136 types of seeds, including crops, forest vegetation, flowers, and microorganisms will be carried on board the Shenzhou-16 manned spacecraft to start their space breeding journey. These seeds will contribute to the advancement of China's agricultural science and technology and enhance food security, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced on Wednesday in a statement. 

The seeds were selected through a four-month application and review process and have been chosen from 53 institutions across the country. The project, conducted by manned spaceflight, is of a public welfare nature and does not charge any carrying fees.

It has been 36 years since China's first space seed breeding effort in 1987, the country has sent the seeds of hundreds of plant species into space on dozens of retrievable satellites and Shenzhou spaceships. Nearly 1,000 new species have been created, of which 200 have displayed outstanding performances, according to media reports.

Space seed breeding uses cosmic radiation to mutate the genes of seeds sent into space, in order to create new species for greater variety. 

"Space peppers and watermelons" commonly found in supermarkets in China are successful varieties of space breeding. China ranks first in the world in the number of cultivated varieties and the range of popularization and application of space breeding, read media reports.

The area under cultivation for grains, vegetables, fruits and other plants developed by space seed breeding has surpassed 4 million hectares, and generated economic benefits of over 200 billion yuan ($30.51 billion), media earlier reported.

The seeds need further improvement, especially in disease resistance, through conventional breeding methods or space breeding, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Space breeding involves exposing seeds and strains to cosmic radiation and microgravity during a spaceflight mission to mutate their genes. 

China's space seed breeding level also reflects the nation's advancing aerospace technology, Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"There are only a few countries in the world with mature aerospace technology, and Chi

New progress has been made on an investigation into a cyberattack incident targeting the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center affiliated to the city's Emergency Management Bureau, after a joint investigation team formed by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) and Chinese cybersecurity company 360 discovered malicious backdoor software that exhibits characteristics of US intelligence agencies, the Global Times learned on Monday. Chinese authorities will publicly disclose a highly secretive global reconnaissance system of the US government, which poses a serious security threat to China's national security and world peace.

On July 26, the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center reported that some front-end station collection points of the earthquake reporting data had been implanted with backdoor programs, attracting widespread attention. The CVERC and the company 360 immediately formed a joint investigation team to go to Wuhan for investigation and evidence collection.

Du Zhenhua, a senior engineer from the CVERC, told the Global Times that the team has found very complex backdoor malware in the victim's network, fitting the characteristics of US intelligence agencies, highly concealed, and aiming to steal earthquake monitoring-related data, with a clear military reconnaissance purpose.
Why target earthquake monitoring system?

Du explained that China is a country seriously affected by earthquake disasters, with multiple occurrences causing severe loss of life and property. "Therefore, China attaches great importance to earthquake monitoring and early warning. In order to improve the monitoring and early warning capability of geological disasters, earthquake monitoring data includes not only basic information like magnitude and epicenter but also rich geographical and geological data such as surface deformation and hydrological monitoring," Du said.

These data also hold high value as military intelligence. Hence, the cyberattack on the earthquake monitoring center by US intelligence agencies was a planned and premeditated cyber military reconnaissance action, the expert noted.

Xiao Xinguang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and also the chief software architect of leading anti-virus company Antiy Labs, further explained to the Global Times that although the location, magnitude, and depth are publicly released information, they are based on the calculations from multiple sensors.

"The comprehensive vibration and sound wave data collected by these sensors, especially infrasound data, have significant intelligence value for judging geological terrain, analyzing weapons system tests, and nuclear tests," Xiao said.

Furthermore, this is just one of the reasons the US targets earthquake monitoring and other systems with cyberattacks. Xiao also analyzed that the current information gathering is only one type of behaviors that have been exposed.

There are still many information theft instances targeting other fields that have not yet come to the surface. By leveraging its global comprehensive reconnaissance ability, along with various means of intrusion, theft, and other comprehensive measures to obtain all kinds of telemetry data, and combining other multi-source auxiliary data, it forms the ability to analyze, judge, attribute, and locate China's economic, social operations, and even military actions.

