How to Write A News Story Easily?

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• How to Write A News Story Easily?

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And We Will See

• How to find a suitable topic?
• How can I start with a story?
• How to write different kinds of topics?
• How to make my story attractive?
• Example if possible

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How to Find A Suitable Topic? News Value

• ???(timeliness)????(freshness)(2 weeks, 3 months)
• ???(importance, consequence, impact or
  significance)
• ???(prominence)
• ordinary person(s) usual occurrence(s) ?
  news (?????? ? ??)
• ordinary person(s) unusual occurrence(s)
  news (??????? ??)
• extraordinary person(s) usual
  occurrence(s) news (??????? ??)
• extraordinary person(s) unusual
  occurrence(s) good/big news (???????? ?/???)
• ???(nearness, proximity or locality)
• ???(unusualness, bizarreness, oddity or novelty)
• ???(interest)

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What Do We Have?

• CAS Events
• International Cooperation News
• Research Progress
• Upcoming Conferences
• Join Us

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And We Choose These CAS Events

• ?????????????
• ???????(mega-projects, milestone item,
  paper)????????????
• ???????????
• ???????????
• ?????????(??????????)
• ???????(Nomination, Dismissal, Pass-away)
• ????????????(?????????????)
• ???????????????????
• ??????????
• ?????????????????????????

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And We Choose These International Cooperation
News

• ?????????
• ???????/????????????????????????
• ????????????????
• ??????????
• ??????????????????
• ????????????(???????????????)?

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And We Choose These Research Progress

• ??????????????????
• ??????(??/??)????????????
• ??????????????/?????????
• ????????
• ???????
• ?????????

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So We Start Our Story
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Write An Attractive Headline

• ??( brief ) ??( accurate ) ??( eye-catching )
  1216 words
• ????????????????????(over-abstractness)
• Frequently Use
• active voice/ ellipsis/ inverted syntactic
  structure/ present tense/ punctuation / acronym
  / idiom / figure of speech

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Write An Attractive Headline

• About Tense
• ?????????????????
• ???? ????
• ????? ? ?????
• ????? ? ?????
• ????? ? ?????
• ????? ? ????
• ????? ? ?????

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Write An Attractive Headline

• How to?
• ??????????????,????
• ????/???????????????,????????????????,????
• ????????????????
• ??????????????

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Write An Attractive Headline

• Any TIPs?
• ????????,??????????(V-ing, V-ed)????????????????
• ????????,?????/?
• ?????????????????
• ??????(??????????)
• ??????????????????
• ( eg No Wires, No Rules)

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Write An Attractive Headline

• Lets have a try
• At long last, scientists have laid to rest the
  vicious rumors that Earth is getting fatter.
• Since Darwin's time, scientists have
  speculated the planet might be expanding or
  contracting. Even with the acceptance of plate
  tectonics half a century ago, which explained the
  large-scale motions of Earth's outermost shell,
  the accusations persisted some Earth and space
  scientists continued to speculate on Earth's
  possible expansion or contraction on various
  scientific grounds.
• Now, those speculations and rumors have been
  put to rest.
• Earth Isn't Expanding, Scientists Say
• A giant new Russian space telescope on Saturday
  unfurled its dish-like antenna which will observe
  radio waves from galaxies and black holes
  billions of light years away.
• Russian Space Telescope Unfurls Giant Antenna

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Write An Attractive Headline

• Is Your Headline Attractive?
• (New/Significant) Achievements in/on/about Made
  by
• (New/Important) Progress in/on/about Made by
• (New/Key) Advancements in/on/about Made by
• Achieved Major Breakthrough in/on
• Signing Ceremony Held in
• Dr./Professor Visit/Pay a Visit to
• Conference/Meeting Held Successfully in

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Use A Strong Lead

• ??????????
• ????????,??????(?????????,??????????)
• ?????(direct lead)?????????? ???(delayed
  lead)???

