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This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing. Here is the news.
Chinese and American scientists have jointly developed a new antibody targeting the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus, which has killed 16 people and landed 150 others in hospital in South Korea.
Fudan University, which worked with U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop the antibody, said tests on animals have seen very effective results.
Researchers at Fudan University said the "m336" antibody could neutralize the MERS virus more effectively than other antibodies.
The treatment has proved more effective when coupled with a specific type of polypeptide. Theoretically, the polypeptide can be used as a nasal spray, as a preventive measure for high-risk groups such as medical staff.
Respiratory experts have called for an immediate clinical trial of the drug.
Four phases are required before new medicine goes to the market, namely laboratory tests, animal testing, trials on humans, and approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
A Korean official has said over 100,000 foreign tourists canceled their trip to the country this month due to the deadly MERS disease.
Last year, more than 1 million travelers visited South Korea on a monthly basis. The country's foreign currency earnings decline by 2.3 billion US dollars, when the number of tourists goes down by 50 percent.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
A surgeon in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has triggered public debate after announcing plans to perform head transplant on primates following successful operations on mice.
Ren Xiaoping, a doctor with the second affiliated hospital of Harbin Medical University, successfully transplanted the head of a mouse to another's body in 2013. His team has since performed almost 1,000 such operations, though very few survived long after surgery.
Ren has been working on perfecting the operation and announced plans to test the procedure on monkeys in the future.
Ren studied and worked in the United States before returning to China three years ago. He said head transplant may help people with spinal cord injuries, and it presents the ultimate challenge for neurosurgeons.
Major technical difficulties include reconnecting the donor head with the recipient's spinal cords, keep the brain alive during transfer, and prevent transplant rejection.
The ambitious plan, more found in science fictions, is beyond many people's imagination and has drawn hot debate on the media and the internet.
The world's first attempted head transplant on a monkey dates back to 1970, when American neurosurgeon Robert J. White transplanted the head of a monkey to the body of another. The animal died of immune-rejection several days after the transplant.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing.
China will continue to promote green and low carbon development in urban areas to achieve efficient and high quality growth.
The country's top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, made the announcement to mark the National Low-carbon Day which fell on June 15th this year.
The commission says China will push forward energy-saving and environment-friendly urban development to provide citizens with a sustainable living environment.
Acknowledging the previous economic growth came at the expense of environmental destruction, the commission said China has been making concrete contributions to address climate change and prioritizing green, low-carbon economic development.
In a joint statement issued during the visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to Beijing last November, China pledged to achieve peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030, and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.
The National Low-carbon Day began in 2013, and is aimed at promoting awareness about climate change among the general public. It falls on the third day of the National Energy Efficiency Promotion Week in June every year.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China is promoting the use of wind-generated electricity for winter heating in northern China as part of its effort to alleviate air pollution.
The National Energy Administration has asked provinces in north and northeast China, as well as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia to come up with plans and include wind power in their heating system before next winter.
The goal is to allow wind-powered heating to replace coal and make it accessible to places with no natural gas pipelines.
The move also aims to combat the issue of wind power waste, a headache for China, due to imbalanced distribution of wind resources and imperfect grid system. Wind-rich provinces are mainly in the less developed northwestern regions where electricity supply exceeds demand.
An average of 8 percent of wind electricity was abandoned last year. The rate climbed to 18 percent in the first three months of this year.
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Beijing and its neighboring cities enjoyed better air quality last month, as the main pollutants, ozone and PM2.5, both decreased year on year.
According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, PM2.5 in 13 cities monitored in the most polluted areas in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province decreased by almost 10 percent compared with the same period last year. The ozone index in this area was down 1 percent.
Beijing reported sound air quality in 58 percent of the days last month and only one day of heavy pollution.
In addition, the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region saw improved air quality last month. The two regions refer to the economically-developed eastern and southern areas encompassing Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively.
China began to include the index of PM2.5 and ozone in a new air quality standard in 2013.
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