An Yongrui (Photo : IC)
In October 2015, a former Italian porn star opened Porn University with only 21 aspiring adult movie applicants as enrollees.
If that number may seem small, China Daily reported on Wednesday that the Peking University has only one graduate for its Paleobiology program. But An Yongrui, this year’s sole graduate, is actually the university’s sixth who finished the course solo.
Every year for the past six years, out of millions of potential enrollees in China, only one student is attracted to the study of the history of life on Earth through fossils. The course, introduced in 2008, combines biology and geology. Apparently, Peking University is the only university in China willing to continue a program even if there is only one student per year.
An Yongrui, who became an online sensation after he posted his photo on social media, is not the first paleobiology graduate who has enjoyed internet fame because of their unique educational experience and status. The 2014 graduate, Xue Yifan, also became famous in the cyber world after he posted his selfie in front of a campus building with the caption, “Paleontology Class 2014, Peking University.”
Xue acquired a master’s degree in computational biology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and plans to pursue his doctorate at the University of Pittsburg.
Another Chinese paleobiologist has his team’s study published this week in the Science Advances journal. Sci-Tech Today reported that Bo Wang, a paleobiology graduate of the State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy in China, together with other scientists from the University of Bonn in Germany, documented a variety of insects trapped in fossilized amber adorned with small pieces of plants, dirt, sand grains and prey remains. It is proof of insect camouflage as early as 100 million years ago.
