1. A working draft of the hybrid rice genome

Researchers from the China Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Genetics and Development Biology completed the sequencing of the hybrid rice genome, whose full database would be put up on the web for free access by the world's scientists. This was announced at a press conference jointly held by CAS, State Development Planning Commission, and MOST on October 12, 2001, in Beijing.

2. Technology expanding the CD storage capacity by one million times

Studies on reversible, nanometer-scale conductance transitions in an organic complex, which were carried out by a research team headed by Gao Hongjun at the CAS Institute of Physics, made it possible to extend the storage capacity of CD by one million times.

3. Progress in studies of nano-materials and nano-structure of C60

A research team led by Prof. Hou Jianguo at the University of Science and Technology of China, a CAS affiliation, discovered, for the first time, a two-dimensional system possessing a unique topological ordering that is not found in either three- or one-dimensional systems. Using high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy, the team shows that a 60-carbon-atom (C 60) array on a self-assembled monolayer of an alkylthiol forms an ideal two-dimensional system which has another novel topological order originating from the orientation degrees of freedom.

4. The discovery of oldest oceanic crustal relics

Together with American colleagues, Prof. Li Jianghai at Peking University found a 2500-million-year-old ophiolite complex in the North China craton, which are believed to be the oldest Oceanic Crust and Mantle fragment in the world so far. An article in Science called the discovery "an important new chapter" in the study.

5. The ratification of global stereotype of the Permian-Triassic boundary

The Global Stereotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the Permian-Triassic boundary was ratified by International Union of Geological Sciences. The boundary is defined at the base of Bed 27c of Meishan Section D in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province of South China.

6 The discovery of earlier record of mammalia forms

A fossil, which was found by researchers from the CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, represents a new lineage of mammalia forms, the extinct groups more closed related to the living mammals than to nonmammalia form cynodonts. Their work extends the earliest record of these crucial mammalian features by some 45 million years.

7. Surgical treatment and experiment of hepatic duct lithiasis

A research team headed by Prof. Huang Zhiqiang at the Third Military Medical University made a breakthrough in the surgical treatment and experimental study of hepatic duct lithiasis and its complications.

8. Major Progress in Charmonium Physics

The latest edition of Review of Particle Physics (2000) lists 51 data on particle properties newly acquired by researchers at CAS Institute of High Energy Physics, which enable the number of such data obtained by Chinese scientists in the most cited publication in particle physics to reach 74.

9. Breakthroughs in Synthesis of New Nuclides

Scientists at the CAS Institute of Modern Physics made two breakthroughs last year. First they synthesized, for the first time in the world, 259Db, a new superheavy nuclide; then they captured the fragment tracks of 230Ac β-delayed fission (βDF), and affirmed the precursor nucleus 230Ac for β-delayed fission, thus experimentally verifying the theoretical prediction that the phenomenon of βDF in background states does exist.

10. The decoding of the mystery entangled in the genetic disease Brachydactyly Type A-1

Scientists from Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences, CAS, along with their collaborators at Shanghai Tongji University, decoded the mystery entangled in the genetic disease Brachydactyly Type A-1.