Fresh Important Elements
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Use A Strong Lead

• One paragraph, most basic questions
• ??WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY HOW
• WHY HOW is usually regarded as details
• something started/ended/ took place/held
  routinely
• NOT interesting for readers

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Use A Strong Lead

• REQUIREMENTS
• 2575 words, normally 3545, one sentence
• Active voice
• Usu. compound or complex sentence, or both
• Use prepositional phrases to offer background
  clue
• Use concrete nouns and colourful verbs.

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Use A Strong Lead

• How to?
• Distill from mass of facts, figures and
  quotations, best express the meaning of the story
• Write this statement in a way that will give it
  maximum impact on the reader

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Use A Strong Lead

• Answer these question and compose a lead
• What was unique or important about the thing that
  happened?
• Who was involved who did it or who said it?
• Is a direct or a delayed lead best?
• Is there a colourful word or dramatic phrase I
  want to work into the lead?
• What is the subject, and what verb will best move
  the reader into the story?

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Use A Strong Lead

• TIPs?
• ????????????????????????????(The obvious and
  routine procedures should never be stated as news
  elements in leads.)
• Four Cs
• Correctness/Accuracy
• Clarity clear, precise language, no ambiguity
• Conciseness only necessary information
• Colour form an image of language through
  description

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Use A Strong Lead

• Lets have a try?
• Astronomers have discovered the largest and
  oldest mass of water ever detected in the
  universe a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud
  harboring 140 trillion times more water than all
  of Earth's oceans combined.
• The Brazilian government is due this month in
  China to sign an agreement with the Chinese
  Academy of Sciences for construction of a
  nanotechnology centre in Campinas, in the
  Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, which will be set
  up in the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Technology
  Association (ABTLuS).

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Use A Strong Lead

• What about your lead? Is it interesting?
• The review on authored by the
  surface/interface research group at the State Key
  Laboratory of has been published in the
  latest issue of Journal of . It is highlighted
  by the journal and is one of the top ten
  most-read articles from the online version of the
  journal for May 2011.
• Co-sponsored and organized by and , ,
  the International Symposium on was held in
  Beijing from to , 2011.
• On June 17th, the project jointly completed
  by and was passed the project acceptance
  and result appraisal organized by .

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Use A Strong Lead

• What we DO NOT accept
• Focus ??????????????(we focus on RESEARCH, NOT
  PAPER)
• ?????/???,??????????/?????
• ???,???????????(???,?????????????),???
  ?????????
• A delegation of people from the Bureau of ,
  led by , visited , and carried out exchange
  and cooperation on on July 27. Members of the
  delegation included Mr. , Head of , Mr.
  , Chairman of , and other colleagues.
• On July , Institute celebrated years of
  "Working Hard, Striving Together, and Innovating
  Beyond." On the same day, the 2011 Annual
  Conference of was held. More than one thousand
  scholars, researchers, and students engaged in
  discussions on , while taking part in the
  celebration of the founding of . The attendees
  came from , University, University,
  University and the University of in Germany,
  the University of in Canada, the International
  Union, the Association of American and other
  research institutions in the world.

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Form An Inverted Body

• What is inverted pyramid structure?

Most Important Information
Next Most Important Information
More Information
Supporting information/background
Less Important Information
Minor Details
Least Important Info
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Adopt An Inverted Body

• Structure of a news story
• (300500 words, 23 sentences per para)
• Lead most basic questions (1 paragraph)
• Off-lead the rest, specific info, immediate
  follow-up (2-3 paras)
• Nut answer to so what (why the news is
  important) (1 para)
• Necessary Background bio-info, definitions,
  history (1 para)
• Summary direct quote if there is
• More basic info, secondary or less important
  materials, statistics
• Explanations or comments experts, affected
  sources.

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• HK Experts Identify Gene That Promotes Liver
  Cancer Growth
• A recently-discovered gene may be responsible for
  the proliferation of liver cancer cells, a study
  in Hong Kong has found, and researchers hope this
  finding may offer new ideas for therapy.
• In a paper published in the Journal of Clinical
  Investigation, the researchers said the gene
  needed to be switched on by the male sex hormone
  androgen - which explains why many more men than
  women are afflicted by this disease.
• Through analyzing liver cancer tissues of
  patients, researchers at the Chinese University
  in Hong Kong found that most of them shared an
  extraordinarily active gene, called Cell
  Cycle-Related Kinase (CCRK).
• "This gene is normally asleep, but we found that
  androgen receptors come by and nudge it awake.
  Once awake, the CCRK gene induces growth of liver
  cells," Alfred Cheng, research associate
  professor at the university's Institute of
  Digestive Disease, told Reuters late on Tuesday.
• "Apart from triggering a growth in liver cells,
  it can also transform normal liver cells into
  tumor cells.
• "CCRK was only recently discovered. We have few
  details about this gene and we are one of the
  first groups to study it.
• Cheng and colleagues introduced the gene into
  liver cancer cells and saw how they proliferated
  wildly on laboratory dishes, while liver cancer
  cells without the gene grew only modestly.
• They replicated the experiment in animals,
  injecting liver cancer cells containing the CCRK
  gene into the right side of the bodies of mice,
  while liver cancer cells without the gene were
  injected into the left. Tumors later developed
  only on the right side of the rodents.
• Cheng said more studies were needed to confirm
  the function of this gene and figure out ways to
  disable it.
• "This CCRK gene can be an important target for
  liver cancer control if we can find a way to
  lower its expression, or block it and not allow
  it to perform at all. Then we can reduce the
  development of liver cancer," he said.
• Liver cancer is the third leading cancer killer
  in the world, accounting for 700,000 deaths in
  2008. It is especially prevalent in East Asia,
  particularly China.
• A direct causal agent for liver cancer is the
  hepatitis B virus, carried by 10 percent of the
  population in China. In some places in China and
  Japan, men are three to seven times more likely
  to develop liver cancer than women.

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• How to report a meeting?
• Does it have
• VIPs?
• Significant Achievements?
• Interesting Details?
• Attractive remarks?
• Use the above-mentioned elements to organize your
  story.
• DO NOT pile up a series of big and small about
  the meeting!!!

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• Suggested Style
• Lead ?????????????????????????
• Body ????? ???????????,?????????????
  ???? ????????
• Ending ????

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• LU Yongxiang Economic Crisis Harbors
  Significant Scientific Innovation
• "The world is facing an era of science and
  technology innovation and revolution currently,
  said LU Yongxiang, president of the Chinese
  Academy of Sciences, recently during a
  conference.  
• The conclusion comes out based on three factors
  according to LU. First, global economic crises
  often give birth to significant science and
  technology innovation and revolution in modern
  history. Second, acute conflict between the rapid
  economic growth and the limited natural resources
  calls the breakthrough and revolution of science
  and technology. Thirdly, science has subsided for
  more than 60 years while the cycles of technology
  revolution have been shortened greatly. Signs for
  science and technology revolution are abundant
  and highly visible, he said. 
• The development pattern of China is still highly
  problematic. Economic growth depends seriously on
  investment, export and manufacture that consumes
  large amount of natural resources and unskilled
  workers, said Lu. Science and technology
  innovation must address national need of
  sustainable development.  
• Financial crisis may bring favourable turn for
  Chinese science and technology growth, according
  to Lu. He said that CAS is considering carrying
  out the Third Phase of the Innovation Project to
  face possible challenge of the coming science and
  technology revolution.  
• The Innovation Project of CAS was first put
  forward against the setting of Asian financial
  crisis in 1997.

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• How to report a visit?
• Does it have
• VIPs? (famous prize-winners, national
  delegation, masters)
• New Achievements?
• Agreements on Research?
• Co-op projects(equipments, labs, sites,
  constructions, etc)?
• Use the above-mentioned elements to organize your
  story.
• DO NOT pile up schedules, speeches, ceremonies,
  etc!!!

