来自日本的Eiichi Takahashi教授是国际著名的实验岩石学家。他获中国科学院国际人才计划（PIFI）三期国际访问学者项目以及特需人才项目的资助，2017年4月起到中国科学院广州地球化学研究所工作，专攻高温高压实验模拟。以下是他的感想。

Research Life under COVID-19: Summary of PIFI Program 2020

Fig.1

The year 2020 may be recorded as one of the worst years of the 21st century due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I spent most of 2020 in Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province, but visited Japan twice. The first visit was over the Spring Festival holiday for two weeks, but I could not return to China due to the pandemic until March (so my trip lasted from January 28 to March 15). The second visit was unexpected but I needed to visit my 94-year-old mother before she passed away on September 2 (from July 23 to September 9). Both trips were quite difficult due to the scarce flights between Japan and China, and a painful two weeks’ quarantine on both sides. Through these painful journeys, I found differences between China and Japan in social systems and government attitudes to the pandemic. In China, COVID-19 was strictly controlled and ceased quickly under the decisive leadership of the government but in Japan, the USA and EU countries governments failed to control the pandemic. I became skeptical of the absence of government leadership in our societies.

Thanks to the PIFI program, I was in Guangzhou where research life was possible to restart in April and PhD researchers came back in May (Fig. 1). On the other hand, universities and research laboratories were closed until the end of summer in Japan, the USA and most EU countries. In collaboration with young researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (GIG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), I could have published three research papers in 2020 in Nature Indexed Journals and proposed a model for magma genesis in subduction zones (Fig.2). In this model, Wang Jintuan and myself tried to explain the origin of coherent magma production along the volcanic front based on our experimental results. I came back to Guangzhou together with Dr. Yuto Sato, who finished a PhD in Tokyo University this spring (Fig. 4). With Dr. Sato and GIG SIMS scientists, we are trying to establish a joint project to analyze water in nominally anhydrous minerals using FTIR and SIMS (Fig. 3). This project will lead GIG to be the first laboratory in China at which water in minerals can be analyzed down to 1 ppm level, precisely.

Fig. 2

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Fig.4

I feel rather guilty that I am enjoying research life in Guangzhou because many of my friends in other countries still suffer the social crisis caused by COVID-19. I hope that the situation will become better as the winter finishes and useful vaccines will be given to people. In 2020, I canceled presentations at the JpGU conference in Tokyo and the AGU annual meeting in San Francisco. I hope that we can visit and present talks at these conferences and exchange scientific results in 2021.

关于Eiichi Takahashi教授的报道见http://www.gig.cas.cn/gjjl/jldt/202106/t20210624_6116764.html（中）、http://english.gig.cas.cn/ns/icn/202107/t20210712_275763.html（英）。