FOURTH GENERATION: A China Mobile employee shows off a new smartphone in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, on September 28. The phone is one of the first handsets able to take advantage of the wireless service provider's new high-speed 4G mobile network (XINHUA)

Record Rice Yield

A team led by Yuan Longping, known in China as the "father of hybrid rice," set a record for hybrid rice production with an average yield of 988.1 kg per mu (0.0667 hectares). Hybrid rice is any genealogy of rice that has been created through crossbreeding between different types of rice.

Experts from the China National Rice Research Institute, Wuhan University and the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences confirmed the new record. The three organizations combined efforts to harvest three lots from a farm of 101.2 mu (6.75 hectares) in Niuxing Village, Longhui County in central China's Hunan Province. The farm was growing a new strain of hybrid rice, known as "Y liangyou 900". Officials from the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center confirmed the record yield.

Yuan Longping, 83, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, developed the first variety of hybrid rice to be grown in China in 1974.

His team's progress is fast approaching the 1,000 kg-per-mu target set by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2013 after the yield of hybrid rice was successfully increased to 963.65 kg per mu in 2012.

The yield of per mu of hybrid rice in China has increased steadily, surpassing 700 kg in 2000, 800 kg in 2005 and 900 kg in 2011, according to the ministry.

Air-Quality Check

China has added a further 40 medium-sized cities to the country's upgraded air-quality monitoring network, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on September 29.

A total of 172 monitoring stations in the cities added to the network became operational on October 1.

The stations will provide measurement of the six airborne pollutants stipulated by the country's improved air-quality standard. The statement added that upgrades have been made in order to provide real-time data on sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and PM 2.5—airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter.

To date, China has 668 monitoring stations under the new network.