“Chi-Fang-Qi”: Is it the aureole of an ancient supernova?

An annotation for the statement about JingXing (Great Star) in the most famous Chinese ancient historical book Ski Ji Historical Records authored by Sima Qian reads as follows: “There was a red aureole (“Chi-Fang-Qi”) which connected with a deep-color aureole (“Qing-Fang-Qi”). Two yellaw stars were in the red aureole,one yellow star was in the deep-color aureole”. The author of the annotation was Meng Kang, an officer as well as a scholar of the Wei State in the Three Kingdoms period. The same records are to be found in two other Chinese histurical books compiled by the authors of later ages in Tang Dynasty——Jin History and Sui History. The scene illustrated by the record of “Chi-Fang-Qi” is very similar to the pictures of SN1987A taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Let it be noted that although the ancient authors were often with serious wrong understandings of some astronomical phenomena such as supernovae, their depictions about natural phenomena they witnessed were mostly objective, and it was unlikely that they fictionally made the record of “Chi-Fang-Qi”. We infer that the ancient observers might have ever watched a very bright supernnva with an aureole structure in its remnant and then left such a record. Meng Kang perhaps was the first to give the record about“Chi-Fang-Qi”, and he might have lived in the period from about AD 180 to AD250, very near to AD 185. so, here the supernova the ancient people watched was most likely the one in the year of AD 185. This supposition is consistent with the distance parameter of the most possible remnant of SN185 derived by some modern measurements. If the correlation between the record of “Chi-Fang-Qi” and the supernova remnant can he further proven true, it would be an important verification of the modern theory about stellar evolution.     

A Miocene ostrich fossil from Gansu Province,northwest China

A pelvic skeleton, recognized as a large terrestrial bird in the field, was recently collected by our paleomammalo-gist colleagues from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontol-ogy and Paleoanthropology from the late Miocene sandy mudstones in the Linxia Basin in Gansu Province, north-west China. We have further referred this bird to as an early representative of ostrich. Ostrich fossils usually co-existed with the famous Hipparion Fauna from the Mio-cene to Pliocene. The Linxia Basin is we…     

Re-Os dating of gold-bearing arsenopyrite of the Maoling gold deposit,Liaoning Province,Northeast China and its geological significance

The Maoling gold deposit, one of the large gold deposits in eastern Liaoning Province, NE China, is an arsenopyrite-disseminated gold deposit with a resource of approximately 25 t Au and an average Au grade of 3.2 g/t. Six arsenopyrites closely related to Au mineralization of the Maoling gold deposit are dated by Re-Os technique and define a Re-Os isochron with an age of 2316±140 Ma, which suggests that the deposit was formed in the Paleoproterozoic era rather than in the Indosinian period as some early researchers suggested. High initial ^187Os/^188Os ratio of 1.32±0.48 indicates a crustal derivation of the ore-forming material of the deposit, which may be derived from rocks of the Gaixian formation of the Liaohe Group. Furthermore,the result also implies that the age of the Gaixian Formation in the Maoling district is older than 2316±140 Ma.     

Silicon nanoporous pillar array and its surface copper deposition

Silicon nanoporous pillar array （Si-NPA） has been prepared by a hydrothermal etching technique. Using Si-NPA as substrate, a Cu/Si-NPA nanocomposite thin film has been obtained with immersion plating method. Morphological and structural analysis indicates that Si-NPA is a typical structural composite system characterized by a triple hierarchical structure, i. e. the array of micron-sized silicon pillars, the nanopores densely distributed on the surface of the pillars, and the silicon nanocrystallites that constitute the pore walls. Cu/Si-NPA inherits the morphological characteristics of Si-NPA. The compactability of the deposited copper nanoparticles varies alternatively with the local geometrical features of Si-NPA and forms a quasi-periodical pattern.Such an experimental phenomenon is attributed to the velocity dependence of the copper deposition upon the local geometrical features of Si-NPA. These results indicate that Si-NPA might be used as an ideal template for preparing specially patterned, structured or functionalized metal/silicon nanocomposite systems.     

Atomic force microscopy in cell biology

The history, characteristic, operation modes and coupling techniques of atomic force microscopy （AFM） are introduced. Then the application in cell biology is reviewed in four aspects： cell immobilization methods, cell imaging, force spectrum study and cell manipulation. And the prospect of AFM application in cell biology is discussed.     

