A recent study led by Prof. ZHANG Xiaoming's team at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Prof. Ian T. Baldwin's group at the CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, has uncovered a novel ecological strategy. Rather than passively "hitchhiking" within insect vectors, rice viruses actively manipulate plant defense pathways to protect their insect carriers. This discovery reshapes our understanding of plant–virus–insect–parasitoid interactions and provides new insights for sustainable pest and pathogen management.

A research team from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IEECAS) developed a semi-automated microanalytical method to quantify atmospheric plastic particles and their cross-compartmental fluxes—airborne, dustfall, rain, snow, and dust resuspension—in two major Chinese megacities: Guangzhou and Xi'an.

Under formaldehyde-acetic acid condensationreaction conditions, the V⁴⁺ phase (VO)₂P₂O₇ remains stable, while V⁵⁺ phases transform due to lattice oxygen loss. They ultimately form a reduced V⁴⁺ phase (R1-VOHPO₄), which can reversibly convert back into an intermediate α_II-VOPO₄ phase.Different phases play distinct roles in the reaction, collectively determining catalytic performance.

Controlling light is an important technological challenge – not just at the large scale of optics in microscopes and telescopes, but also at the nanometer scale. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam published a clever quantum trick that allows them to make a nanoscale mirror that can be turned on and off at will.