BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China:

SNOWBALL EARTH

Scientists believe that 600 million years ago, the Earth's surface twice became entirely or nearly entirely frozen, a stage known as Snowball Earth. Chinese scientists have proposed new mechanisms for the evolution of life during that period.

To understand the relationships between environmental perturbations and early animal evolution, a research group led by Shen Yan'an of the University of Science and Technology of China measured sulfur and mercury isotopes from south China.

Their research, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that Snowball Earth may have provided a bottleneck for some preglacial life-forms but also suggests that melt ponds on the surface of ice and zones of sublimation were potential nurseries for the diversification of life.

MOUTAINTOP IMPACT CRATER

Chinese scientists have discovered the world's first-known mountaintop impact crater in the country's northeastern region, according to the Center for High Pressure Science & Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR) in Beijing.

With a diameter of 1,400 meters, the impact crater is located on the top of Baijifeng Mountain in the Baijifeng National Forest Park in Tonghua, Jilin Province. It is a cirque-shaped depression, with a height difference of about 400 meters from the highest rim to the lowest rim, said Chen Ming, a researcher at the HPSTAR.

PATENT AWARDS

The Mars rover Zhurong and nine other patented inventions won "Gold Design" awards at the 24th China Patent Awards on Saturday.↳

The National Intellectual Property Administration presented the 10 awards to designers at a ceremony held in the city of Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.↳

Other winners include a crawler crane widely used in engineering construction, and an advanced computed tomography (CT) scanner for medical diagnosis. Enditem

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