A study on environmental changes based upon cladoceran assemblages from the core sediments in Chen Co,southern Tibet

A consecutive sediment core (CC2) was drilled in Chen Co (lake) of southern Tibet using a PISTON sampler in 1998 AD. Cladoceran remains including their species,amount richness and ecological features are analyzed for the top 117 cm sections of the core, upon which 5 cladoceran assemblages are distinguished. CL0 is an assemblage without any cladocera in the depth between 117-105 cm. CL1 assemblage (depths between I01-77 cm, ca.1407-1533 AD) possesses total 9 cladoceran species that appear in the core,and performs the greatest richness in the whole sequence.This assemblage reflected that there was plenty of exotic cold water and organic debrises inputing to the sedimentary site under the warmer conditions. The lake was wide and shallow that satisfied the big hydrophyte living. Cladoceran species and richnesses of CL2 assemblage (depths between 77-29cm, ca. 1533-1831AD) perform much more decreasing than those of CLI. There was only less Chydorus sphaericus which was acclimatized to wide environmental ranges. This implied that the sedimentary environment is so execrable that most of cladoceran lost their living abilities. Compared with CL1 assemblage, CL3 assemblage (depths between 29-10 cm, ca.1831--1941 AD) possesses nearly the same dominant species but lower richnesses. Especially, the cladoceran preferring organic debris also decrease in their amounts. This meant that the surface vegetation in the drainage basin was still poor though the environment turned to be better. Except the 2 zooplankton species, the other 7 species of cladoceran in this core are found in CL4 assemblage (depths between 10-0cm, ca. 1941-1998 AD), in which the eurythermal species had not performed their competition ability comparing withnarrow-temperatures adapted species. It implied that water temperatures were stable and much more influenced by air temperatures under the shallow-water conditions. The environmental features reflected by cladocera assemblages of CC2 core are fully supported by the evidences from ostracoda assemblages, diatom-salinity transfunction, environmental magnetism and relative proxies of the parallel CC1 core. Cladoceran assemblages in the lake sediments of Tibetan Plateau are sensitive to sedimentary environment and very significant to the studies of environmental changes.     

Relationship between nanoscale deformation of coal structure and metamorphic-deformed environments

The relation between coal structure (including molecu-lar and pore structures) and metamorphism has been dis-cussed over a century. It has seldom involved nano-scale structure deformation of coals and its metamorphism- de-formed environment, especially the factor of stress influ-ence on nano-scale structural deformation. Instead the influence of temperature and pressure on the coal structure has been the primary focus. As a result, part studies indi-cated that temperature is the main factor th…     

Experimental research and statistical analysis on the dielectric properties of lunar soil simulators

To support the microwave brightness data retrieval of future China space-borne lunar exploration microwave radiometer, based on the collection of plentiful terrestrial basalts and anorthosites and their chemical compositions got by X-ray fluorescence, nine lunar soil simulators were prepared and made respectively into 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6 g/cm3 five densities each. We measured their relative dielectric constants over the range of 0.5-20 GHz with open-ended coaxial line model on the HP8722C Network Analyzer and then processed and analyzed the measurement data. This study shows that among the three parameters of density, frequency and composition, density has the strongest effect on the relative dielectric constants, frequency comes second, composition the least. The three parameters account for 45%, 33% and 22% respectively of the changed real part of a relative dielectric constant, and 55%, 27% and 19% respectively of the changed imaginary part. The real parts of the relative dielectric constants are linearly linearly correlated with density or frequency, and the imaginary parts have a linear relation with both approximately over the range of 0.5-10 GHz and tend to be poorly correlated with them in 10-20 GHz. The effect of composition on a relative dielectric constant seems very complicated, both probably do not follow a simple function relation, with the least correlation. Multiple regression analysis indicates that major element oxides SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, MgO, TiO2 and AFe are correspondent to a one-order polynomial, and TiO2 or AFe or TiO2 ΔFe has not been proven to be the indicators in the contribution to the relative dielectric constants.     

EEG-correlated fMRI of P3b component in P300 waves

Electroencephalography-correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging （EEG/fMRI） can be used to identify blood oxygen level-dependent （BOLD） signal changes associated with both physiological and pathological EEG events. Here, we implemented continuous and simultaneous EEG/fMRI to identify BOLD signal changes related to P3b component of P300, and 64 channels of EEG were recorded in II subjects during Landot Ring task inside a 1.5 T functional magnet resonance （MR） scanner using an MR-compatible EEG recording system. Functional scanning by echoplanar imaging covered almost the entire cerebrum every 2 s, leaving gaps of 2 s without scanning. Off-line MRI artifact subtraction software was applied to obtain continuous EEG data. Additionally, a P300 wave matched filter was constructed to inspect P300 wave occurrence following every target stimulus, target stimuli inspected to induce P300 were detected and their MRI scan number were then used as input for an event-related fMRI analysis. Finally MRI statistical parametric maps were constructed and corrected for multiple comparisons. By random effect group analysis, activations were detected in the right superior parietal lobule and bilaterally in inferior parietal lobule（p〈0.001, uncorrected）. The results demonstrated the upper regions were sources of P3b component and involved in target detection in memory comparison task.