News on China's scientific and technological development.

delft

Brigadier
Yes I have. If your drawings are done on Mylard or Vellum paper they can be printed right side up with a Blueprint special bond paper that uses a ammonia and special blue light to print it out.

Like this.

I remember that was one of my tasks to do on my first architectural internship job, I hated that chemical smell.:p
I don't remember the smell, only that it was offensive. I last saw and smelled it more than fifty years ago.
 

Ultra

Junior Member
China does not have cutting edge chip making machinery, but as to whether it can maintain the #1 spot despite using two generations old design that pack less transistors per nm, I leave it to the more competent members here.


I think China's SoC foundry process is currently at 28nm, about several generations behind the world leaders which are Samsung, Intel and TSMC at 14nm and 16nm respectively. And due to the fact TSMC is just a strait away from minaland China, a lot of engineers are probably being snipe by the SMIC or other chinese conglomerate right now. Sooner rather than later China will catch up on process technology, that's a certainty.

The real question is can they innovate and design world-class chip?
 

Ultra

Junior Member
Still on top for sixth year in a row

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Tuesday, November 17, 2015, 09:50
Tianhe-2 remains world's best supercomputer
WASHINGTON - China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has retained its position as the world's most powerful system for the sixth year in a row, according to a biannual Top500 list of supercomputers released Monday.


That's quite a significant boost - I dig a little deeper:

Top500_Jun_2015.gif
Top500_Nov_2015.gif
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
I think China's SoC foundry process is currently at 28nm, about several generations behind the world leaders which are Samsung, Intel and TSMC at 14nm and 16nm respectively. And due to the fact TSMC is just a strait away from minaland China, a lot of engineers are probably being snipe by the SMIC or other chinese conglomerate right now. Sooner rather than later China will catch up on process technology, that's a certainty.

The real question is can they innovate and design world-class chip?

With the right program and the right amount of money ANYBODY can innovate and design anything.
 

Skywatcher

Captain
I think China's SoC foundry process is currently at 28nm, about several generations behind the world leaders which are Samsung, Intel and TSMC at 14nm and 16nm respectively. And due to the fact TSMC is just a strait away from minaland China, a lot of engineers are probably being snipe by the SMIC or other chinese conglomerate right now. Sooner rather than later China will catch up on process technology, that's a certainty.

The real question is can they innovate and design world-class chip?

Huawei is apparently partnering with TSMC build chips using the later's bleeding edge technology processes.
 

Ultra

Junior Member
World's largest cloning factory says it can clone humans but public not ready to accept it

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on December 3, 2015, 11:45 AM

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The Chinese scientist behind the development of the world’s largest cloning factory in Tianjin, China, claims that the facility possesses the technology to clone humans. He added that the only thing holding them back from cloning a person is the fear of how the public would react to it.

The giant cloning factory, which is due to open within the next seven months, is backed by Boyalife group in collaboration with South Korean company Sooam Biotech Reseach Foundation. It plans to be cloning 1 million cows a year by 2020, and also aims to clone other animals such as racehorses and police dogs. "Everything in the supermarket looks good – it’s almost all shiny, good-looking, and uniformly shaped. For animals, we weren't able to do that in the past. But with our cloning factory, we choose to do so now," Boyalife CEO Xu Xiaochun told
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Sooam has already been developing ways of cloning wooly mammoths and deceased pets – a particularly lucrative business for the company, with some owners reportedly willing to pay up to $100,000 to get their beloved animal back, even if it is a clone. The two companies are also planning to work together with the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the development of primate clones.

Cloning monkeys is just one step away from human cloning - something that Xu believes his company could achieve. "The technology is already there. If this is allowed, I don't think there are other companies better than Boyalife that make better technology,” he said. Xu stressed that the firm is not currently carrying out any human cloning activities, but said that “human values can change.”

The CEO explained that currently, a child is born with half of the father’s genes and half of the mother’s genes. He expects that in the future, parents will have three options available to them: a 50-50 share of the parents’ genes in their child, 100 percent from the father or 100 percent from the Mother.

Xu wants to assure the public that they have nothing to fear when it comes to cloning technology: "We want the public to see that cloning is really not that crazy, that scientists aren’t weird, dressed in lab coats, hiding behind a sealed door doing weird experiments."

