BEIJING, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) — The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China:

SMART WORKSHOP

In the world’s first national supply chain expo, a Chinese steel mill moved the model of its smart workshop into the exhibition hall themed digital tech.

Featuring “just in time and customer-to-maker (JIT-CTM),” the new workshop, which started operation in 2020 with the support of robotics and digital virtual technology, could run by merely five workers per shift.

NISCO, one of the exhibitors from traditional industries, defined itself as an innovation-driven enterprise, and set up shop in the expo’s digital tech area. A Mixed Reality (MR) helmet was on display, which can provide real time digital assistance to workers, and has already been applied in the workshop.

ORCHID MANTISES

Chinese scientists have found that orchid mantises, hailed as a classic example of flower mimicry, use their petal-shaped legs for gliding.

The study led by the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences challenges the long-held belief that these winged legs, or femoral lobes, mimic flowers to attract their pollinating prey.

In this study, the scientists conducted behavioral research and found that orchid mantises are excellent gliders.

NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS

A wide-field telescope capable of surveying the entire sky from the Northern Hemisphere has discovered two near-Earth asteroids, astronomers said.

The two celestial bodies were first spotted on Nov. 18 by the Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST), which started operation in September 2023 in northwest China’s Qinghai Province. The Minor Planet Center under the International Astronomical Union subsequently confirmed the discovery by the telescope and designated the two asteroids 2023 WX1 and 2023 WB2.

With an estimated diameter of 170 meters, 2023 WX1 is categorized as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, for having an “Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance of 0.0416 astronomical units,” equal to 6.22 million km.