Science Highlights

Multicore fibres, one of the candidates for next-generation high-capacity communication carriers, have a complex internal structure that limits their manufacturing monitoring, fibre splicing, and micro-nano processing to some extent. To solve this problem, Chinese scientists have discovered a different way of imaging that can help people see the internal structure of optical fibres better and obtain higher measurement precision. This technology will open a new, structured light-based imaging pathway for future specialty fibre measurements.

Optical skyrmions are a novel family of topological quasiparticles of light with great potential in high-density informatics, but always require complex generation systems yet producing limited topologies. An internationally collaborated group demonstrated an extended family of quasiparticles beyond normal skyrmions generated from needle-like compact photonic gradient-index media, such as multiskyrmions and multimerons with increasingly complex topologies. The compact generator lends to integrated and programmable solutions of complex topologies for revolutionizing topological informatics and logic devices.

Chiral nanomaterials with intrinsic chirality or spatial asymmetry at the nanoscale are currently in the limelight of both fundamental research and diverse important technological applications due to their unprecedented physicochemical characteristics such as intense light-matter interactions, enhanced circular dichroism, and strong circularly polarized luminescence. In this review, we offer an account of the state-of-the-art advances on liquid crystal-templated chiral functional nanomaterials, including chiral plasmonic nanomaterials and chiral luminescent nanomaterials.

Dr. TANG Jing and her colleagues from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) carried out a statistical analysis of the radio-flaring brown dwarf population. The analysis has helped quantify the potential for finding such objects in Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) surveys.

The Insight-HXMT team has recently discovered a cyclotron absorption line with an energy of 146 keV in the neutron star X-ray binary Swift J0243.6+6124, corresponding to a surface magnetic field of more than 1.6 billion Tesla. After direct measurement of the strongest magnetic field in the universe at about 1 billion Tesla in 2020, the world records for the highest energy cyclotron absorption line and direct measurement of the strongest magnetic field in the universe have been refreshed significantly.

In order to accurately and efficiently identify the original plant of opium poppy in the anti-drug system, the Medicinal Plant Resources Group from the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences carried out research on opium poppy-specific molecular markers.

Using brain tissues from non-human primates (NHPs), the ideal model to mimic human hippocampal aging, scientists have worked jointly and established the first single-nucleus transcriptomic landscape of primate hippocampal aging. They revealed the molecular mechanism of its functional deterioration with age, and provided a valuable resource for the identification of new diagnostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for interventions against hippocampal aging and related human neurodegenerative disorders.

A group of scientists have recently found that F. graminearum perithecia provided a specific ecological niche for bacteria that could play an important role in disease establishment. The researchers have deciphered the mechanism of the inhibitory effect of herbicolin A on fungi and identified its biosynthetic gene cluster. This discovery will support future progress in the sustainable management of Fusarium head blight worldwide.

A collaborative research team has investigated how microgravity and simulated microgravity exposure alters visual BM perception and has examined the underlying neural processes.