Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday attended a China-France-EU trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at Elysee Palace.
Named Long Chenchen, or the "dragon of Chenchen," the mascot for China's upcoming Dragon Spring Festival Gala has been released, with a lot of design details showing the aesthetics of Chinese cultural elements.
To celebrate 2024, which will be the Year of the Dragon in Chinese culture, "Long Chenchen" has been designed as a cute yet lively dragon, colored orange and red and with a pair of doll eyes.
The seemingly cute-looking dragon takes inspiration from Chinese archaeological discoveries. The design of its nose was inspired by a dragon shaped jade item that was discovered in the Erlitou Ruins, a major site in Luoyang, Central China's Henan province that witnessed the rise and fall of the Xia (c.2070BC-c.1600BC) and Shang (c.1600BC-1046BC) dynasties.
The fire shape pattern on its shoulder was inspired by a bronze piece with cloud patterns that dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC).
The bronze piece has 12 vividly depicted dragon sculptures, showing ancient Chinese creativity as well as skill for handicrafts.
Another source of inspiration was a gilded dragon sculpture that is currently in the Xi'an Museum.
The dragon mascot has been praised by netizens on China's social media platforms such as Sina Weibo. Some said Chenchen looks "amiable" and can bring more international visitors to see the profound yet adorable Chinese culture.
"I like this cartoon version of a dragon, as it is amiable and friendly. Those characteristics also represent the modern China," a netizen posted on Sina Weibo.
Despite receiving many likes, the mascot has also sparked criticism. It has four claws, some of which have five toes and others have three. This made some netizens speculate the dragon character might have been synthesized by artificial intelligence.
"The Spring Festival Gala is the gala of the year for all of us in China. It deserves a professional team to design a character for it," one netizen wrote.
On Thursday morning, China Media Group (CMG), the media platform that is going to be in charge of the gala, officially declared on Sina Weibo that the dragon mascot was created entirely by human beings but not AI.
Admitting that it has some "imperfections," CMG said that it was created by designers "one stroke after another." All the details about the dragon, including its patterns, colors and face have been revised by designers through many versions.
Along with such verbal explanations, a short video showing the design team working on the mascot has been posted on Sina Weibo by CMG. The media group's response to the character's design has become a trending topic on Sina Weibo and has been viewed by more than 200 million netizens.
"Whether it was created by AI or human beings, I think the mascot has successfully delivered the spirit of the dragon. The dragon is important to show the life-force of Chinese culture," one netizen posted on Sina Weibo.
Sichuan is experiencing light rain as Wu Lian walks on her way to work. Meanwhile, the earthworms emerging from the muddy ground along the road are also undergoing a migration.
However, some earthworms are getting stranded on the cement pavement. At moments like these, Wu Lian picks them up one by one and places them back into the soil, despite her hands getting covered in mud.
"Otherwise, they could easily be stepped on by passersby," she says. This unique habit stems from her trip to Lhasa, capital of the Xizang Autonomous Region, three years ago.
This "Earthworm Rescue Operation" is a very unique manifestation of the spirit of cherishing and protecting life that the Tibetan people have continued for centuries.
Near the Potala Palace, in the vicinity of Zong Juelu Kang (Dragon King Pond), during the rainy season, you can see people of all ages bending down to gently pick up earthworms that haven't been able to complete their journey and placing them back onto the grass.
This is because once the sun comes out in Lhasa, the worms quickly lose moisture and face danger. Some local children even take the initiative to inform unaware tourists to watch their step. Of course, this isn't just about rescuing earthworms; it's just that because earthworms are particularly fragile and inconspicuous, such a scene arises.
Even today, many Tibetan people still recite a protective mantra when drinking water, intending to liberate the microorganisms in the water about to be consumed. And they will tell their grandchildren the story of this small ritual like a tale.
Similar to how the Han people usually call for compassion for even the tiniest of ants, Tibetans start from rescuing earthworms. This custom originates from the core doctrine of "equality of all sentient beings" in Tibetan Buddhism.
Carried on to the present day, it can be said that rather than merely being a religious tradition, it has long been internalized as a guiding principle in the daily lives of ordinary people.
Another story is about the origin of the Shoton Festival. Before the 17th century, the Shoton Festival was a primitive religious celebration.
According to folk tradition, as the weather warmed in the summer and all living things revived, monks going out for activities would inadvertently harm living creatures, violating the precept of "do not kill."
Therefore, the Gelug sect's monastic rules stipulated that from the fourth to the sixth month of the Tibetan calendar, monks could only recite scriptures and practice in the temples.
On the day the ban was lifted, monks would leave the temples and descend from the mountains. To thank the monks, local residents would prepare yogurt and organize outings and feasts, including traditional Tibetan opera performances, to celebrate the occasion.
