Chinese Journal of Nature

The “bright lamp” into the deep Earth: experiments at high pressure and high temperature

ZHOU Chun-Yin;JIN Zhen-Min

2014, 36(2): 79-88.

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The Earth is the homeland of humans for living on and development. Our knowledge of the Earth’s interior is relatively limited compared to surface layer (atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere). Geological/geochemical approach interprets the properties of constituent materials in the Earth’s interior by analyzing the minerals and rocks once occurred in the deep Earth but now were brought onto the surface and meteorolites from outer space. Geophysical approach probes the structure of the Earth’s interior using seismic waves. With the improvement of high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) experimental techniques in the last more than a half century, scientists are able to create the extreme high pressure and temperature environment of the Earth’s interior.
Moreover, with various modern analytical technologies, the nature and property of rocks and minerals under high pressure and high temperature conditions have extensively been in situ studied. All of these studies advanced our understanding on the composition and structure of the deep Earth. Therefore, the HPHT experiments become the “bright lamp” to detect the structure and composition of the deep Earth.

A perspective on the Materials Genome Initiative

ZHAO Ji-Cheng

2014, 36(2): 89-104.

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U.S. President Obama introduced the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) and clearly stated that the goal of MGI is “to discover, develop, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials at twice the speed than is possible today.” The pertinent whitepaper “Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness” released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in June 2011 outlines the Materials Innovation Infrastructure as consisting of three platforms: computational tools, experimental tools and digital data. The MGI will accelerate materials design and deployment by: ①developing effective and reliable computational methods and software tools, ②developing high-throughput experimental methodologies to validate theories and to provide reliable
experimental data to the materials databases, and ③establishing reliable and widely applicable databases and materials informatics tools. The ultimate intent of MGI is to usher in a new paradigm/culture of materials research and innovation where materials design is conducted by up-front simulations/predictions followed by key validation experiments in contrast to the current practice that is heavily based on experimental iterations and experiences.

Finding extrasolar habitable planets

WANG Jia-Ji

2014, 36(2): 105-115.

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Some of scientists in our country have suggested to launch a dedicated satellite of astrometry in a few years, using astrometry technology with 0.5 micro-arcsecond precision, to search terrestrial planets surrounding about 200 sun-like stars within a distance of about 64 light-years, and to obtain a complete sample of possible habitable planets within the distance. Then, the stars of this sample would be followed up with high precision photometry on large ground-based telescopes or other suitable space-based telescopes to detect the candidates with the transits on host stars, and with high-resolution spectroscopy for these transits to determine whether atmospheres exists on the transit planets and the chemical composition of the atmospheres, especially whether the features
of biosignature gases are emerged, and ultimately it be determined whether life is really on the planets or not. If we would be able to finally find such a planet, it will undoubtedly be a great achievement in the sciences.

Formation of exoplanet systems and future international planet hunting programs

ZHOU Ji-Lin;WEN Wen

2014, 36(2): 116-123.

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The detection of exoplanets becomes a hot research. With some breakthrough in detection and the advance of the space exploring, more than 900 exoplanets have recently been discovered with multiple techniques. Many characteristics quite different with the solar system are found in exoplanets and their orbital configurations. These new phenomena are testing out the traditional planetary formation model. The gravitational instability model and the core accretion model of planetary formation are briefly introduced. At the end of the paper, author introduced a few future exoplanet hunting program of international and China.

Current research status of exoplanets

DOU Jiang-Pei;ZHU Yong-Tian;REN De-Qing

2014, 36(2): 124-128.

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Exoplanets search is one of the hottest topics in modern astronomy. The detection method includes indirect detection and direct imaging. Currently, over 1 000 exoplanets have been confirmed mainly by the indirect detection method such as radial velocity. While the direct imaging study of an exoplanet will allow to characterize its important physical parameters such as the atmosphere and temperature. Furthermore, to study the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet in the habitable zone of a solar type star by imaging and further spectroscopy analysis will allow us to confirm the Exo-life signal, which will help to finally answer “Are we alone in the universe?”, which is one of the most fundamental scientific questions. The research of Earth-like exoplanets will be helpful to make a breakthrough on our current knowledge of life, which has been keeping a high attention rate in public domain.

New advance on study of animal behavior (IX): parental care

SHANG Yu-Chang

2014, 36(2): 129-132.

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By feeding their youngs, adult birds increase the survival chances of their nestlings. But there are risks attendant upon the parents’feeding trips. How does a parental bird balance the pluses and minuses of its activities? The key to explain the diversity in parental behavior lies to the cost-benefit analysis. Even when parents invest only in their own progeny, they rarely distribute their care in a completely equitable fashion, even when the coefficient of relatedness between parents and all their genetic offspring is the same (0.5 as a result of sexually reproducing parents placing 50 percent of their genes on each egg or sperm). Sibling rivalry and siblicide help parents deliver their care only to offspring that have a good chance of eventually reproducing, while keeping their food delivery
costs to a minimum. It is conceivable that siblicide may have evolves only because of the fitness advantages enjoyed by offspring able to dispose of siblings that were competing for the same supply of food.

An invasive risk assessment model of alien marine species

WANG Yi-Bin;SHN Hong-Qi;LIU Fang-Ming;ZHENG Zhou;MIAO Jin-Lai

2014, 36(2): 133-138.

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To assess the invasion risk of alien marine species, an invasive risk assessment model was constructed based on the analysis of the biological invasions processes and mechanisms, which combined with the multi-hierarchy fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. Through to establish risk assessment index of marine biological invasions, the definition of the invasive factor and subjection degree of qualitative index, and evaluated the weight of invasion damage, a clear risk assessment composite index of marine invasive alien species was calculated. The invasive risk of Spartina plantations (such as Spartina anglica, Spartina alterniflora and Spartina patens) were assessed by this model. The results identified the grade of cordgrass Spartina alterniflora and Spartina anglica as very high risk, and Spartina patens as medium one.

Past and Present of Rosa rugosa and Rosa chinensis

WANG Hui;LIU Cheng-Yuan

2014, 36(2): 139-146.

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The growth habits of Rosa multiflora, Rosa chinensis, Rosa rugosa and the method to distinguish these three plants are introduced. Their evolutional history and cultural history are discussed. Botanical classification of Rosa multiflora and horticultural classification of Rosa chinensis are also summarized. Finally, five rose gardens in China are introduced.

Embrace science in the spring

GUAN Yi

2014, 36(2): 147-154.

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A Silurian placoderm with os teichthyan- like marginal jaw bones

YE Jian

2014, 36(2): 155-156.

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