Causing social panic

Experts believe that cyberattacks on civil infrastructure, including earthquake monitoring systems, can lead to serious consequences.

Du underlined that if the attackers maliciously damaged earthquake monitoring system, it would become ineffective in providing accurate data during an earthquake. This would impact earthquake early warnings and disaster assessment work, leading to more severe loss of life and property.

"Even more dangerous is that if the attackers tamper with the earthquake monitoring data, triggering false alarms, it could lead to social panic and disorder, resulting in casualties among innocent people," Du said.

The remote sensing and telemetry systems and data are national strategic resources that must be given priority protection, Xiao said. "These data can display the basic operation of our country's economy and society from macro to micro levels and provide comprehensive support for integrated decision-making and emergency response. They are the supporting resources for territorial safety and national security."

"US intelligence agencies not only actively collect various signal intelligence but have also long obtained other countries' comprehensive earth system science remote sensing and telemetry data as strategic intelligence through various means. This includes sharing through allied intelligence mechanisms, coercing high-tech companies to provide it, and using academic and scientific research activities," Xiao said.

He also explained that the discovery of the cyberattack on Wuhan earthquake monitoring center was not accidental, indicating that cyberattack intrusion and theft have become the lowest-cost way for the US to obtain other countries' remote sensing and telemetry data.

The US has developed a series of signal intelligence collection, analysis, and processing systems, such as the Echelon project for electromagnetic signal spying, the Main Core project for telecommunications operators, and the PRISM project's super access interface for large IT and internet manufacturers.

"After many years of continuous tracking with relevant departments, we will soon publicly disclose a global reconnaissance system of the US government, which poses serious security threats to China's national security and world peace. We must be highly vigilant and tightly guard against this," Xiao said.

Violating international law

In fact, a plethora of internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) exposed in events such as Prism, Shadow Brokers and WikiLeaks reveal that the US, as a real "hacker empire" and "spying empire," targets "indiscriminately" (including its allies) in its cyber intelligence collection activities. Civil institutions and individuals worldwide are its targets for cyberattacks, fully exposing the US' double standards and hypocrisy on human rights issues.

Du further stated that the US military intelligence agencies' use of their information technology advantage to launch cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure is a criminal act in clear violation of international law, seriously infringing on China's national security and public interest.

"In fact, for a long time, the US' cyberattacks on China's key information infrastructure have been all-encompassing, with government agencies, universities, research institutions, and large corporations all being targeted by its cyberespionage activities. The US is attempting to use these unfair means to comprehensively steal China's political, economic, military, and diplomatic sensitive information, to contain China's development and progress, and to maintain the US' world hegemony," he said.

As a veteran expert in computer virus prevention technology and emergency response, Du suggested that if China's key information infrastructure is attacked with state-backed hackers, relevant units must report the cyberattack to relevant authorities immediately; build cybersecurity capabilities; strengthen supply chain security management, increase autonomous control abilities; conduct regular cybersecurity drills to improve emergency handling and recovery abilities.

Xiao believed that although China's overall cybersecurity ecosystem is still relatively small in market size, overall, it's complete in technology categories without obvious weaknesses. "In continuous confrontation with threats, especially in identifying, analyzing, and exposing advanced persistent cyberattacks, including those from the US, many excellent Chinese cybersecurity companies have demonstrated their abilities, becoming the industry's supporting force in safeguarding national security and defending the security of the cyberspace community."

China does not need to underestimate itself in terms of cybersecurity capabilities, he noted. "We can establish more ambitious goals, become a competent force in the national governance system, create a capability advantage compared to main geopolitical competitors, and not become a significant constraint and risk vulnerability, even when facing comprehensive suppression by hegemonic states or in high-intensity security conflicts.

