Technology News丨China's high-speed rail operating mileage exceeds 40,000 kilometers; Early Warring States tombs discovered in Henan

【Today’s cover】

Recently, the Taihang Banshan Mountain in Licheng County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province, cleared up after snow. The snow-covered Banshan Mountain was particularly magnificent under the sunshine. Photo by Zhang Hongbo, China News Service

News Station

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

●On the 30th, Hebei Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station officially started generating electricity. This is the world's largest pumped storage power station, creating four world firsts: the world's largest installed capacity, the world's largest energy storage capacity, the world's largest underground plant scale, and the world's largest underground cavern group scale. The total installed capacity of Fengning Power Station is 3.6 million kilowatts, the annual designed power generation is 6.612 billion kilowatt-hours, and the annual pumped power generation is 8.716 billion kilowatt-hours. It will serve the green power supply of the Beijing Winter Olympics. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

Photo by Science and Technology Daily reporter Wei Yichen

●On the 30th, the Anqing to Jiujiang section of the Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed railway was put into operation, and the high-speed railway between Hefei and Nanchang was directly connected, with the fastest time of 2 hours and 22 minutes, marking the full opening of the Shangqiu to Shenzhen section of the Beijing-Hong Kong (Taiwan) corridor of the "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network. So far, China's high-speed railway operating mileage has exceeded 40,000 kilometers, and China's total railway operating mileage has exceeded 150,000 kilometers. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

●On the 30th, the Taihu Tunnel, the longest lakebed tunnel in China, was officially opened to traffic. The tunnel is 10.79 kilometers long and is built to the standards of a two-way six-lane expressway with a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour. The tunnel construction combines 5G, Beidou precise positioning, fiber optic detection, multi-target radar tracking and other technologies, including visual fatigue awakening, traffic incident detection and warning, intelligent stepless dimming lighting system and tunnel ventilation operation energy saving systems. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

Pure Technology

●Recently, a European research team called SeaClear developed a robotic system that can collect garbage underwater and successfully conducted the first test of the prototype. The robotic system consists of four autonomous robots that can distinguish garbage from marine plants and animals through deep learning algorithms and acoustic sensors. The accuracy rate in classifying underwater garbage is expected to reach 80%, and 90% of the garbage will be successfully collected. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

●According to the Physicists' Organization website on the 29th, immunologists from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the United States have identified the biochemical "switch" that controls the development of regulatory T cells and the corresponding working mechanism. These findings are a major advance in scientists' understanding of the development and function of regulatory T cells, which will help them develop better therapies to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer. (Source: Science and Technology Daily)

New findings

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

●Recently, archaeological staff from the Sanmenxia Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute discovered a group of early Warring States tombs while cooperating with local infrastructure construction. The number of tombs reached more than 260, and a large number of burial objects were unearthed, including bronze, jade, and bone objects. Among them, the bronze chime bells from the Warring States period were discovered for the first time since the establishment of Sanmenxia in 1986. In addition to the tombs, archaeologists also discovered four horse pits, each of which buried two horses. At present, the relevant excavation and sorting work is proceeding in an orderly manner. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

●Recently, a team from the Bordeaux Astrophysics Laboratory in France used data from several telescopes and other facilities of the European Southern Observatory to discover at least 70 new interstellar planets in the Milky Way. This is the largest group of interstellar planets discovered by astronomers so far, and it is an important step towards understanding the origin and characteristics of these mysterious planets that are "wandering" in the Milky Way. (Source: ScienceNet)

See the world

●The World Health Organization warned on the 29th that if the more contagious Omicron strain and the still widely spread Delta strain cannot be contained, it may cause a global surge in new coronavirus cases like a "tsunami", putting tremendous pressure on the health systems of various countries. It is reported that a total of 1.8 million new coronavirus deaths were reported worldwide in 2020, and the number of deaths this year has reached 3.5 million. (Source: CCTV News)

Source: Science and Technology Daily

Editor: Liu Yiyang

Review: Julie

Final review: Liu Haiying