There are different opinions when it comes to the whether cloned beef is safe for human consumption. The US Food and Drug Administration says it is, but the European parliament disagrees and has backed a ban on cloned animals and produce in the food chain, reports the
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I can almost see the headline on Foxnews now - "Chinese only know how to copy - constructed the world's largest cloning facility..." :D
 

vesicles

Colonel
World's largest cloning factory says it can clone humans but public not ready to accept it

By
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on December 3, 2015, 11:45 AM

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The Chinese scientist behind the development of the world’s largest cloning factory in Tianjin, China, claims that the facility possesses the technology to clone humans. He added that the only thing holding them back from cloning a person is the fear of how the public would react to it.

The giant cloning factory, which is due to open within the next seven months, is backed by Boyalife group in collaboration with South Korean company Sooam Biotech Reseach Foundation. It plans to be cloning 1 million cows a year by 2020, and also aims to clone other animals such as racehorses and police dogs. "Everything in the supermarket looks good – it’s almost all shiny, good-looking, and uniformly shaped. For animals, we weren't able to do that in the past. But with our cloning factory, we choose to do so now," Boyalife CEO Xu Xiaochun told
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.

Sooam has already been developing ways of cloning wooly mammoths and deceased pets – a particularly lucrative business for the company, with some owners reportedly willing to pay up to $100,000 to get their beloved animal back, even if it is a clone. The two companies are also planning to work together with the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the development of primate clones.

Cloning monkeys is just one step away from human cloning - something that Xu believes his company could achieve. "The technology is already there. If this is allowed, I don't think there are other companies better than Boyalife that make better technology,” he said. Xu stressed that the firm is not currently carrying out any human cloning activities, but said that “human values can change.”

The CEO explained that currently, a child is born with half of the father’s genes and half of the mother’s genes. He expects that in the future, parents will have three options available to them: a 50-50 share of the parents’ genes in their child, 100 percent from the father or 100 percent from the Mother.

Xu wants to assure the public that they have nothing to fear when it comes to cloning technology: "We want the public to see that cloning is really not that crazy, that scientists aren’t weird, dressed in lab coats, hiding behind a sealed door doing weird experiments."

There are different opinions when it comes to the whether cloned beef is safe for human consumption. The US Food and Drug Administration says it is, but the European parliament disagrees and has backed a ban on cloned animals and produce in the food chain, reports the
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.

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OK, this is just BS! "Cloning monkey is just a step away from cloning human"??? that is one of the stupidest things that I've heard in a long time. Cloning monkey is soooooo far away from human cloning. It's like someone jumps up and touches the ceiling of his house and then tells people that he's going to jump to the moon next because "jumping up to touch the ceiling is just a step away from going to the moon"...

Firstly, "cloning monkey" is not an accurate statement. A lab in Oregon successfully inserted a nucleus of an adult monkey skin cell into a monkey egg and obtained a viable fertilized egg. that was it. No new monkey was born out of cloning. And the efficiency? they tried this process on 300 monkey eggs and got 35 viable ones.

Cloning an actual monkey was not, is not and will never be the goal. The actual goal is to develop technology to obtain embryonic stem cells so that we can cure diseases. Now, the only way to get embryonic stem cells is from an actually fertilized egg. There are huge ethical issues associated with this. So scientists have been trying to find other less controversial ways to do that. One of such POTENTIAL ways is to get an unfertilized egg (this egg will NEVER become life on its own since it is unfertilized). Then insert a cell nucleus from an adult volunteer. This adult could be anyone, even the same person who donated the egg. The DNA of this adult will combine with the unfertilized egg and become fertilized and eventually generate embryonic stem cells.

Why this much trouble? Two words: personalized cure. In the future when we get sick and need an organ transplant, we no longer need to get on that long list of donors and wait for someone to die so that we can get that organ. All we need to do is to use the cloning technology to "clone" a new organ that needs to be transplanted, using our own DNA. This way, we don't need to wait. And the new organ won't be rejected by our body since it is completely our own.

Another way is to use the adult stem cells altogether. No need to find eggs. Just biopsy some adult stem cells from the patient who needs the transplant and use these stem cells to grow into a new organ. this of course has the least ethical issues since everything comes from the adult patient him/herself, much like donating blood. But this one is also the most difficult since adult stem cells are much harder to turn into the different cell types typically found in an intact organ.

Both technologies are still at its infancy.