"We can achieve an overall risk controllable state by strengthening the construction of the public service attributes of cybersecurity , and enhancing the construction of common security capabilities, resilience mechanisms, and cybersecurity infrastructure," Xiao said.

The worst flood that hit the Haihe River Basin in North China since 1963 has exposed  weaknesses in monitoring and forecasting capabilities for floods, said China's Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) on Monday.

From July 28 to August 1, some 22 rivers in the basin experienced above-warning level flooding, and eight rivers reported the largest floods ever recorded, said MWR officials at a news conference. The disaster has caused 61 deaths, and millions of people were impacted. 

At present, the water levels in active flood storage and retention areas within the basin are gradually retreating and residents are gradually returning home, officials said.

Liu Weiping, a vice minister of the MWR, said reservoirs in the region have played a key role. Eighty-four large and medium-sized reservoirs were mobilized to intercept 2.85 billion cubic meters of floodwater, while the comprehensive role of the basin's flood control system was fully utilized to minimize the impact and losses caused by the floods.

These reservoirs have prevented 500,000 hectares of farmland in 24 townships from being flooded, said Liu. More than 4.6 million people would have been evacuated if not for the reservoirs.

Although the flood control system has played an important role in combating this flooding in the Haihe River Basin, which is the major water system with an area of about 320,600 square kilometers in North China,  many loopholes have been exposed, said MWR officials. 

The nation is still relatively weak in terms of monitoring and forecasting floods, said Zhang Xiangwei, an official from the Department of Planning and Programming of the MWR.

Weaknesses include insufficient flood storage capacity in some the rivers, insufficient flood capacity to meet requirements, lagging behind in the construction of stagnant flood storage areas and inadequate flood entry and exit facilities, Zhang said.

These weaknesses are particularly evident in the forecast of small river floods, which needs to be further improved both in meteorological and hydrological terms, Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times on Monday.

Ma noted that the disruption of the network has led to transmission interruptions at some monitoring stations, which had a great impact on accurately predicting the trend of floods.

Given these weaknesses, Zhang said that the MWR will further strengthen the integrated management of the Haihe River Basin in collaboration with relevant departments and local authorities.

Ma called for a reassessment of the risk of meteorological disasters such as torrential rain and flash floods in the context of climate change, as well as corresponding urban planning.

In response to the floods in the Haihe River Basin, the MWR has strengthened technical guidance and provided support for post-disaster reconstruction. A total of 26 working groups and expert teams have been dispatched to provide targeted guidance of flood prevention and risk management efforts.

Moreover, China's Ministry of Finance has allocated 1.15 billion yuan ($157.35 million) to support the timely repair of water conservancy facilities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. 

Additionally, 1.5 billion yuan for compensation in flood storage and detention areas has been allocated to support the affected areas and people in quickly restoring production and their livelihoods, said Liu.

According to media reports, the post-disaster reconstruction in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is being carried out in an orderly manner. Beijing's Mentougou district is accelerating cleaning of the Yongding River to ensure subsequent rainfall flood flow is at safe levels, said Zhang Hewei, an official from the Mentougou district government.

A total of 16 teams from institutes of city planning and design have been sent to the Mentougou district to analyze the occurrence of geological disasters and the situation in terms of risk prevention and control. 

Some 15,000 grassroots officials and agricultural technicians in Hebei have been organized to assist farmers in post-disaster production recovery, as well as 12 robotic vehicles in the city of Zhuozhou have been deployed for underground garage dredging, according to media reports.

Noting that the flood season is still ongoing, with severe and complicated floods and droughts still expected, Liu said the ministry will continue to strengthen all prevention measures.

China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment is organizing the 2023 annual marine radiation environment monitoring in China's jurisdictional waters following Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water dumping plan

China’s security ministry lashed out against a new US Intelligence Strategy on Monday by exposing four dangerous, ill-suited and parasitic modes of thinking emerging from the US intelligence community – Cold War mentality of targeting China, zero-sum thinking, hegemonic thinking and confrontational thinking. 

