Archaeological discoveries

Chinese cultural diplomacy also involves archaeological excavations

ASIA PRESS REVIEW. Among the topics selected this week in the Asian and French press, Chinese archeology as a mode of cultural influence, the virtual tenant of the National Museum of Singapore, the destitution of the victims of the earthquake in Nepal, cosmetic surgery to place in the labor market...

Chinese archaeologists have emancipated themselves from Western expertise.

The opening of China to the world is not only a question of exports and economic presence outside national borders. Wang Chao, the journalist of the Chinese magazine Wenwu to whom Sixth Tone, an online magazine from Shanghai offers a forum, qualifies Chinese archaeologists as new diplomats. When they are called upon to excavate abroad, they are not perceived as representatives of former colonial powers who had taken from the archaeological heritage. No litigation around restitutions, unbalanced relations according to Wang Chao who, in passing, tells us how Chinese archaeologists have emancipated themselves from Western expertise.

A fin whale floats in the middle of the Singapore Museum

The 13-meter cetacean floats…virtually in one of the rooms. On the screens of smartphones distributed to visitors to the National Museum of Singapore, the Tango app allows Singaporeans to find the animal whose skeleton was on display from 1907 to 1974 before being returned to neighboring Malaysia. Sensors, augmented and virtual realities on a mini-tablet lent to the visitor make it possible to view, hear, and read documents and infographics, to take a 130-year journey in the building and possibly a selfie in the company of the whale. The museum is one of the first in the world to adopt the Project Tango system according to the daily The Straits Times. Next target for future technology deployment:visually and hearing impaired audiences.

Nepal:2 million people have spent 2 winters and 2 monsoons without shelter

We don't talk much about it here. There, the marks of the earthquakes of April 25 and May 12, 2015 are still visible. It is nearly two million Nepalis who are still not rehoused. The organization supposed to redistribute, direct and organize the constructions only very poorly fulfills its missions, according to the specialist humanitarian magazine, Irin News. The photo report published this week shows us urban chaos and destitute inhabitants faced with the immense task of reconstruction.

Young Chinese graduates resort to cosmetic surgery to get a job

Impressive figure:4 million young Chinese looking for a job have undergone cosmetic surgery. Mostly women. A hospital in Tianjin in the northeast of the country saw a peak in attendance for its cosmetic surgery consultations over the past weekend, according to the Hong Kong daily The South China Morning Post. After graduation, job interviews are looming soon. However, many students opt for minor procedures or micro-injections of botox.

Coal, mineral resource and nationalist object of India

India is a big consumer of coal. It is one of the few resources she has in abundance. The mining resource is also the subject of very special attention in the history of the country. Coal, both public and private property, concentrates many national and particular ambitions:it is a tool both for national modernization and for enrichment for small owners, tribes without other resources, such as mining companies. The "black diamond" concentrates economic, social and ecological issues according to the review made of a book by Indian researchers on the site La Vie desidées, attached to the Collège de France. We understand all the better that it will be difficult for India not to respond quickly to the injunction of the COP21 of December 2015:to abandon coal.

And also:

Events after accidental pollution. The Radio Free Asia news site reports the protests following a fire at a chemical facility in the Hebei region of China. The trichloroisocyanuric acid leak had caused vomiting and coughing in the surrounding villages.

No, India does not only provide simple computer programmers . It is also capable of producing computer languages ​​used by all computer scientists on the planet. As proof, the Julia language, bringing together the best of MATLAB and Python according to Quartz magazine.

Palliative care in Mongolia. The country rises high in the ranking of nations with a good palliative care service, 28 e out of 141 nations, and one of the few Asian countries so highly ranked. Caring for dying patients is a challenge in such a vast and sparsely populated country. The report from Mosaic magazine tells the story of this exemplary care in an economically underdeveloped country.

Scientific fraud on an industrial scale . 107 articles written between 2012 and 2016 have been withdrawn by the scientific journal Tumor Biology. Chinese researchers would use false contacts to evaluate their articles. The contacts of these imaginary colleagues were provided by agencies:a multi-thousand dollar business that mainly affects the world of medicine according to Le Monde (paying).

Trafficking in precious woods. A chain of teak wood traffickers, reported by the photo reporters of Figaro magazine in Myanmar (paying).

Hinder the bacterium's survival reflex , is to prevent it from proliferating. A team of researchers from a laboratory in Bangalore has understood the molecular mechanism by which vitamin C could prevent the formation of bacterial biofilm in Mycobacterium smegmatis . Explanations on the Hindu website.

After Mars, Venus. Indian space agency ISRO is planning to send an orbiter to Venus, reports The Hindu. With the same tight budget as Mangalyaan, the one that revolves around Mars, still operational despite having an expected lifespan of only 6 months.

2 reactors soon to be reactivated in Japan . Two nuclear reactors in Genkai, on the island of Kyushyu, in the far south of Japan will be commissioned again this summer according to Mainichi. A decision that did not win the approval of all the neighboring municipalities. Since the Fukushima accident in 2011, only 3 out of 45 reactors have been returned to service nationwide.

And five aging reactors to be dismantled . Problem:where to store the 610 tons of highly radioactive fuel that will come from these dismantlings? For the Japan Times, this lack of solutions will delay the operation which concerns seven reactors.

Armed struggles, health struggles . For World Malaria Day (April 25), several newspapers hail Sri Lanka's success. Liberation and the Financial Times return to the paradox of a civil war whose belligerents, starting with the Tamil rebels, agreed to cooperate with caregivers paid by the state against which they were at war.

Electric car boom in China. The country is taking a big lead, says Le Monde. While Western and Japanese automakers are slowly—and hard—coming to all-electric, China's auto industry is only building today and starting right at the "electric cars" box. And that's very good, the country wants to reduce all its sources of pollution (paying).

On our site:

The elephant ignores the level crossing . The skill of the impatient pachyderm was filmed at a railroad crossing in Bengal, India. Dangerous!

A Venus with bent legs. Palaeolithic "Venus" dated -23,000 years, delicately carved in mammoth ivory discovered in the Bryansk region. Of these tiny figurines, 250 statuettes have been found from Western Europe to the steppes of the Russian Far East.

Urgent! Cities need to prepare for climate change. And why not adopt the "uchimizu", a Japanese solution used at 17 e century, consisting of collecting rainwater to water the soil and cool the city.

The woman with elephantiasis . Egyptian Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty left India where she had undergone bariatric surgery, which allowed her to lose 323 kilos. These stomach reduction operations are more and more frequent in India where obesity is slowly gaining.