About The Hong Kong
Laureate Forum

The Hong Kong Laureate Forum aspires to be a world-class academic exchange event to connect the current and next generations of leaders in scientific pursuit, and to promote understanding and interests of the young generation in Hong Kong and around the world in various disciplines in science and technology.

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Inaugural Forum

 

The inaugural Hong Kong Laureate Forum took place on 13-18 November 2023. Shaw Laureates and distinguished scientists spent a week in Hong Kong interacting with almost 200 young scientists and Forum Ambassadors from around the world, sharing their views, experience and aspirations in various scientific fields. The week of programme consisted of world-class intellectual seminars, discussion groups, poster sessions and visits to the latest Hong Kong scientific development projects, universities and institutes as well as cross-cultural social activities.

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Shaw Laureates

 
The Shaw Prize is an international award to honour individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and significant advances, who have made outstanding contributions in academic and scientific research or applications, or who in other domains have achieved excellence. 

 

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Exploring New Horizons 2024

"Exploring New Horizons 2024" is one of the activities under "the HKLF Science Explorer Award Scheme 2023/2024 for Secondary Students", launched by the Council of the Hong Kong Laureate Forum. In this activity, senior secondary school students can visit local universities and research institutions' laboratories and engage in dialogue with local scientists and researchers, to gain a deeper understanding of scientists' work, cultivate their interest in science, and ignite their pursuit of scientific research advancement.

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Science in the Community

The Newly Developed High-Efficiency Carbon Dioxide Electroreduction System Targets to Reduce Carbon Footprint and Progress Carbon Neutrality Goals

Background: Global warming continues to pose a threat to human society and the ecological systems, and carbon dioxide accounts for the largest proportion of the greenhouse gases that dominate climate warming. To combat climate change and move towards the goal of carbon neutrality, researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed a durable, highly selective and energy-efficient carbon dioxide (CO2) electroreduction system that can convert CO2 into ethylene for industrial purposes to provide an effective solution for reducing CO2 emissions...

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Gut Microbiota Modulation for Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome: Current Evidence

Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome ("long COVID") refers to long-term symptoms that persist after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, affecting multiple organs and systems. Long COVID affects over 65 million people worldwide, yet effective treatment is limited. Our research team at the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK Medicine) has completed a large-scale double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial, which confirmed that patients who were given an oral synbiotic preparation (SIM01) developed by CUHK experienced significant alleviation in various long COVID symptoms...

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Alpacas and Nanobodies

When we think of alpacas, the first things that pop up in our minds may be holiday farms or alpaca fleece. However, if you ask a biomedical scientist, they may have thought of nanobody, fragment of a special type of antibody...

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Last Solar Eclipse 2019


On 26 December, there was an annular eclipse occurred. However, people could only see the partial eclipse in Hong Kong. What is the partial eclipse? What is the difference between it and annular eclipse? How should we observe this kind of celestial events?

A solar eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon which occurs when a portion of the Earth is engulfed in a shadow cast by the Moon which fully or partially blocks sunlight. This occurs when the Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned. Such alignment coincides with a new moon (syzygy) indicating the Moon is closest to the ecliptic plane. There are four types of solar eclipses: the total eclipse, the annular eclipse, the partial eclipse and the hybrid eclipse. An annular solar eclipse occurred on 26 December 2019. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide, such as in Hong Kong.

The strong sunlight would cause blindness if an observer looks at the Sun directly. A safe method to observe the solar eclipse is to project the solar eclipse image through a pin-hole device onto a white cardboard and look at the projection. A telescope can be used to replace the pin-hole device to produce clearer images but the observer must ensure that he/she looks at the cardboard only.

In 2020, it is expected to have two more solar eclipses worldwide, an annular solar eclipse on 21 June and a total solar eclipse on 14 December. However, we can only observe a partial solar eclipse in Hong Kong on 21 June. Don’t miss the chance to see this astronomical phenomenon!

 

Acknowledgement: 
Hong Kong Observatory
Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre (Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen)