BEIJING, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's science news from the past week:

NEW HIGH-YIELD SOYBEAN VARIETY

China has developed a new variety of high-yield soybean and has tested it in a trial planting area, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The new variety of soybean named Henong 71 was planted in the test fields in Shihezi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It achieved an average yield of 447.47 kg of soybean per mu (about 0.07 hectares), reaching a new high of China's soybean output.

CHINA'S YUANWANG-3

China's spacecraft tracking ship Yuanwang-3 is sailing to the Pacific Ocean to carry out maritime monitoring missions for the BeiDou-3 and other satellites.

The ship departed Sunday from a port in east China's Jiangsu Province. It is the third voyage of the ship this year.

CHINA'S RESEARCH VESSEL

China's oceanographic research vessel, Xiangyanghong 01, has returned to Qingdao, a coastal city in the eastern province of Shandong, after completing the country's 10th Arctic research expedition, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Carrying a team of scientists, the vessel spent 49 days at sea and sailed more than 10,300 nautical miles, reaching 76.02 degrees north latitude.

CLEAN COAL

Gao Xiang and his colleagues never picture coal as black cloud billowing from smokestacks or a sooty remnant of the Industrial Revolution.

"There are only unclean technologies; no unclean energy," said Gao, a winner of China's National Awards for Scientific and Technical Progress and professor at the State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Coal-Fired Air Pollution Control at Zhejiang University.

For years, researchers have been seeking to reduce coal's harsh environmental effects with multiple technologies, seeking a "burn cleanly" spell for China's major energy source.

HOMEMADE TUNNELING MACHINES

A super large tunnel boring machine (TBM) measuring 15.03 meters in diameter has begun an underwater tunneling project in Shantou City, south China's Guangdong Province.

At 130 meters long and weighing 4,800 tonnes, the slurry TBM, with maximum thrust of 25,000 tonnes, can cope with multiple complex terrains such as soft silt and hard granite bedrock, according to manufacturer China Railway Engineering Equipment Group Co. Ltd. (CREG), one of the leading TBM suppliers worldwide. Enditem

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