Re: 82 year old scientist was awarded the "world outstanding female scientist" award, known as "national goddess".
in the office of Zhang Mayman, there is a cartoon: under the blue sky and white clouds, the sea breeze slowly, in the purple flower cheongsam, cartoon version of her, walking on the beach, holding a four leg of the strange fish. She said to the fish, "Yang, I want to take you to twentieth Century!"
this painting was a birthday gift from a student in 2011. The quadruped fish is the most important research achievement in her life -- "Yang Shi Yu".
according to Darwin's theory of evolution, all terrestrial vertebrates, including terrestrial quadruped animals, including humans, are evolved from vertebrates, fish, in water. However, what kind of fishes are the ancestors of the quadruped, and how they breathe through the water in the water and evolve to the terrestrial environment to breathe in the lungs has always been a mystery in the academic world.
since 1930s, the Swedish paleontologist yalvick studied the total fin fish fossils through the continuous grinding method. The fishes of the total finfins, like tetrapods, have a pair of inner nostrils that interconnect with the outer nostrils to make the air into the lungs. This finding means that the finned fishes are probably the ancestors of tetrapods. Over the next few years, the ancient fish scientists began to deduce on this basis, forming a set of increasingly perfect theories and being regarded as the mainstream authoritative viewpoint. In
1980, he visited the National Museum of natural history in Sweden and took the fossils of the "young fish" found by Yu Xiaobo and her graduate student in Qujing, Yunnan. Under yalwick, she began to use the continuous grinding method to study the fossil fish from China.
in an age of underdeveloped technology, "continuous grinders" can help researchers accurately grasp the internal structure of the fossils, but it also takes great patience and effort to seal the fossils in a plaster model for 1 / 20 millimeters, draw a face map, and then grind and redraw. All the work was done by hand, so it kept on until the whole piece of fossil grinding was finished. Yalwick has hosted two studies on the fins of fossil fins, one for 5 years and the other for more than 20 years.
in those days in Sweden, Mr Zhang worked day and night, sleeping only three or four hours a day and completed the painting of the fossils of the "young fish" in less than two years. A total of only 2.8 centimeters of fossils, she painted more than 540 pictures.
this exquisite blueprint provides valuable information for the study of the total fins, and a bigger surprise is waiting for her: in the process of making a piece of grinding, Mr. Zhang found that the fish had only one external nostril and had no inner nostrils!
"I don't believe it at the beginning. How can it be different from what the teacher said? But later I read the book and grind the specimen. I see it again and again. It is really different. It's very exciting at this time. Zhang Mi man told China News Weekly that "although the teacher was not happy, he was very happy."
is there only the Chinese finned fin fish with no inner nostrils? With this doubt, Zhang Mi man studied the similar fossils collected in England, France, Germany and other countries, and found that their structures were similar to those of Yang's fish. After a further comparison, she found that in the fossils studied by teacher yalvick, the location of the nostrils was not intact, so the picture he painted had a certain "recovery" component, not enough to prove that the total fins did exist in the inner nostrils. In
1982, Zhang Mi man officially published this achievement and won the doctorate degree from Stockholm University in Sweden with excellent results. At that time, her findings directly shook the traditional idea that "finned fishes are ancestors of quadruped animals", which has aroused great repercussions in academic circles.
later, studies on the vertebrate landing process have been carried out on this basis - in the early 90s, Zhang Miman and her student Zhu Min found the fossils of "Kenneth" 390 million years ago in Qujing, Yunnan; in 2004, Zhu Min and Swedish collaborator, Prof. The result of the follow-up study of "Kenneth": they believe that the later unearthed fossils have confirmed that the "Kenneth fish" is in the stage of transition from the outer nostril to the inner nostril. The head structure indicates that in the evolution of the meat fin fish, there is a process of re connection between the maxilla and the anterior maxilla, and the inner nostrils are from the inner nostrils. The excursion of the outer nostrils is formed. "This is a question that has been debated for hundreds of years, and the new information actually gives a clear answer," he said in a commentary on the current magazine.
"excuse me, can you say it again?"
now, in retrospect, Mr Zhang feels that the process of studying a degree in Sweden is significant to her career, "learning how to find problems and how to think scientifically". But to some extent, it would have been more likely to come earlier - when she was sent to Sweden in 60s, she was already working on the study of the early Devonian fishes in Yunnan. However, soon the "Cultural Revolution" began. She was recalled to the country ahead of time, and 14 years later, she was 44 years old.
sorry for missing time, Zhang Mi man worked hard all the time. In 1983, she became director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and paleontology. As the only female director in the history, she did not allow her research to be delayed by her transactional work: her academic achievements were even more than before in the two term. In the early days of
80, China had just regained consciousness from the isolation of the world. Great changes have taken place in the outside world. In the biological field, new technologies, new subjects, branches and interdisciplinary subjects in the West have springing up. In this context, paleontologists Zhou Mingzhen, Zhang meman and Yu Xiaobo, and others, began to collect and select foreign high quality papers and materials, hoping to introduce the advanced academic ideas that began to prevail in the middle of the 60s. After several years of translation and compilation, the translation system of branch system was born. In the early years of
90, Zhou Ming and Zhang Miman and others presided over the sibling of the translation set of branching systems, "the set of translations of isolated and differentiated biogeography". "This may not seem like anything at the moment, but at that time, the two books had great influence. In this way, the western academic ideas are quickly applied to the domestic scientific research work, and our generation has been able to make up for the time delayed in the cultural revolution. Zhu Min, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and paleontology of Zhang Mi man, said.
Zhu Min, who was also involved in the compilation of second sets of translations, reminiscent of the scene of the compilation of the manuscript with the teacher, "some of them are already academicians, are still doing so specific work, and the style of learning is very strict. Even if it is just a word or a term, a few old men will go over and over for a long time.
in the current director of Zhou Zhong and he seems to have been a "academic leader": "a foreign expert will give a lecture in his office. If a person does not understand one or two sentences, it may be past, but she will be sure to ask," excuse me, can you say it again? " She is not in a hurry either, nor is she embarrassed to ask such questions because she is a big professor.
is very strict with both students and herself, Zhang Mi man, but she is not old-fashioned. She always tries her best to help her younger generation. In the interview, Zhou Zhong and the Chinese Newsweek recollection of his own experience in the direction of his youth - because of the discovery of two important bird fossils, who had studied fishes who wanted to study the birds they were more interested in, which was very unruly at the time, but he stood up to support him. . Not only that, but later, Zhang Mi man volunteered to help him connect with the opportunity to attend international conferences and write letters of recommendation for him to go abroad for further studies.