BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's science news from the past week:
NEW DRUG IN COVID-19 TREATMENT
Tocilizumab, with the common brand name Actemra, has been included in China's latest version of diagnosis and treatment guidelines on COVID-19.
According to Zhou Qi, deputy secretary-general and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the drug Tocilizumab has been found effective to block the inducement of the inflammatory storm.
URBAN RENEWAL
Chinese researchers have verified that urban renewal can mitigate higher urban temperatures led by the heat generated by human activities, according to a recent study paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The researchers investigated the impacts of urbanization, including both urban expansion and urban renewal, on urban heat islands by analyzing meteorological and land-use observations in east China's Shanghai over the past 144 years.
DESERTIFICATION VULNERABILITY INDEX
Researchers have constructed a new index on global desertification vulnerability and predicted the desertification risk, according to a recent research article published in Land Degradation and Development.
The researchers from Lanzhou University proposed a global desertification vulnerability index by combining climate change and human activity, and classified the vulnerability into very high, high, medium, and low levels, said the article.
CLIMATE WARMING
Researchers have disclosed that the earlier start of the growing season of the northern temperate and boreal forests made the middle and high latitudes in the northern hemisphere warmer, according to a recently published research article in journal Nature Climate Change.
Earlier start of the growing season, or leaf-out, in response to climate warming, has been recorded in the northern hemisphere since the 1980s, reported by the research article. Thus the climate is modified by altering seasonal cycles of surface energy, water and carbon budgets.
TINY DINOSAUR SKULL
A team of scientists from China, the United States and Canada have found the skull of a tiny dinosaur preserved in 100-million-year-old amber.
The amber, discovered in northern Myanmar, was believed from the late Cretaceous period. The skull inside it measured about 14 mm long, with a sharp beak, dense teeth and large eye sockets. Their findings, which are significant for the evolution research of small animals, were published Wednesday local time at the journal of Nature.