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• China, DPRK to Boost Renewable Energy Co-op
• China and the Democratic People's Republic of
  Korea (DPRK) have agreed to share their
  experience and beef up cooperation in exploring
  and utilizing renewable energy.
• The agreement was made during a meeting on
  Wednesday between senior Communist Party of China
  (CPC) official Zhou Yongkang and a delegation
  from the Korean Workers Party (KWP), led by Thae
  Jong Su, an alternate member of the KWP's
  Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat.
• Thae told Zhou that the main purpose of his
  current China trip is to learn from China's
  experience in developing geothermal resources, as
  specified by the DPRK's top leader, Kim Jong-il.
• The DPRK hopes to use geothermal energy in its
  efforts to develop its economy and build a strong
  and prosperous country, Thae said.
• Zhou, a member of the Standing Committee of the
  CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, told Thae
  that China would like to enhance its exchanges
  with the DPRK in the field in order to jointly
  improve their capability to develop and utilize
  renewable energy.
• "I once worked in China's oil industry for a long
  time, so I fully understood the importance of
  energy to a country," said Zhou, who is also
  secretary of the Political Science and Law
  Committee of the CPC Central Committee.

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• China, DPRK to Boost Renewable Energy Co-op
• Zhou served as vice minister of the Ministry of
  the Petroleum Industry from 1985 to 1988 and went
  on to work as deputy general manager of the China
  National Petroleum and Natural Gas Corporation
  from 1988 to 1996.
• He said China has been actively promoting reforms
  in its energy sector during the country's 12th
  Five-year Plan period (2011-2015).
• Hailing the sound momentum of China-DPRK
  relations, Zhou recalled Kim's successful visit
  to China earlier this year, during which Kim
  exchanged views with President Hu Jintao on major
  issues of common concern.
• Kim also sent a congratulatory letter to Hu
  regarding the 90th anniversary of the CPC's
  founding, Zhou said.
• "We are glad to see that the two sides have
  engaged in high-level exchanges and substantial
  cooperation in various areas and made concerted
  efforts for common development and regional peace
  and stability," he said.
• Thae also conveyed greetings from Kim to Hu
  during the meeting.
• The DPRK delegation is visiting China from July 5
  to 9 at the invitation of the International
  Department of the CPC Central Committee.
• Senior CPC official Liu Qi also met with the
  delegation later Wednesday afternoon.

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• How to report international cooperation projects?
• Distill the following info from your materials
• What project by who and who starting from when?
• What does the project planning to do?
• What will both sides provide to support/carry
  out the project?
• Are there one or two sentences of quote from
  concerned VIPs?
• Against what background? First time, or the
  second/th stage?
• Maybe the signing ceremony, the impact or other
  minor details
• Use the above-mentioned elements to organize your
  story.
• DO NOT pile up attendees, speeches, ceremonies,
  etc!!!

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• Max Planck Society Steps up Cooperation with
  India
• The new Max Planck Center will broaden the scale
  of cooperation with India in the field of
  computer sciences.
• "The goal is to create a center of excellence
  which not only engages in top-level research but
  also opens up career opportunities for young
  scientists in India," says Peter Gruss, President
  of the Max Planck Society. At the same time the
  project aims to help outstanding foreign guest
  scientists at Max Planck Institutes to establish
  themselves scientifically in their home country
  and maintain a long-term connection with the
  institutes of the Max Planck Society.
• German Federal President Horst Köhler will join
  with India's Minister for Science Technology
  Prithviraj Chavan in inaugurating the Max Planck
  Center at the Indian Institute of Technology in
  Delhi on February 3rd. The Center comprises six
  Indo-German research groups four more are due to
  be added after a period of twelve months. In the
  coming five years these groups will receive
  around 1.1 million euros in funding from the
  German Federal Ministry for Education and
  Research (BMBF) and an additional two million
  euros from India's Department of Science and
  Technology (DST).

