Rao Yi

Rao Yi (born 1962) is a Chinese neurobiologist. A graduate of the University of California, San Francisco, Rao held a Helen Hay Whitney fellowship at Harvard University and was on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University before moving back to China to take up the deanship of Peking University's School of Life Sciences in 2007. He is currently the director the IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Peking University.

Personal life and education

Rao was born in Jiangxi in 1962. In college, he was friends with Mei Lin, who also became a neurobiologist later. In graduate school at Shanghai Medical University, Rao was roommates with Lu Bai (鲁白), now also an eminent neurobiologist. At SMU, his interests began to turn to molecular neurobiology.

In 1985, Rao enrolled at the University of California at San Francisco. He describes the atmosphere at UCSF as far more exciting than that to which he had previously been exposed in China. His advisors were Yuh-Nung and Lily Jan. He discovered the big brain gene, which is required for a binary decision in neural development: to form a neuron or an epidermal cell. He defended his doctoral thesis on molecular and genetic analysis of intercellular communication in Drosophila neurogenesis at UCSF in 1991.

Rao

Rao or RAO may refer to:

General

People and fictional characters

Science

Rao (comics)

Rao is a fictional star in the DC Comics Universe. It is the red supergiant (in some continuities, red dwarf) that the planet Krypton orbited.

"Rao" is also later written into the Superman mythology as the name of a Kryptonian deity, the personification of their sun, worshipped as a god of light and life. As such the name was sometimes invoked in the comics as a Kryptonian exclamation.

History

In the early years of Superman comics, the sun of Krypton was unnamed and was given no effect on Superman's powers, which were attributed first to greater evolution, and then to a combination of innate powers and Earth's lower gravity. Starting in 1960, the fact that Earth's sun was yellow while Krypton's was red became the explanation for Superman's powers, with our sunlight fueling them like the charge of a battery. In the standard Silver Age continuity existing up until Crisis on Infinite Earths, Rao's red sun radiation actively suppressed the superhuman abilities of Kryptonians, as their powers only worked in the radiation of a yellow sun. The post-Crisis version created by John Byrne stated that Kryptonians absorbed solar energy, with the dim output of Rao being just enough to sustain them, and a yellow sun producing enough energy to "supercharge" a Kryptonian metabolism to levels of power not seen in their native environment, though it takes years for Clark Kent to build up enough energy to reach the level of power he displays as Superman. The 2004 graphic novel Superman: Birthright corroborates this, although in recent years, other writers have depicted red-sun radiation matching that of Rao as once again actively shutting down Kryptonian powers, for as long as an individual is exposed to it.

Rao (Chinese surname)

Rao (simplified Chinese: 饶; traditional Chinese: 饒; pinyin: Ráo) is a Chinese family name. It can also be spelled as "Jao," "Yow" or "Yaw".

The surname Rao is approximately 2200 years old, and originated in the area near present-day Linfen county in Shanxi province.

List of people with this surname

References

See also