MARKSMANSHIP: Members of the Chinese special forces from the 15th convoy fleet participate in weapons training in the Gulf of Aden on September 11 (LIANG SHUN)

Disability Care

Nearly 12.2 million disabled people in China had received treatment and recovered from their conditions to different degrees between the 2008 and 2012, according to data released by the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF) on September 10.

The federation said that 205,000 rehabilitation centers, with a total of 353,000 staff, were set up in communities in 889 cities and 1,905 counties in the period. More than 1.5 million impoverished patients requiring cataract treatment received free operations, while 189,000 blind people took directed walking training.

According to the CDPF, from 2008 to 2012, China established rehabilitation centers at both a provincial and a grass-roots level, offering rehabilitation programs concerning the hearing, language and limbs of patients. The country had improved treatment for mental patients, with 5.94 million people with severe mental illness having received treatment in the previous five years.

China has more than 85 million disabled people. The number is expected to exceed 160 million by 2050, according to estimates made by the CDPF.

Increase in Teachers

China has seen a surge in registered teachers as the country tries to improve the status and salary of the profession, the Ministry of Education said on September 9.

More than 14.6 million registered teachers were employed in about 530,000 schools to educate roughly 270 million students across the country in 2012, according to ministry figures.

Currently, one primary school teacher has to teach an average of 17.36 students, while the teacher-student ratio in middle and high schools are 1: 13.59 and 1: 15.47, respectively. Around 71.63 percent of middle school teachers hold a bachelor's degree or above, while more than 5 percent of all high school teachers have earned a master's or doctoral degree.

Body Measurements

The China National Institute of Standardization is preparing for a national anthropometrical survey to examine the changes in the average physical measurements of the Chinese populace since the last such survey in 1986.

The survey will last an estimated five years, targeting Chinese citizens aged between 18 and 75 and sampling about 20,000 people in six areas with a broad geographical spread aimed at covering as much of the nation as possible, said Zhao Chaoyi, director of the institute's anthropometrics lab, in an interview with Xinhua News Agency on September 9.

Since the Chinese Government's approval of the survey in June, the institute has been working on a detailed plan for the work and expects to begin the survey in the latter half of 2014, Zhao said.

The institute did an anthropometrical survey of a much smaller scale on 3,000 people in 2009, when it found that the average measurements of Chinese citizens have changed a great deal since the last national survey.

According to the 2009 research, the average weight of Chinese older than 35 had notably increased and the average waistline of an adult man had grown by 5 cm since 1986.

Besides recording people's basic measurements as the last survey did, researchers will also collect data on muscle strength, visual and hearing acuity and fingertip tactility.

Algae Control

Chinese scientists announced on September 9 that they have developed a type of nano-material that can catalyze algae masses growing on water surfaces into soil.

Chinese lakes are often plagued by catastrophic outbreaks of blue-green algae. Triggered by vast amounts of sewage water drained into rivers and lakes, it can exude bad odors, suffocate fish and turn the water a milky green shade. Algae pollution has been a severe problem particularly in three of China's major freshwater lakes—Chaohu in Anhui Province, Taihu in Jiangsu Province and Dianchi in Yunnan Province.

Scientists with the Chinese University of Science and Technology said that laboratory tests had showed a single gram of the new nano-material can kill algae floating in an area equal in size to a basketball court.

Fan Chongzheng, who led the research, said that the catalyst leads to the biodegradation of the algae into an inorganic soil-like substance.