Festival highlights scientific advances

The G60 Valley Science and Technology Festival of Yangtze River Delta opened in Songjiang District on Thursday.

This year's festival will focus on the fruitful outcomes of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Valley, a Songjiang-initiated alliance of nine major cities in the delta region. 

Some of the Songjiang's latest innovations were featured at the opening ceremony. They included the Tianma Telescope which now ranks No. 1 in Asia and No. 3 in the world for its overall performance, and the MATE exoskeleton developed by Coamu, a company focused on industrial automation. The wearable structure helps workers perform repetitive movements and makes lifting heavy objects easier.

There will be 88 scientific activities in Songjiang during the festival, 72.5 percent more than last year, according to the district's science bureau. 

They include events popularizing the science of plants at the Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden and free entry to the space navigation and location technique lab at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory.

The festival will run to June 9.