Direct photocatalytic oxidation of methane to methanol under ambient pressure offers an attractive route for C₁ valorization, yet it remains challenged by the competing requirements of activating inert C–H bonds while preventing methanol overoxidation. Here, a WO₃/BN interface is reported that addresses this activity-selectivity trade-off by regulating the balance of reactive oxygen species. Interfacial coupling with BN promotes hole extraction from WO₃ and induces electron accumulation in the WO₃ domains, thereby preferentially enhancing ·OOH generation and increasing the ·OOH/·OH ratio. The elevated ·OOH/·OH ratio balances methane activation and methanol formation. Specifically,·OOH radicals facilitate C–H bond activation in methane, whereas ·OH radicals react with the resulting *CH₃ intermediates to form methanol. The optimized WO₃/BN-1:1 catalyst achieves a CH₃OH production rate of 741.6 µmol/(g·h), nearly twice that of pristine WO₃, with a CH₃OH selectivity of 77.2% under ambient-pressure conditions. This work provides insights into regulating reactive oxygen species through interface engineering for the selective photocatalytic conversion of methane.

As a key strategy for reducing CO2 emissions, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) has gained increasing attention in the global pursuit of carbon neutrality and decarbonization. In particular, using a single material to achieve both efficient CO2 capture and photocatalytic CO2 conversion, thereby converting CO2 into high-value-added products, represents an attractive strategy. Such an integrated design can not only simplify the process flow and reduce energy consumption and costs, but also minimize losses associated with intermediate steps through in situ conversion, significantly improving overall carbon utilization efficiency. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous crystalline materials that can not only serve as physical adsorbents for CO2 capture but also enable chemisorption through the rational design and optimization of secondary building units, organic linkers, and pore environments. Additionally, by engineering their electronic structures to optimize band structures and charge transport pathways, MOFs can serve as highly promising photocatalysts. Considerable progress has been made in the application of MOFs for CO2 capture and conversion. However, significant advances are still needed in the development of integrated MOFs-based systems that combine CO2 capture, enrichment, and in situ photocatalytic conversion. To accelerate progress in this area, a detailed review of recent developments is particularly important. Therefore, this review summarizes recent advances in MOFs-based materials for CCU, with particular emphasis on strategies for enhancing both CO2 capture and photocatalytic CO2 conversion. Finally, it discusses the current challenges and future research directions for developing integrated MOFs-based CCU systems.

Researchers from Wuhan University have developed a new Uncertainty-Aware Filtering (UAF) algorithm that significantly enhances spacecraft autonomous navigation in deep-space environments characterized by weak gravity, strong perturbations, and limited prior knowledge, which is published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2025.103971). The method shows clear advantages over conventional Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) approaches and has been validated using simulations of China’s Tianwen-2 mission to asteroid 311P/PANSTARRS.

Quantum computing offers a promising pathway for accelerating large-scale scientific simulations, but applying it to computational fluid dynamics remains difficult. A new quantum TLFS-LBM framework reported in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2026.104176) introduces a fractional-step correction, a coordinate-based streaming matrix, and a multi-circuit strategy to enable practical incompressible-flow simulations on non-uniform meshes and complex boundaries while reducing quantum-circuit resource demands.

With the rapid advancement of pulsed power electronics, electric vehicles, avionic systems, and renewable energy grids, dielectric capacitors have emerged as indispensable components due to their ultrahigh power density and ultrafast charge–discharge rates. Traditional lead-based dielectric ceramics, however, pose severe environmental and health hazards during their fabrication, usage, and disposal. Sodium bismuth titanate (Bi_0.5Na_0.5TiO₃, BNT)-based lead-free relaxor ferroelectric ceramics have attracted increasing attention as promising alternatives owing to the large spontaneous polarization induced by the Bi³⁺ 6s² lone-pair electron configuration and their broad operational temperature stability arising from diffuse phase transitions. Nevertheless, challenges remain in coordinating polarization response, dielectric breakdown strength (E_b), and relaxation behavior across different operational voltages. Therefore, developing field-tailored multiscale design strategies is essential to meet growing performance demands in diverse electrostatic energy storage applications.

Small target detection and tracking in UAV remote sensing images are key tasks in fields such as security patrols and traffic monitoring. Recently, a framework called the Cropped Target Detection and Tracking Framework, through cropping and random sampling strategies, significantly improves real-time performance while ensuring small target positioning accuracy and tracking robustness, which is published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics.

Early warning alone cannot stop an outbreak. A new Perspective in Science Bulletin examines why signals from emerging infectious diseases can fail to trigger timely public health action, and proposes a practical pathway linking rapid verification, context-sensitive risk assessment, predefined action triggers and operational readiness.

Vascular topology and hemodynamics define tissue perfusion boundaries, providing essential information for surgical margin planning, vessel preservation, and postoperative functional assessment. Scientists in China developed PAATAM, a real-time photoacoustic tracking and mapping strategy that fuses vascular geometry and signal-intensity features to estimate six-degree-of-freedom handheld probe motion. The method reconstructs globally consistent panoramic 3D vascular maps with 99.67% registration accuracy, opening new avenues for photoacoustic surgical navigation and functional vascular assessment.