Chinese scientists to grow potatoes on the moon

Chinese space fries! 🙂

Chinese scientists will attempt to grow potatoes on the moon as part of a forthcoming lunar mission.

According to a report in the Chongqing Morning Post, the potatoes will be sealed inside a “mini ecosystem” as part the Chang’e-4 mission due to launch next year. They’ll be sharing a small cylinder on the surface of the Earth’s only natural satellite with silkworm larvae as part of a series of experiments, Professor Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University told the paper.

The goal is to see whether the insects and spuds will survive on the lunar surface, and the end result will yield important insights about the viability of a future human colony, China Radio International says.

Neat!

Hey, remember when the West used to go to the moon?

Neither do I.

But I’m told it happened…

Some folks have really big hearts

These Kindhearted Chinese Women Feed 1,300 Dogs Every Single Day

Five elderly women in China have dedicated their lives to the care of nearly 1,300 stray dogs. The enterprising women run their very own custom dog asylum, where they feed the lucky canines 400 kg of tasty dog-food every single day.

The shelter, located in China’s central Shaanxi Province, was established in 2009 by 60-year-old Wang Yanfang. She said that she felt sympathetic towards strays that were taken away by regulators, so she decided to apply for permission to open the asylum, solely supported by donations.

Since then she has gained the support of four other women, and together they wake up at 4am each morning just to prepare food for the dogs. They are so dedicated to the cause that they even chose to forgo the extravagant display of fireworks on New Year’s Eve, and instead spent the day with the abandoned dogs.

Chinese Company Showcases Fully 3D-Printed Villa and Apartment Building

Chinese Company Showcases Fully 3D-Printed Villa and Apartment Building

Neat!

Only a few years ago, if someone had told you that it was possible to build a home without the noisy, dusty eyesore that is the construction site, you’d probably have thought they were crazy. Yet, Chinese company WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co has made this possible – they’re actually printing homes now, using one of those revolutionary 3D printers.

WinSun made headlines in March last year, when the printed 10 different one-story, 200 square-meter houses, using nothing but industrial construction waste and a 3D printer. Each building cost $4,800 to make. Now, they’re in the news again with two new additions – a five-story apartment building and a 1,100 square meter villa.

The 2015 Harbin Ice and Snow Festival

Every year, in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, the city of Harbin hosts the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, featuring massive ice and snow sculptures. At night, the sculptures are colorfully illuminated and visitors can climb and play on some of the structures. The festival officially opened on January 5 this year, and will run through the end of February. According to organizers, the winter festival now draws several million tourists each year, from China and from abroad.

[26 photos]

Space reclaiming

From a recent edition of the print-only publication Coffee News:

Architecture Du Jour: The Fujian Tulou

Uncouth Reflections

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

The mountainous areas of western Fujian province in southwest China are home to a unique form of rammed-earth building known as tulou — large defensive structures designed to contain and protect one family clan…

…These enclosed fort like buildings, which could take seven years to build, have rounded stone foundations and a base of large stones, plastered with clay, which support 6-foot-thick earth walls, reinforced with bamboo canes. The building’s interior is a largely wood structure of beams, decks, and columns, which contains 250 small uniform dwelling units, housing some eighty families. These face a central communal courtyard, in which an ancestral shrine provides a focus for the entire community…

– Building Without Architects: A Global Guide to Everyday Architecture

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China: Shang or Zhou dynasty sword found in Jiangsu by eleven-year-old boy

Awesome!

A Chinese boy has made the discovery of a lifetime by stumbling across a 3,000-year-old bronze sword in a river in Jiangsu Province.

Eleven-year-old Yang Junxi says he touched the rusty weapon’s tip while washing his hands in the Laozhoulin River, in Gaoyou County, the state news agency Xinhua reports. After pulling it out he took it home, where it quickly became a sensation for curious locals, before the family decided to send it to officials for examination. “Some people even offered high prices to buy the sword,” Junxi’s father Jinhai says. “But I felt it would be illegal to sell the relic.”

Archaeologists have dated the 26cm (10in) weapon to either the Shang or Zhou dynasties – the dawn of Chinese civilisation – based on its material, size and shape. Lyu Zhiwei of the Gaoyou Cultural Relics Bureau says that while the sword appears to be of both decorative and practical use, it’s form suggests it was the status symbol of a civil official rather than a sword for fighting.

The authorities are now planning a major archaeological dig in the river, once part of a system of ancient waterways that developed into today’s Grand Canal. Junxi and his father have been given a reward for handing in the relic.

3D-printed vertebra used in spine surgery

Wow.

Surgeons in Beijing, China, have successfully implanted an artificial, 3D-printed vertebra replacement in a young boy with bone cancer. They say it is the first time such a procedure has ever been done.

During a five-hour operation, the doctors first removed the tumor located in the second vertebra of 12-year-old Minghao’s neck and replaced it with the 3D-printed implant between the first and third vertebrae, CCTV.com reported earlier this month.

“This is the first use of a 3D-printed vertebra as an implant for orthopedic spine surgery in the world,” said Dr. Liu Zhongjun, the director of orthopedics at No. 3 Hospital, Peking University, who performed the surgery.

 

 

China: Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day

Awesome!

A company in China has used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day, it appears.

A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer, official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000, the 3dprinterplans website says.

“We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It’s fast and cheap,” says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses, Xinhua says.

See also here.

 

China: World’s fastest elevator to be installed in Guangzhou

Awesome!

The fastest lift in the world is to be installed in a skyscraper currently under construction in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, it seems.

The lifts at the Guangzhou CTF Financial Centre, which will be ready in 2016, will be able to reach a speed of 72km/h (44mph), the South China Morning Post reports. This means it will take just 43 seconds to travel 95 floors up the 440m shaft.