The Ministry of State Security (MSS) said in a statement that the policy orientation set by the US National Intelligence Strategy is aimed at deterring China and is merely a new iteration of the “China threat theory,” also a clear declaration of the US intelligence community to open an era of “targeting China.”  

The new US National Intelligence Strategy, unveiled on August 10, aims to better prepare the US for a range of threats that are no longer limited to traditional nation-state competitors such as China and Russia or terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, VOA reported.

China’s security ministry in the statement advised the US intelligence community to take a sober approach toward the present-day China and the international landscape. Immersing itself in backward and misguided notions will only result in self-inflicted harm and undermine its own interests, the ministry warned. 

The MSS firstly revealed the Cold War mentality behind the US National Intelligence Strategy, saying though it has been over 30 years since the Cold War has been ended , some individuals in the US intelligence community have only adapted to the new multipolar world physically, while their mindset remains stuck in the bipolar confrontation of the Cold War era. 

They have been constantly searching for a “perfect adversary” to showcase their skills, treating China as a “toolbox” to leverage their own value domestically and as a scapegoat for disguising security challenges internationally. 

From establishing the “China Mission Center” to advocating for the reconstruction of intelligence networks in China, from launching “witch-hunt operations” against Chinese scholars to pressuring countries to “decouple” from China, the US intelligence agencies have skillfully employed strategies from the Cold War era, erecting a new “Iron Curtain” to hinder global prosperity and development, the ministry wrote in a statement. 

The ministry pointed out that the zero-sum thinking over “absolute security” is apparent in its National Intelligence Strategy, which lists numerous new security threats but fails to propose effective strategies for deepening international security cooperation. 

Pursuing its own security while neglecting common security of the world countries and viewing competition and cooperation among nations as a simple zero-sum game, this is where the entrenched malady of the “US security concept” persists, the MSS said. 

Even in the 21st century, the US continues to follow the law of the jungle, where only one side can win at the expense of others. This approach only leads countries into a “prisoner’s dilemma” of mutual distrust and ultimately makes the US itself less secure. “America First” has become the root cause of turmoil and suffering in the world, the ministry said. 

As the sole superpower, imposing its own will on the world is an inherent logic of American hegemony. Citing “American values” and referring to the “international security order,” the US only aims to uphold the “US-centered international order,” the ministry pointed out. 

As early as World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (a predecessor to the CIA) proposed implementing propaganda and subversive actions to shape the post-war world order. In 1948, the CIA launched the “Operation Gladio” and interfered in elections in Italy. In 1953, the CIA carried out the “Operation Ajax” to overthrow the Mossadegh government in Iran, the MSS said. 

Starting in 2003, a series of “color revolutions” occurred in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, with the US intelligence department being regarded as important behind-the-scenes actors, it added. 

The ability to shape security in line with global hegemony is a persistent goal that the US has been pursuing, however, its unilateralism and egotism are triggering increasingly strong criticism and opposition from the international community, the security ministry said. 

Placing importance on leveraging allies is the biggest difference that the Biden administration self-proclaims as part of its foreign policy compared to the Trump administration. But the truth is that the so-called “alliances and partnerships” is essentially the act of coercing other countries to take sides and firmly binding them to the US intelligence apparatus. 

The security ministry referenced the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to solidify anti Russia alliance, the US intelligence community has been hyping up over on the European energy supply chain and the Nord Stream pipeline issue remains shrouded in mystery to this day.

While in the Asia-Pacific region, the US has aggressively promoted the “Indo-Pacific strategy” and rallied the “Five Eyes alliance,” “Quad mechanism,” and “trilateral security partnerships” to create intelligence cliques, pressuring countries to join in an anti-China chorus, the ministry stated. 

However, being an intelligence ally of the US not only requires willingly acting as a “pawn” but also accepting the meticulous “special care” of the “big brother’ at all times, the ministry said.

