A wild vegetable treasured in Northeast China for both its nutritional value and medicinal properties has had its entire genetic code deciphered for the first time.

For decades, plant breeders have worked with collapsed genome assemblies that merge two parental haplotypes into one, losing critical genetic information in the process. 

A recent study published in National Science Review has revealed that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), traditionally regarded as a single climate mode, consists of two distinct types with different physical mechanisms and climate impacts. The findings advance the understanding of Indian Ocean variability and provide new insights into how IOD events influence regional climate.

Improving the subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) forecast skill for East Asian winter cold surges remains a grand challenge in operational meteorology. Using ECMWF hindcast data, a research team systematically identified the "high-skill windows" of week-3 cold surge forecasts. They found that a "warm-west/cold-east" sea surface temperature dipole over the mid-latitude North Pacific emerges as a consistent precursor of these windows under both El Niño and La Niña conditions, but that the dipole alone is not enough: high skill emerges only when the SST anomalies in all the key regions, including the Barents-Kara Seas, the Indian Ocean and the tropical Pacific, meet their thresholds at the same time. This makes it possible to pre-screen a subseasonal forecast's reliability before it is issued. The work was published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences.

The review, “Advances in Manufacturing Sustainable Textile Fibers from Chitin and its Derivatives: Spinning Methods, Fiber Functional Properties, Biodegradability, and Environmental Impacts,” by Mohammad Mahbubul Hassan, examines the potential of chitin and its derivatives as sustainable fiber-forming polymers. Published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, the review covers wet spinning, dry-jet wet spinning, gel spinning and nanofiber production, together with the roles of solvents, coagulation baths, drawing, crosslinking and additives in controlling fiber properties. Recent advances have enabled direct spinning of chitin and produced fibers with strength comparable to several natural fibers. At the same time, the review identifies challenges involving processing cost, solvent recovery, wet strength, durability and industrial scalability. It also considers biodegradation, toxicity and environmental footprints, pointing to the need for greener processing routes and more efficient use of biomass resources.

In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing,  researchers fired ultrafast laser bursts at titanium foil and carved dual-scale microscopic textures in a single manufacturing step to create an artificial skin that handles both extremes.

A study published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts reports a scalable approach for introducing radiative cooling functionality onto wood surfaces. The researchers integrated thermochromic microcapsules (TCMs) and ZnO nanoparticles into a phenolic resin coating applied to rubberwood and fir. The resulting coating reversibly changes its optical response with temperature, increasing UV-visible reflectance by about 44.7% above its 28 °C transition temperature while maintaining high thermal emissivity. Outdoor experiments showed surface and subsurface temperature reductions of up to 10.4 °C and 7.2 °C, respectively. A model wooden house also showed lower surface and indoor temperatures, while EnergyPlus simulations indicated potential annual cooling energy savings of up to 19.5% in hot climates.

Hafnia-based ferroelectric memories are emerging as promising candidates for next-generation nonvolatile memory because they combine excellent scalability with compatibility with CMOS technology. Further reducing the thickness of ferroelectric films can lower operating voltage and increase storage density, but maintaining reliability at high temperatures becomes increasingly challenging. Researchers at Fudan University have now shown that tailoring the size and orientation of ferroelectric grains can help address this challenge. Their ultrathin devices remain highly stable at 225 °C, pointing to a route toward dense and reliable ferroelectric memories for harsh thermal environments. The study was published in Science Bulletin.

Precise micromachining of refractory high-entropy alloys keeps a significant challenge for inherent brittleness and low thermal conductivity. In this work, water-jet guided laser technology enables a higher micromachining quality compared with CNL and femtosecond laser. Notably, WJGL reduces the heat-affected zone (HAZ) to 298 nm, ~99.1% lower than that of CNL. The material removal mechanism and microstructural evolution are elucidated. This work provides a reliable route for precision manufacturing of hard-to-process RHEAs.