Podcast: Story in the Story (1/30/2020 Thu.)
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From the People's Daily App.

This is Story in the Story.

Chinese people are enjoying better and healthier lives thanks to the country's sci-tech achievements, studies highlighted at China's annual research awards show.

In China, where less than 8 percent of the world's arable land feeds one fifth of the world's people, food security is a priority for many researchers. Three research achievements on rice were recognized in the 2017 National Science and Technology Awards.

Li Jiayang and his researchers - one of the three teams - found the balance of yield and quality in new hybrid rice varieties.

The cultivation of hybrid rice has spread across China for more than four decades. But while yields have increased, many varieties have failed the taste and cooking tests until recently.

However, it’s not just food that has benefitted from science and technology innovation.

Today’s Story in the Story looks at the other aspects of life in China that have also moved ahead because of sci-tech.

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(Photo: VCG)

Li's team identified the major gene that regulates yield and quality and used molecular breeding technologies to combine high yield and good taste in a new rice variety.

"Good characteristics can be identified in molecular breeding," Li said. They plan to work on "tailored" hybrid rice varieties in future.

Huang Sanwen, of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, won last year's State Natural Science Award for breeding high-yield cucumbers.

With advanced genome sequencing technology, Huang's team mapped the genetic code of cucumbers, shedding light on their origin and evolution.

Professor Li Luming, of Tsinghua University, won first prize in the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award of 2018, for his research on brain pacemakers.

His team made brain pacemakers cheaper, smaller, lighter and more durable, benefiting China's 2 million Parkinson's disease sufferers.

Lung cancer is China's leading deadly cancer. Surgical resection is the key to treat lung cancer in the early and middle stages.

He Jianxing, head of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, created a minimally invasive lung cancer treatment system through technological innovation. Patients can usually get out of bed within hours of the surgery and leave hospital after three days.

Progress in medical science has greatly improved the health level of Chinese people, with average life expectancy rising from 35 in 1949 to 77 in 2018.

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A woman walks past a poster at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan 7, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

In the global drive to curb climate change, China has been consistently delivering on its environmental pledges.

From 2015 to 2017, the government highlighted in its work reports ultra-low emissions from coal-burning power plants.

Gao Xiang and his team developed an ultra-low emissions system to filter pollutants from coal-fired flue gas quickly and cheaply, resulting in cleaner air. It has been successfully trialed in a power plant in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province.

The system can simultaneously remove multi-pollutants, reducing emissions from a coal-fired power plant to a level even lower than that of a natural-gas-burning power plant.

In January 2018, Gao and his team were awarded first prize in the National Technology Invention Award. The Ministry of Science and Technology said the system had drastically reduced pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants nationwide.

All of this has happened because the country has accelerated the construction and improvement of a national innovation system, allowing scientists more say on research choices and encouraging enterprises to play a bigger role in R&D investment.

China's pursuit of innovation, largely relying on sci-tech progress, has a clear reason: China will not go back to its old development path of high energy-consumption, severe pollution and cheap labor.

China pledges to cut its carbon emissions and return blue skies and clean water to its people, and it needs solutions from science and technology.

Almost every aspect of the lives and living standards of China's 1.4 billion people - stable economic growth, a better environment, safe food, new medicines and fast transport - calls for innovation.

(Produced by Nancy Yan Xu, Brian Lowe, Lance Crayon and Elaine Yue Lin. Music by: bensound.com. Text from Xinhua and China Daily.)