Citing media reports, the ministry pointed out that the US National Security Agency has long monitored the heads of state and government of allied nations, also established technical eavesdropping bases covering neighboring countries in a certain European country, and even demanded the country’s intelligence agency assist the US in monitoring its own government officials. 

Such absurd demands can only come from a “peculiar ally” like the US, the ministry added. 

Radiation from the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contaminates most Japanese seafood at low levels, researchers estimate February 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For aquatic foods, data on lingering concentrations of cesium is limited in terms of the number of species sampled and the levels that surveys can even detect. To fill in the blanks, a team of researchers in Japan drew from survey measurements from April 2011 to September 2015 and devised a way to predict cesium contamination in different aquatic species across Japan.

The analysis provides mixed news: Overall, cesium contamination is pretty low. But, some species retain higher levels than others. Larger fish near the top of the food web tended to have the highest levels of contamination. The researchers predict that such factors put some wild freshwater species like the whitespotted char (Salvelinus leucomaenis leucomaenis) and the Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) at higher risk for contamination.

A stealth virus, most often borne on the wings of a ubiquitous predator, is spreading across the Americas. Zika virus is the latest of several that are carried by mosquitoes. But Zika isn’t a new foe. Discovered in Uganda in 1947 in a rhesus monkey (during an infectious-disease study), the virus was found in humans a decade later in Nigeria.
Zika has existed in Africa and Asia since the 1950s without raising the kind of alarm seen today, perhaps because of a built-up immunity there. But in the Americas, Zika appears to have found a more vulnerable population. Two rare conditions — a birth defect (microcephaly) and Guillain-Barré syndrome — are undeniably on the rise. Whether Zika is to blame isn’t yet a sure thing. But concern is rising. “The more we learn, the worse it gets,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a March 10 news briefing.

To combat further spread, scientists will need to delve deep into the biology of two opportunists: the virus itself and the mosquito. In the meantime, efforts to limit exposure to mosquitoes are under way. And preemptive attempts to protect future victims include travel advisories, especially for pregnant women, and warnings about unprotected sex (a transmission path in some cases). Human safety trials for a vaccine to jump-start immunity could begin later this year; larger efficacy trials may be a year and a half away.

Mapping Zika: 1947 to 2016

Since its discovery in 1947, Zika virus has traveled the globe, spreading across Africa, Asia and now the Americas. By 2002, scientists had isolated more than 600 strains of the virus — only 10 of which were found in humans. However, Zika’s early history remains sketchy, partly because most evidence of its spread comes from blood serum surveys that flagged active antibodies in people. But Zika is a flavivirus like dengue and yellow fever, and exposure to one virus can give you active antibodies against another. That’s good for the patient but not so good for tracking the disease. Today, the World Health Organization confirms cases by testing for Zika virus RNA. — Helen Thompson

Explore Zika’s spread in the interactive map below. Hover or tap on a country get more details about the virus’ history there. To switch between selecting by country and selecting by year, click the reset button below the map.
A version of this story and map appear in the April 2, 2016 issue with the headline, “In search of answers on Zika.”

For corals, baby fat is food. Coral mothers send their offspring into the world with a balanced meal of fat and algae, but baby corals mainly chew the fat, new research finds.

Adult corals of the species Pocillopora damicornis get most of their nutrition from symbiotic algae that live inside them, providing metabolic energy by photosynthesis. But coral larvae, researchers report online March 25 in Science Advances, rely instead on their “baby fat.”

The finding sheds light on corals’ metabolism during their most vulnerable developmental stage, says biological geochemist Anders Meibom of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Baby fat “is a good thing,” he says. “It gives the coral some time to find a good home without running out of juice.” Larvae’s dependence on fat may make them less sensitive to bleaching — a process in which stressed corals jettison their algal tenants and eventually starve to death. So understanding larval nutrition could help scientists better understand the effects of ocean warming and acidification on bleaching, Meibom says.
Meibom and colleagues fed isotope-tagged nutrients to larvae of P. damicornis, commonly called cauliflower coral, and tracked how the larvae’s symbiotic algae used the nutrients over time. Algae are less abundant in larvae compared with adult corals and provide very little energy, the researchers found.

