Prof. Guoying Gu team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University unveiled millimeter-scale soft robots today, solving a minimally invasive surgery hurdle: navigating narrow body orifices. They modified silicone with accelerators/thickeners to fix traditional bubble casting’s interfacial instability, making 1–3mm robots in 30 minutes via mini bubble casting. These robots can retrieve clots and check lungs; next, they’ll add sensors and hydrogel drug coatings for "in-body pharmacies."

Exploring topological singularities in non-Hermitian photonic systems has recently become a frontier in modern physics and engineering. Towards this goal, researchers in China have experimentally realized the transition from a bound state in the continuum (BIC) to an exceptional point (EP) in a terahertz metasurface by tuning the incident angle. Optical pumping modulates silicon’s carrier concentration, enabling dynamic EP switching and THz beam deflection for compact sensing and non-Hermitian photonic applications.

The study reveals a new regulatory mechanism controlling the biosynthesis of tanshinones and phenolic acids in Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen), a key herb in traditional Chinese medicine. Researchers identified SmCSN5, a subunit of the COP9 signalosome complex, as a stabilizing partner of the transcription factor SmMYB36, which simultaneously promotes tanshinone synthesis and represses phenolic acid formation. SmCSN5 prevents SmMYB36 degradation through the ubiquitin–proteasome pathway and enhances its transcriptional activity under methyl jasmonate induction. This work uncovers a post-translational control layer coordinating secondary metabolism in medicinal plants, providing new insights for metabolic engineering to selectively enhance pharmacologically active diterpenoid compounds.

Salicylic acid (SA) plays a pivotal role in plant defense, yet its genetic regulation in tea remains largely unexplored. By analyzing 299 tea accessions through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), researchers uncovered a key gene—CsNCED1—that negatively regulates SA-mediated immune responses. Overexpression of this gene increased abscisic acid (ABA) levels and weakened pest resistance by suppressing SA biosynthesis and its receptor signaling pathway. The findings reveal the antagonistic interplay between ABA and SA in determining tea plants’ susceptibility to biotic stress, offering crucial genetic resources for marker-assisted breeding of insect-resistant cultivars.

Grapevine berries possess remarkable metabolic flexibility that enables them to sustain growth even when photosynthetic carbon input is restricted. By integrating analyses of 42 metabolites, 21 enzyme activities, and transcriptomic data, researchers revealed how Vitis vinifera berries adjust central carbon metabolism under carbon limitation. The study found that glycolytic intermediates and amino acids accumulated to maintain osmotic and energy balance, while tricarboxylic acid (TCA) intermediates remained stable. Despite these metabolic changes, most enzyme activities showed minimal response, indicating tight regulatory coordination at the post-transcriptional level. These findings highlight the adaptive mechanisms of grape berries to carbon stress, providing insights into managing fruit quality under climate change.

Abstract

Purpose – We are the first to investigate the relationship between seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) and anchoring on historical high prices in China.

Design/methodology/approach – We use the ratio of the recent closing price to its historical high in the previous 12–60 months (anchoring-high-price ratio) to study its impact on the market timing of SEOs.

Findings – Empirical results show that the anchoring-high-price ratio significantly and positively affects the probability of additional stock issuances. Contrary to the USA market, the Chinese stock market reacts negatively to the SEOs at historical highs. Moreover, the anchoring-high-price ratio exacerbates the negative effect of announcements and leads to long-term underperformance. Finally, we investigate the impact of the anchoring-high-price ratio on a company’s capital structure, showing that the additional issuance anchoring on historical highs reduces the company’s leverage ratio in the long run. Overall, our findings support the anchoring theory and can help understand better the anchoring behavior of managers and the company’s decision on additional stock issuances.

Originality/value – We are the first to use the anchoring-high-price ratio to study the timing of SEOs. We find that the anchoring-high-priceratio positively affects the probability of SEOs. Unlike the USA, the Chinese stock market reacts negatively to SEOs at high prices. SEOs anchoring on historical highs reduce a firm’s leverage ratio in the long run. Finally, our results support the anchoring theory.

Wearable ultrasound devices represent a transformative advancement in therapeutic applications, offering noninvasive, continuous, and targeted treatment for deep tissues. These systems leverage flexible materials (e.g., piezoelectric composites, biodegradable polymers) and conformable designs to enable stable integration with dynamic anatomical surfaces. Key innovations include ultrasound-enhanced drug delivery through cavitation-mediated transdermal penetration, accelerated tissue regeneration via mechanical and electrical stimulation, and precise neuromodulation using focused acoustic waves. Recent developments demonstrate wireless operation, real-time monitoring, and closed-loop therapy, facilitated by energy-efficient transducers and AI-driven adaptive control. Despite progress, challenges persist in material durability, clinical validation, and scalable manufacturing. Future directions highlight the integration of nanomaterials, 3D-printed architectures, and multimodal sensing for personalized medicine. This technology holds significant potential to redefine chronic disease management, postoperative recovery, and neurorehabilitation, bridging the gap between clinical and home-based care.

A research team from Queensland University of Technology has developed an effective strategy to enhance sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) by using lignin, a natural polymer, as sustainable precursor for hard carbon anodes. Lignin, which is a by-product of processing biomass, has chemical treated to eliminate its hemicellulose. The purified lignin was used to make hard carbon (HC) with improved structural properties, like short-range graphitic layers, fewer defects, and a better pore structure that facilitates sodium storage. Their findings demonstrated that removing hemicellulose significantly boosts the initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE, 76.1%) and the reversible capacity of the hard carbon (277.5 mAh g^-1) , along with 86.1% capacity retention after 250 cycles. This study highlights that hemicellulose removal is a crucial first step in improving the electrochemical performance of lignin-derived HC.

The High Intensity heavy-ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) of  the Institute of Modern Physics, one of China's major scientific and technological infrastructure projects, successfully completed commissioning with beam on October 28, marking a crucial milestone in its construction.

Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is a complex, multifactorial condition that presents significant diagnostic challenges. Current clinical guidelines are often inadequate for idiopathic cases or emerging biomarkers, and artificial intelligence (AI) models struggle to integrate multimodal data.

To address these issues, this research developed RSA-KG, a graph-based, RAG-enhanced AI knowledge graph. The system synthesizes multimodal clinical data by integrating 5 international RSA guidelines, utilizing natural language processing (NLP) and multimodal models for data processing.

Evaluations demonstrated that Large Language Models (LLMs) enhanced by RSA-KG significantly outperformed both naive retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and raw models in diagnostic accuracy. Furthermore, reproductive specialists rated the outputs from the RSA-KG system more favorably than those from raw models or other medical LLMs. RSA-KG represents a novel approach to RSA management, overcoming the limitations of traditional AI by modeling systemic interactions and integrating real-time evidence.