It can be said that the practice of loving and protecting life is the starting point of the socialization process for Tibetan children. Life is adorable, life is respectable.
Tibetans believe that one should do everything possible to avoid harming any life. If there is truly no choice, then one should still hold an attitude of respect and gratitude.
Such beliefs permeate through people's daily lives, in the cycles of seasons, and in their daily activities.
The fundamental principle that every newborn baby first learns is a profound empathy toward the existence of any life. As an extension of this spirit, Tibetans often exhibit the utmost compassion toward the weak.
The essence of compassion includes, but is not limited to, "tolerance." Its broader meaning encompasses acknowledgment, empathy, and an emotionally driven commitment to action.
In Xizang, during feasts, not only were beggars not driven away, but they were also treated as honored guests.
Even in contemporary urban life, Tibetans are still able to treat all members of society more equally. On this land, the quality of being "snobbish" is disliked by everyone.
Faith is not confined to temples but also ingrained in everyday activities. When we talk about culture, it is never limited to external forms like singing, dancing, or intricate artwork.
The local people's outlook on life has gradually extended beyond the region with the opening up of Xizang.
Therefore, when you hear tourists from other regions or countries expressing admiration for how Tibetan culture has purified their souls, it is likely not an exaggeration.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pesticides that kill insects can also have short-term effects on seed-eating birds. Ingesting even small amounts of imidacloprid, a common neonicotinoid pesticide, can disorient migratory white-crowned sparrows, researchers report.
Neonicotinoid pesticides were designed to be safer than traditional pesticides: toxic to insects, but comparatively harmless to other animals. But the new findings add to evidence suggesting that the widely used pesticides, which are chemically similar to nicotine, might be sending ecological ripples beyond the intended targets.
In lab studies, researchers captured wild white-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia leucophrys, that were migrating north and fed them small doses of imidacloprid for three days — the amount that birds would get from eating a few pesticide-coated wheat seeds. The birds that ate the pesticides lost weight, study coauthor Margaret Eng reported November 15 at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry North America.
And when placed in a large, inverted funnel used to study birds’ migratory orientations, the neonic-fed birds tried to fly in directions other than north. Birds that consumed sunflower oil instead showed no ill effects.
For the birds that ate pesticides, the damage was temporary — after two weeks, the birds regained normal function and body weight, Eng, a toxicologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and her colleagues also reported November 9 in Scientific Reports.
The fact that the effects reverse after a period of time is “good news,” says Thomas Bean, a toxicologist at the University of Maryland in College Park who wasn’t part of the study. The short-term malaise might incentivize birds to avoid that food in the future. Bean has found that Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica, also show similar temporary behavioral effects in response to neonicotinoids.
Preliminary results from field studies also appear to confirm the published lab findings. Eng’s team outfitted white-crowned sparrows in the wild with tiny tracking tags. The scientists gave the birds small amounts of pesticides, held the birds for six hours, and then released them.
When released, the birds still had traces of the chemicals in their blood plasma, the researchers reported at the November meeting. On average, there wasn’t a difference between groups in how long the birds hung around before resuming migration, but all of the birds that waited an abnormally long time had eaten neonics. Those animals’ flight paths also appeared to be slightly skewed from the route favored by the control birds.
Those analyses are preliminary, cautions Eng, and a closer look at the data could change the story.
A new type of battery can stand being left out in the cold.
This rechargeable battery churns out charge even at –70° Celsius, a temperature where the typical lithium-ion batteries that power many of today’s cell phones, electric cars and other devices don’t work. Batteries that withstand such frigid conditions could help build electronics that function in some of the coldest places on Earth or on space rovers that cruise around other planets.
Inside lithium-ion batteries, ions flow between positive and negative electrodes, where the ions are embedded and then released to travel back through a substance called an electrolyte to the other end. As the temperature drops, the ions move sluggishly through the electrolyte. The cold also makes it harder for ions to shed the electrolyte material that gloms onto them as they cross the battery. Ions must slough off the matter to fit into the electrode material, explains study coauthor Xiaoli Dong, a battery researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Such cold conditions make conventional lithium-ion batteries less effective. At –40° C, these batteries deliver about 12 percent of the charge they do at room temperature; at –70° C, they don’t work at all.
The new battery, described online February 28 in Joule, contains a special kind of electrolyte that allows ions to flow easily between electrodes even in the bitter cold. The researchers also fitted their battery with electrodes made of organic compounds, rather than the typical transition-metal-rich materials. Ions can lodge themselves in this organic material without having to strip off the electrolyte material stuck to them. So these organic electrodes catch and release ions more easily than electrodes in normal batteries, even at low temps, Dong says.