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• Max Planck Society Steps up Cooperation with
  India
• Overview of the new research groups
• Algorithm Group at the Indian Institute of
  Technology (IIT) in Delhi
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer
  Science
• Graphics and Vision Group at the Indian
  Institute of Technology in Delhi
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer
  Science
• Data Management Group at the Indian Institute of
  Technology in Mumbai
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer
  Science
• Network Group at the Indian Institute of
  Technology in Madras
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer
  Science
• Algorithms and Complexity Group at the Indian
  Institute of Technology in Kanpur
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer
  Science
• Algorithm Group at the TATA Institute for
  Fundamental Research in Mumbai
• Partner Max Planck Institute for Computer Science

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• Max Planck Society Steps up Cooperation with
  India
• The joint scientific program is intended to
  encourage the exchange of post-docs and promote
  shared workshops and training activities, for
  example in the context of the International Max
  Planck Research Schools (IMPRS). There are also
  plans to integrate scientists from other
  institutions as associate partners and provide
  mutual access to research institutes and
  equipment.
• "India represents a special area of emphasis for
  the Max Planck Society and its international
  relations activities," explains Felix Kahle, who
  represents the Max Planck Society in Delhi. For
  example, there are an increasing number of
  outstanding Indian institutes working in
  scientific fields in which Max Planck Institutes
  are seeking partners on a worldwide basis. In
  2008 some 557 junior and visiting scientists came
  from India, representing an increase of more than
  80 percent over the past five years. More than
  1/10 of the foreign doctoral students at Max
  Planck Institutes now hail from the
  sub-continent. Many of them are engaged in
  research at International Max Planck Research
  Schools. The 120 Indian students participating in
  this program constitute the largest group from
  any one foreign country.
• Outstanding scientists also continue to receive
  support after their return to their home country
  through the medium of Partner Groups. Currently,
  there are 14 of such groups in India, more than
  in any other country. "It is a matter of
  particular concern to the Max Planck Society that
  we should support foreign guest scientists at our
  institutes in establishing themselves
  scientifically in their home countries in order
  to preserve long-term ties between them and the
  Max Planck Institutes. This is of benefit to both
  sides," explains Kurt Mehlhorn, Director at the
  Max Planck Institute in Saarbrücken. Prof.
  Mehlhorn will head the Center together with
  Naveen Garg of the Indian Institute of Technology
  (IIT) in Delhi.

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• How to report a ceremony?
• Opening ceremony, foundation-laying, closing
  ceremony, check and acceptance
• If opening ceremony, laying foundation () then
  it starts
• If closing ceremony, check acceptance (), then
  it completes
• DO NOT pile up attendees, schedules, speeches,
  etc!!!

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• China, France Strengthen Cooperation on
  Prevention against Emerging Infectious Diseases
• The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) starts a
  Sino-France bio-safety laboratory Zhengdian
  Laboratory in Wuhan on June 30, marking a new
  phase of collaboration between China and France
  on prevention against emerging infectious
  diseases.
• The laboratory will serve as a new workbench for
  China and France to carry our joint research
  projects, advance cooperation on prevention
  against emerging infectious diseases.
• The Zhengdian Laboratory is jointly built and
  managed by CAS and Health Ministry of China. The
  establishment of the lab will not only enhance
  the research capacity of Wuhan Institute of
  Virology, but provide ST support for infectious
  disease prevention and control as well as the
  construction of biological safety research system
  in China and the globe.
• The cornerstone-laying ceremony of the lab was
  presided by LI Jiayang, Vice President of the CAS
  and attracted over 200 attendees from China and
  France, including China's Health Minister CHEN
  Zhu, CAS President BAI Chunli, and Sylvie-Agnès
  BERMANN, French ambassador to China.
• China and France have carried out a series of
  cooperation in research projects, personnel
  training, and regulation formulation under the
  cooperation agreement on prevention against
  emerging infectious diseases signed in 2004
  between the two countries.

