With global energy demand climbing and climate challenges intensifying, researchers are exploring transformative new ways to make chemical manufacturing sustainable. In a newly published review, an international team led by Dr. Yong Jiang and colleagues from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Technical University of Denmark, and Tsinghua University highlight “biohybrid” synthesis systems—an innovative technology integrating living cells with advanced materials—to unlock clean production of chemicals for a greener future.

Clothianidin, a widely used neonicotinoid pesticide, is notorious for its persistence in soils and accumulation in crops, posing risks to ecosystems and human health. Now, scientists have found a way not only to remove this pesticide from soil but also to transform it into a useful nutrient for plants.

What if we told you that the plastic shopping bag from last week’s grocery run could one day help detect toxic metals in drinking water? Sounds like science fiction? Think again. A dazzling new breakthrough led by Dr. Indriana Kartini from the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, is doing exactly that—turning plastic waste into glowing nanomaterials that can sense pollution in water. And yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.

In machine learning tasks for applications as diverse as facial recognition and movie recommendations, neural networks have been used extensively. To address the complexities of neural networks and issues such as overfitting, loss of generalization power, and excessive hardware cost, Qing et al. developed a general compression scheme based on automatically differentiable tensor networks that considerably reduces the number variational parameters needed while maintaining or improving the network’s performance. Their work was published on May 15, 2025, in an article titled “Compressing Neural Networks Using Tensor Networks with Exponentially Fewer Variational Parameters” in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal.

As global climate change exacerbates water scarcity, understanding how grapevines respond to water deficit stress is vital for ensuring the sustainability of vineyards. 

In a recent study, researchers identified key genetic factors that enhance tea plant resistance to Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, the pathogen responsible for anthracnose, a devastating disease in tea cultivation. 

Molten calcium–magnesium–alumina–silicate (CMAS) is easy to wet and penetrate into thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), causing the coating corrosion and premature failure. Applying a protective layer on the TBC surface is considered a useful method to alleviate CMAS attack. In this study, a bilayer-structured apatite layer was constructed by pre-reacting GdPO₄ with CMAS powders. It consists of an acicular upper layer and a compact lower layer, which remained microstructure integrity after heat treatment at 1250 °C for 50 h, and did not crack after 100 thermal cycles. At 1250 °C for 30 min, the CMAS contact angle on the bilayer-structured apatite layer was 17.4 °, exhibiting excellent low-wettability to CMAS. In addition, the layer provides outstanding resistance to the penetration of molten CMAS. Hence, the bilayer-structured apatite layer can be used as a protective layer for TBCs to fundamentally address the CMAS corrosion issue.

China’s BGI Genomics has marked its 26th anniversary with the launch of a newly developed AI-powered health management platform for the strategic commitment to global healthcare transformation. The platform enhances diagnostic efficiency and enables proactive disease prevention, creating a new standard in precision medicine.

As Saudi Arabia commemorates its 95th National Day and advances its Vision 2030 agenda, health innovation are driving a nationwide shift toward data-driven, precision-based healthcare. BGI Genomics, with its growing presence in the Kingdom and expertise in genomics and multi-omics technologies, is helping bring these goals closer to reality.

Researchers from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have identified a previously underexplored population of hypothalamic neurons that plays a pivotal role in regulating energy expenditure.