Because the ions flow better and connect more readily with the electrodes at lower temperatures, the battery retains about 70 percent of its room-temperature charging capacity even at –70° C.
Still, battery cells in the new design pack less energy per gram than standard lithium-ion batteries, says Shirley Meng, a materials scientist at the University of California, San Diego, not involved in the work. She would like to see whether a more energy-dense version of the battery can be built.
LOS ANGELES — Insights into a black hole paradox may come from a down-to-Earth source.
Superconductors, materials through which electrons can move freely without resistance, may share some of the physics of black holes, physicist Sreenath Kizhakkumpurath Manikandan of the University of Rochester in New York reported March 7 at a meeting of the American Physical Society. The analogy between the two objects could help scientists understand what happens to information that gets swallowed up in a black hole’s abyss.
When a black hole gobbles up particles, information about the particles’ properties is seemingly trapped inside. According to quantum mechanics, such information cannot be destroyed. Physicist Stephen Hawking determined in 1974 that black holes slowly evaporate over time, emitting what’s known as Hawking radiation before eventually disappearing. That fact implies a conundrum known as the black hole information paradox (SN: 5/31/14, p. 16): When the black hole evaporates, where does the information go?
One possible solution, proposed in 2007 by physicists Patrick Hayden of Stanford University and John Preskill of Caltech, is that the black hole could act like a mirror, with information about infalling particles being reflected outward, imprinted in the Hawking radiation. Now, Manikandan and physicist Andrew Jordan, also of the University of Rochester, report that a process that occurs at the interface between a metal and a superconductor is analogous to the proposed black hole mirror.
The effect, known as Andreev reflection, occurs when electrons traveling through a metal meet a superconductor. The incoming electron carries a quantum property known as spin, similar to the spinning of a top. The direction of that spin is a kind of quantum information. When the incoming electron meets the superconductor, it pairs up with another electron in the material to form a duo known as a Cooper pair. Those pairings allow electrons to glide easily through the material, facilitating its superconductivity. As the original electron picks up its partner, it also leaves behind a sort of electron alter ego reflecting its information back into the metal. That reflected entity is referred to as a “hole,” a disturbance in a material that occurs when an electron is missing. That hole moves through the metal as if it were a particle, carrying the information contained in the original particle’s spin.
Likewise, if black holes act like information mirrors, as Hayden and Preskill suggested, a particle falling into a black hole would be followed by an antiparticle coming out — a partner with the opposite electric charge — which would carry the information contained in the spin of the original particle. Manikandan and Jordan showed that the two processes were mathematically equivalent.
It’s still not clear whether the black hole mirror is the correct solution to the paradox, but the analogy suggests experiments with superconductors could clarify what happens to the information, Jordan says. “That’s something you can’t ever do with black holes: You can’t do those detailed experiments because they’re off in the middle of some galaxy somewhere.”
The theory is “intriguing,” says physicist Justin Dressel of Chapman University in Orange, Calif. Such comparisons are useful in allowing scientists to take insights from one area and apply them elsewhere. But additional work is necessary to determine how strong an analogy this is, Dressel says. “You may find with further inspection the details are different.”
The first known pedestrian fatality involving a fully autonomous self-driving car will most likely raise questions about the vehicles’ safety.
But “until we know what happened, we can’t really know what this incident means” for the future of self-driving vehicles, says Philip Koopman, a robotics safety expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Only when we know more about the crash, including details on the actions of the pedestrian as well as data logs from the car, can we make judgments, he says.
The incident took place late Sunday night when a self-driving car operated by Uber hit and, ultimately, killed a woman crossing the street in Tempe, Ariz. Early reports indicate that a human safety driver was at the wheel, and the car was in autonomous mode. In response, Uber has suspended testing of its fleet of self-driving cars in Tempe and other cities across the nation. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, the New York Times reports.
The NTSB has previously conducted an investigation into the 2016 death of a man who was driving a partly autonomous Tesla, concluding that the driver ignored multiple safety warnings.
Self-driving cars already face high levels of mistrust from other motorists and potential passengers. In a AAA survey in 2017, 85 percent of baby boomers and 73 percent of millennials reported being afraid to ride in self-driving cars (SN Online: 11/21/17).
It is widely accepted by experts such as Koopman that autonomous cars will eventually be safer drivers than the average person, because the vehicles don’t get distracted, among other things. But proving that safety may be time-consuming. A 2016 study by Nidhi Kalra, an information scientist at the RAND Corporation in San Francisco, found that self-driving cars might have to drive on roads for decades to statistically prove their superior safety.
When — or if — self-driving cars are proven safer than human drivers, the vehicles will still have to contend with other questions, such as whether to take steps to protect passengers or pedestrians in a collision (SN: 12/24/16, p. 34).