News from China
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 28-Oct-2026 20:16 ET (29-Oct-2026 00:16 GMT/UTC)
Agriculture-independent bioplastic production: engineered bacteria synthesizes polylactic acid from solar C2 chemicals
HEP Data Cooperation JournalsResearchers have developed a novel chemo-biological hybrid system that enables the direct synthesis of polylactic acid from CO2, water, and renewable energy. By engineering Escherichia coli to utilize ethanol and acetate, this study establishes a sustainable route for bioplastic manufacturing that decouples agricultural feedstocks. The work highlights a synergistic cofeeding strategy that significantly enhances PLA titer, offering a promising solution to the environmental challenges associated with fossil-fuel and crop-based plastics.
- Journal
- Systems Microbiology and Biomanufacturing
Home-based strength training at different intensities: A new exploration for Duchenne muscular dystrophy rehabilitation
HEP Data Cooperation JournalsResearchers in China have designed an exploratory randomized controlled trial protocol to evaluate the safety, feasibility, and preliminary effects of a 12-month home-based strength training program delivered at three different intensities in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The findings are expected to provide critical data to guide future larger-scale trials and evidence-based exercise prescriptions.
- Journal
- Healthcare and Rehabilitation
A lotus leaf remedy to reboot the diabetic brain
HEP Data Cooperation JournalsA new mechanism based on Nuciferine, a bioactive alkaloid from lotus leaf, to ameliorate Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus-induced Cognitive Impairment (T2DM-CI) by directly targeting the Insulin Receptor (IR) and activating the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to reduce Tau hyperphosphorylation and oxidative stress is provided, and a new strategy for metabolic-targeted neuroprotection in diabetes is opened.
- Journal
- Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines
A useful formula’s dual strike on psoriasis
HEP Data Cooperation JournalsA novel mechanism based on Yinxie Granules and its core active ingredients (quercetin and kaempferol) to ameliorate psoriasis by blocking the STING-NF-κB signaling pathway to simultaneously suppress cutaneous inflammation and pathological angiogenesis is provided, and a new strategy for dual-targeting therapy of psoriasis is opened.
- Journal
- Protein & Cell
Pulsed electric fields offer safer pasteurization for colostrum
Maximum Academic PressA research team demonstrated that pulsed electric field (PEF) processing can effectively inactivate harmful foodborne bacteria in bovine colostrum while potentially preserving its valuable immune-supporting compounds.
- Journal
- Food Innovation and Advances
Can an AI knowledge base teach medicine? A VTE Education study shows strong performance in standardized tasks, but creative test writing still needs teacher oversight
Society of China University JournalsPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Funder
- The Innovative Teaching and Learning Program 3.0 of Peking University, The Educational Research Project of Peking University First Hospital
Cerium-doped bismuth oxyiodide enables efficient CO₂ conversion to cyclic carbonates
Higher Education PressPeer-Reviewed Publication
Researchers have developed a series of Ce-doped BiOI catalysts via a one-pot solvothermal method for the cycloaddition of CO₂ with epoxides to produce cyclic carbonates. Ce doping facilitates the formation of oxygen vacancy-mediated Lewis acid-base pairs, where Oᵥ–Ce³⁺ sites enhance epoxide adsorption and ring-opening, while Bi–Oᵥ sites supply CO₂ adsorption sites. The optimized Ce₀.₁Bi₀.₉OI catalyst achieves a butylene carbonate yield of 91 % under solvent- and cocatalyst-free conditions, with an apparent activation energy of 70.67 kJ·mol⁻¹ – 35 % lower than that of undoped BiOI.
- Journal
- ENGINEERING Chemical Engineering
Data‑driven framework reveals optimal scale‑up patterns for modular CO₂ reduction reactors
Higher Education PressPeer-Reviewed Publication
Researchers have developed a data-driven framework to analyze structure-performance relationships and identify optimal scale-up patterns for modular CO₂ reduction microreactors. Using extreme gradient boosting combined with SHAP analysis, the study reveals that cost is primarily governed by substrate-level features, while reaction performance and carbon footprint are dictated at the stack level. A classification model identifies Pareto-optimal designs with over 90 % accuracy, and K-means clustering uncovers four distinct scale-up patterns: small- and large-sized single-stack and few-stack parallel modules. These findings provide practical design rules for industrial-scale modular devices.
- Journal
- ENGINEERING Chemical Engineering
Quantifying and mitigating thermal interference for electrical capacitance tomography in high-temperature fluidized beds
Higher Education PressPeer-Reviewed Publication
Researchers have systematically quantified temperature-induced measurement errors in electrical capacitance tomography for high-temperature gas-solids fluidized beds. Numerical simulations across a broad geometric matrix (outer diameters from 27 to 1067 mm) combined with high-temperature experiments reveal that while normalized sensitivity distributions remain exceptionally stable, raw capacitance measurements are highly susceptible to thermal perturbations. Crucially, increasing wall thickness drastically amplifies errors for adjacent electrode pairs. Excluding adjacent measurements effectively suppresses thermal deviations, extending the permissible operating range at the cost of fine-scale boundary resolution. A theoretical equivalence between thermal distortions and inherent noise enables direct application of noise-based criteria to define operational limits.
- Journal
- ENGINEERING Chemical Engineering