The next step is to pinpoint exactly when and how larvae switch from feeding on fat to algae as they transition into adulthood, Meibom says, as well as exploring how Earth’s changing oceans might impact the process.

Once every 69 years, a nearby star dramatically dims for about three and a half years during the longest known stellar eclipse in our galaxy.

The star, called TYC 2505-672-1, is a red giant, about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Leo Minor. The star is orbited by a dim, hot companion star that appears to be enveloped by a thick cloud of dust roughly one to three times as wide as Earth’s orbit. The cloud, reported in an upcoming Astronomical Journal, blocks much of the red star’s light from reaching Earth for a good long time.

Researchers already knew that TYC 2505-672-1 had drastically faded recently. But astronomer Joseph Rodriguez of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and colleagues scoured data from many telescopes — including a Harvard University photograph archive dating back to 1890 — and found that the starlight dipped and rebounded not only between 2011 and 2015 but also in the 1940s. The previous eclipse record holder was Epsilon Aurigae, a star 2,000 light-years away that dims for about 24 months every 27 years.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated on April 27, 2016, to correct distances and the name of the previous eclipse record holder.

NEW YORK — Cells in a brain structure known as the hippocampus are known to be cartographers, drawing mental maps of physical space. But new studies show that this seahorse-shaped hook of neural tissue can also keep track of social space, auditory space and even time, deftly mapping these various types of information into their proper places.

“The hippocampus is an organizer,” says neuroscientist Howard Eichenbaum of Boston University.

Neuroscientist Rita Tavares described details of one of these new maps April 2 at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. Brain scans had previously revealed that activity in the hippocampus was linked to movement through social space. In an experiment reported last year in Neuron, people went on a virtual quest to find a house and job by interacting with a cast of characters. Through these social interactions, the participants formed opinions about how much power each character held, and how kindly they felt toward him or her. These judgments put each character in a position on a “social space” map. Activity in the hippocampus was related to this social mapmaking, Tavares and colleagues found.
It turns out that this social map depends on the traits of the person who is drawing it, says Tavares, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. People with more social anxiety tended to give more power to characters they interacted with. What’s more, these people’s social space maps were smaller overall, suggesting that they explored social space less, Tavares says. Tying these behavioral traits to the hippocampus may lead to a greater understanding of social behavior — and how this social mapping may go awry in psychiatric conditions, Tavares said.

The work emphasizes that the hippocampus is not just a mapper of space, Tavares says. Instead, it is a mapper of relationships. “It’s relational learning,” she says. “It’s everything in perspective.”

Other research, discussed at a meeting in February, revealed a role for the hippocampus in building a very different sort of map — a map of sounds. Stationary rats were trained to “move” through a soundscape of different tones, pushing a joystick to change the sounds to reach the sweet spot — the target tone. As the rats navigated this auditory world, nerve cells in their hippocampus were active in a way that formed a map, Princeton University neuroscientist Dmitriy Aronov reported in Salt Lake City at the annual Computational and Systems Neuroscience meeting.

Cells in the hippocampus can also map time, keeping count as seconds tick by, Eichenbaum has found (SN: 12/12/15, p. 12). All of these types of information are quite different, but Eichenbaum argues that they can all be thought of as memories — another mental arena in which the hippocampus plays an important role. Organizing these memories into a sensible structure may be the big-picture job description of the hippocampus, he says. “What’s being tapped in all of these studies is that we are looking at a framework, whether it’s a physical spatial framework, a social space framework, a pitch framework, or a time framework,” Eichenbaum says.