{"id":537888,"date":"2026-07-22T02:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537888\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T02:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:47:14","slug":"crawfish-soup-on-mars-us-fears-over-chinas-scientific-ambitions-raised-in-senate-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537888\/","title":{"rendered":"Crawfish soup on Mars? US fears over China\u2019s scientific ambitions raised in Senate hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Chinese researcher\u2019s vision of serving spicy crawfish soup to astronauts on <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/chinas-mars-mission?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mars<\/a> became an unlikely symbol of Washington\u2019s growing anxiety over China\u2019s scientific ambitions at a <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/us-senate?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">US Senate<\/a> hearing on Tuesday.Drew Endy, associate professor at Stanford University and director of bio-strategy and leadership at the Hoover Institution, said that last autumn he met a 20-year-old Chinese researcher from <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/shanghai?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shanghai<\/a> at a scientific conference in Paris.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Dressed in a large red crawfish costume, the young scientist described work on enzymes that could break down crawfish shells, allowing the material to be reused in a future circular economy on Mars.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The researcher assumed Chinese astronauts would eventually reach the planet \u2013 and would want spicy crawfish soup when they did, Endy said. The discarded shells could then be turned into other useful materials, including fabric.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re competing with,\u201d Endy said. \u201cThe vibe is good in Beijing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s Zhu Rong rover discovers evidence of an ancient sea on Mars<\/p>\n<p>The colourful anecdote captured the central concern running through the hearing: while Republicans and Democrats increasingly agree that China poses a formidable scientific and technological challenge, they remain divided over whether US President <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/donald-trump?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> cuts to research funding are undermining the country\u2019s ability to respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chinese researcher\u2019s vision of serving spicy crawfish soup to astronauts on Mars became an unlikely symbol of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[8180,363,4177,607,10126,65,264859,264861,264860,6248,4452,264858,111,139,69,6943,147,392,35760,1430],"class_list":["post-537888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alibaba-group-holding","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-commerce-department","tag-donald-trump","tag-drew-endy","tag-hoover-institution","tag-julia-phillips","tag-mars","tag-moonshot-ai","tag-national-science-board","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paris","tag-science","tag-space","tag-stanford-university","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}