During the spacewalk, a companion satellite will fly nearby to relay real-time images of the astronaut’s daring feat to the eager crowds back home. If all goes as planned, experts say the mission will be not just a technological achievement, but also a triumph of propaganda. “China wants to get the flight in full 3-D glory to maximize the publicity,” says Eric Hagt, China programme director at the World Security Institute in Washington DC. “This is going to be the Hollywood mission” [Nature News].

(more…)

The May earthquake in China’s Sichuan province that killed 70,000 people may lead to further destruction. According to a new seismic study, the magnitude 7.9 earthquake in May increased the stress on nearby faults, and therefore heightened the risk of further quakes. Stress on the nearby Kunlun, Xianshuihe and Min Jiang faults has increased, they say, doubling the risk that one of them will unleash a magnitude 6.0 or 7.0 tremor in the next decade [Discovery News].

Those three nearby faults are now under more stress because of a domino-like effect where the movement of one piece of Earth’s crust forces another piece to move up, down and away, geophysicists reported. “One great earthquake seems to make the next one more likely, not less,” said [study coauthor] Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey. “We tend to think of earthquakes as relieving stress on a fault. That may be true for the one that ruptured, but not for the adjacent faults” [Reuters].

(more…)

China currently leads the world in its use of renewable energy, and is poised to also take first place on investment in clean energy technologies, according to a new report from an international non-profit, The Climate Group. The report serves as a stark contrast to the steady drumbeat of recent news about China’s pollution problems, which include the smoggy air of Beijing that may imperil Olympic athletes during this month’s summer games.

The report says that China has hardly shed all of its allegiance to dirty energy; [I]t is building one coal-fired power station a week and its carbon dioxide emissions have surged since 2002, from seven percent of the global total to more than 24 percent [Reuters]. However, the government’s investment in clean technology is on an upward trend, the report says. In 2007, China’s $12 billion investment in renewables was second only to Germany’s; by 2009, China’s renewables-investment is expected to be the world’s largest [Grist].

(more…)

Yesterday, lunar enthusiasts and space buffs gathered to mark the 39th anniversary of the first human steps on the moon. At NASA’s new Lunar Science Institute, the assembled crowd was also preparing for a three-day conference devoted to planning the next phase of lunar exploration. NASA hopes to return humans to the moon by 2020, but they may have some competition in this space race do-over; both entrepreneurs and other space agencies are also stepping up their activities.

At the gathering at Ames, NASA researchers made clear that the goals for the next lunar expedition are ambitious. The United States, they said, needs to focus on creating a permanent presence on the moon, using it as a training platform for missions to Mars and beyond. “We’re going back, and this time we’re going to stay,” S. Pete Worden, director of NASA/Ames, said in remarks opening the lunar science conference. “This is the first step in settling the solar system” [San Jose Mercury News].

(more…)

China has asked the United Nation’s permission to import elephant ivory, and the U.N.’s Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is likely to approve the request at its meeting this week. But alarmed conservationists worry that allowing legally imported elephant tusks to circulate in China’s markets would provide cover for illegal ivory bought from poachers in Africa. They say if China becomes an approved ivory trading partner, African elephants “will be shot into extinction” [Telegraph].

The U.N. banned all international trade in elephant ivory in 1989, but later relented and allowed four African countries to occasionally sell ivory from elephants that died natural deaths or that were shot as rogues. CITES allowed a sale in 1999, but opened it only to “approved buyers” who could prove that they policed the black market in ivory. Now, however, a second auction of 108 tonnes from the same four countries is being planned, and the Chinese, who were excluded from the first sale, are seeking “approved buyer” status, claiming they are much more active now in combating illegal trading activities [The Independent].

(more…)

With less than a month to go before the opening ceremony for the summer Olympics in Beijing, athletes are still worrying about what effect the city’s famously polluted air will have on their performances. Doctors say that endurance athletes, such as marathon runners and long-distance cyclers, will be most at risk if they compete on smoggy days.

“Marathon runners take about 40 to 50 breaths per minute and there is a real need for oxygen to be transported to the muscles. In normal conditions oxygen makes up about 21% of the air, if that’s compromised, because the very complex transport process in the lungs is compromised, there will be less oxygen getting to the muscles. Add in the heat and the humidity and there could be some major implications,” says [sports doctor John] Brewer [BBC News].

(more…)

At the sailing venue for this summer’s Olympic Games, a vast algae bloom has covered the coastal waters with a bright green slime. The Chinese government is scrambling to clean up the mess before the games begin in early August, and more than 1,000 fishing boats have already been mobilized. “We can only haul the blue-green algae manually and we’re doing all we can with our arms full and by the boat-load,” said Wang [Haitao], a sailing spokesman for the Beijing Games organizing committee. “All you can see is fishing boats along the coast” [Bloomberg].

Besides being a concern to the sailors who plan to compete in the Olympic regattas, the algae explosion is also another instance of bad publicity highlighting China’s polluted environment. The country’s three-decade economic boom has left its waterways and coastlines severely polluted by industrial and farm chemicals and domestic sewage [AP], which contain high levels of nitrogen that nourish the algae blooms.

(more…)

The tiger life used to be relatively simple: They stalked around dining on deer or boar or fish or whatever else took their fancy, and took swims when they wanted to cool off. The solitary cats were the masters of their own fates, and when they encountered a stray human they could choose between mauling him and impressing the hell out of him with their majestic, haughty ways.

It’s not so simple anymore. The number of tigers in the wild has declined from more than 100,000 a century ago to about 4,000 left in scattered pockets around Asia today. Developing towns with bursting populations have encroached on tigers’ habitats, reducing both their territory and their prey. The reverence that humans can’t help feeling for the animals has also turned sour, as tigers are hunted by poachers who fuel the black market trade in tiger skins and body parts, many of which end up in traditional Chinese pharmacies.

In response, the World Bank announced yesterday the launch of a Tiger Conservation Initiative that will try to bring wild tigers back from the brink of extinction. Many see it as a last ditch effort to save the big cat.

(more…)