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Adopt An Inverted Body

• How to report research progress?
• Structure Tell it like a real news story with
  lead, off-lead, research process details,
  conclusions, etc. (NOT Science Report)
• Complete News Elements Five Ws and One H
• Simple but not CRUDE
• Use the abstract properly, rewrite it
• Contact of researchers if possible.

40

• Digital versus Analog Control over Cortical
  Inhibition
• In the cerebral cortex, the balance between
  excitation (pyramidal neurons) and inhibition
  (interneurons) is thought to be mediated by the
  primary mode of neuronal communication
  "all-or-none" action potentials, or spikes.
  However, Dr. SHU Yousheng's research group at the
  Institute of Neuroscience of Chinese Academy of
  Sciences has discovered a new strategy by which
  the cortex can maintain this balance, by showing
  that the amount of inhibition depends on the
  membrane potentials (Vm) in pyramidal cells,
  which represents an "analog" strategy. Their
  results will be published next week in the
  online, open access journal PLoS Biology.
• The cortex consists of recurrent networks, where
  pyramidal cells send action potentials down their
  axons to excite interneurons, which in turn
  inhibit the pyramidal cells through disynaptic
  inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs). This
  back-and-forth process serves to keep a stable
  excitation/inhibition ratio critical for proper
  cortical function. In the classic view, these
  action potentials are delivered if and only if
  the Vm crosses a certain threshold and are
  invariable in their shape, which is the
  all-or-none fashion of rapid neuron-to-neuron
  communication. But is there an analog component?
• Using paired recording from two pyramidal cells
  within a recurrent circuit, Dr. SHU and
  colleagues discovered that a slight positive
  shift (depolarization) in Vm of the first
  pyramidal cell could increase the disynaptic
  IPSPs received by the second one. In other words,
  this study provides the first evidence
  demonstrating that an analog change of excitation
  can regulate feedback inhibition, with the
  information carriers no longer stereotyped.

41

• Digital versus Analog Control over Cortical
  Inhibition
• "This type of regulation could be a key mechanism
  for the cortex to maintain a dynamic balance of
  excitation and inhibition, and generate
  appropriate cortical rhythms under different
  behavioral states," said Dr. SHU, "It may also
  play an important role in preventing abnormal
  cortical activities including epileptiform
  activity during seizures."
• Therefore, future studies may focus on whether
  the Vm-dependent modulation of inhibition has an
  impact on information processing under both
  normal and pathological conditions, and whether
  the analog signaling influences the operation of
  other cortical circuits. Nevertheless, to what
  extent these findings may influence the
  conceptual framework of a "digital brain" is
  still open to further computational and
  theoretical investigation.
• This work was supported by the 973 Program
  (2011CBA00400 and 2006CB806600), the National
  Natural Science Foundation of China Project
  (31025012), the Shanghai Pujiang Program
  07PJ14108, the Hundreds of Talents Program and
  the Knowledge Innovation Project from Chinese
  Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-YW-R-102).
• CONTACT
• Dr. SHU Yousheng
• Principal Investigator
• Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory
  of Neuroscience
• Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences,
  Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Tel [phone] Email shu_at_ion.ac.cn

42
Ending, if necessary

• Usually merge with the conclusion of a news
  story, stating the consequence, impact or
  influence of the news facts.

43
ATTENTION!!!

• No first person(s)
• Numbers zeronine ? spell out
• Spell the name like this BAI Chunli
• Order of TITLE name, age, position, work unit
• Mark out the caption and source of the pictures
• Waste words in news story
• etc so on to some extent on one hand, on
  the other hand seem any adverb adjective you
  dont support with facts

44

• CONTACT
• ? 010-68597144
• chenna_at_cashq.ac.cn

45

• THANK U
• Have A Nice Day