The end goal has never been to clone an actual human. And no one should think about cloning an actual human. there is no real benefit of cloning a human being. Plus, the cloned human will never be the same as the original. There is a huge misunderstanding of cloning. People think that the cloned species will be identical to the original. the fact is that it is not and can never be. Yes, DNA is the genetic code and determines everything about us. However, there are literally thousands of other factors/mechanisms that can change which parts of the DNA will actually be "interpreted". You can have identical DNA, but all those interpreting mechanisms are completely random and cannot be controlled. There is actually a whole field studying these factors: epigenetics.

I also find their goal of cloning 1 million cows laughable at best, borderline lunatic. Although we have cloning technology, it is highly inefficient. Typically, the best scientists in the world, with decades of training and experience, can achieve less than 10% success. that is not the kind of efficiency that you want when you commercialize something. To achieve the scale they talk about, they would need to gather ALL the top-tier scientists specialized in cloning into one place and work them to the bone 24/7/365. And they also need to invest trillions of $$$ for the equipment needed to do all the experiments. And they might have to chance to achieve ~5% of their proposed goal. And that is IF all the stars are aligned... Let's face it. Cloning tech is now still more of an art than science...

I think it is the crazy lunatics like the CEO of this cloning company that is giving scientists a bad name. So please let me clarify. The end goal of cloning technology is never ever ever to clone a complete human. that is the stuff of Sci Fi movies. The actual goal is to come up technology to generate new organs to cure diseases. Personalized cure. You have a bad stomach. Give some of your own cells to the doctors. They will generate a brand new stomach in the lab for you and put it in you in a few weeks. And you have a new perfectly functioning stomach and you enjoy life. No ethical controversies. No legal issues...
 
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B.I.B.

Captain
The actual goal is to come up technology to generate new organs to cure diseases. Personalized cure. You have a bad stomach. Give some of your own cells to the doctors. They will generate a brand new stomach in the lab for you and put it in you in a few weeks. And you have a new perfectly functioning stomach and you enjoy life. No ethical controversies. No legal issues...

Has there been any quantum leap in this field?

Regarding cloning animals
As I understand it the biological process of cell division shortens the telomere and as a result cloned animals show signs of age after they are brought into existence.Its been suggested that once it comes into existence its body/age clock is the same age as the animal it was cloned from. So it hardly makes sense for eg a dairy farmer buying stock that has the same life clock left in it as the animal it was cloned from.

Secondly, appart from being pre aged I can’t see the thoroughbred industry accepting cloned horses to participate in racing or breeding program.
 

vesicles

Colonel
Has there been any quantum leap in this field?

I don' think so. The whole cloning field is still new. People are still exploring the most basic stuff now. Most of the stuff on cloning is still so basic-science, they have absolutely nothing to do with anything outside of the lab. I actually use some adult stem cell tech in the lab a little bit. But the main goal is to mainly use it as a tool since it is the only system that involves human cells in an in vivo setting, not to develop it... So no quantum leap just yet.

Regarding cloning animals
As I understand it the biological process of cell division shortens the telomere and as a result cloned animals show signs of age after they are brought into existence.Its been suggested that once it comes into existence its body/age clock is the same age as the animal it was cloned from. So it hardly makes sense for eg a dairy farmer buying stock that has the same life clock left in it as the animal it was cloned from.

I don't know the exact answer to that. although some of the cloned animals including the famous Dolly the sheep died young and had shorter telomeres, nothing conclusive can be said. Although telomere is involved in aging, it is not the only thing determining it. The aging process is highly complex. The data pool of cloned animals is too small to make anything conclusive out of it. You cannot rule out other potential factors, such as potential damage in DNA during the actual cloning process. Like I said in my previous post, cloning is still more of an art than science. If the technician made a boo boo and damaged the DNA in some way... We just don't know.

Another thing is that we don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg: is the shortened telomere causing the short life span, or other factors such as damaged DNA that leads to shortened telomeres?

Secondly, appart from being pre aged I can’t see the thoroughbred industry accepting cloned horses to participate in racing or breeding program.

Cloning tech at the current stage is the opposite of commercialization. the process is so inefficient. I don't see how anyone would be willing to use it for any commercial means. Cloning a horse would now cost at least 10-100 times more than breeding. Even then, you cannot guarantee that you will get the exact same horse.
 
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