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Hong Kong scientists receive State Natural Science Awards
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     Hong Kong scientists have again received significant recognition, with local researchers winning two second-class State Natural Science Awards (SNSA) in 2014 as announced by the National Office for Science and Technology Awards in Beijing today (January 9).
 
     The Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, said, "The awards received by the Hong Kong researchers highlight our excellent capabilities in basic and applied research, and serve as encouragement to their fellow researchers. We congratulate the awardees on their achievements and hope they will continue to scale new heights in their research."

     The SNSA are one of five award categories under the State Science and Technology Awards organised by the State Council. As China's most prestigious awards in the field of natural science, the SNSA aim to reward individuals and organisations for academic excellence in basic and applied research in natural science.

     Two projects nominated by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government won second-class awards in the 2014 SNSA. Details are as follows:

     Professor Wen Weijia of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was awarded for his research project on "Structural and physical mechanism investigation for giant electrorheological fluid". Other core team members of the project include Professor Sheng Ping, Professor Tam Wing-yim and Professor Yang Shihe of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Professor Ma Hongru of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This project, which is funded by the Research Grants Council, represents a major achievement in experimental and theoretical research in soft-condensed matter physics. The giant electrorheological (GER) effect was discovered and the micro-structure of GER fluid observed for the first time in the world. Furthermore, the GER fluid was designed and fabricated successfully. The GER fluid eventually broke through the intensity threshold and became the first practical smart material used for many engineering applications. This GER research work has occupied a leading position internationally and GER fluid has been used by many research institutions and well-known companies.

     Professor Zhao Guochun of the University of Hong Kong was awarded for his research entitled "Paleoproterozoic amalgamation of the North China Craton and the assembly of the Columbia supercontinent". Other core team members of the project included Professor Sun Min of the University of Hong Kong and Professor Li Sanzhong of the Ocean University of China. The project led to two original and significant scientific achievements. The first is the recognition that the 2.1-1.8 billion-year-old collision belts widely scattered across the Earth recorded global-scale collisional events that assembled all old continents on Earth to form a single supercontinent, later named Supercontinent "Columbia" or "Nuna". The second achievement is the discovery of two old Himalaya-type collisional belts in North China, namely the 1.95 billion-year-old "Khondalite Belt" and the 1.85 billion-year-old "Trans-North China Orogen", which indicates that the North China Craton was formed by the assembly of a number of micro-continents at 1.95-1.85 billion years, and that North China preserved the complete record of the formation and break-up of Supercontinent Columbia (Nuna), of which it was a major part. These scientific findings were highlighted by more than 200 scientific papers, which have been cited by others more than 10,000 times.

     The HKSAR Government was invited by the National Office for Science and Technology Awards to submit nominations from Hong Kong, which were co-ordinated by the Education Bureau with the help of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Centre.

Ends/Friday, January 9, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:16

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