A recent study published in National Science Review, based on Chang'e-6 (CE6) farside samples, has shown that the lunar mantle lacks a clear compositional dichotomy. The farside anorthositic crust is more magnesian, whereas late-stage products of the lunar magma ocean appear thinner on the farside. To reconcile these hemispheric variations spanning from the mantle to the crust, a coherent model of lateral thermal convection within the magma ocean of the tidally-locked Moon has been proposed.

Since the Last Glacial Maximum, the Earth’s climate system has undergone pronounced temperature and hydroclimatic changes. This long-term evolution provides an important context for understanding the natural background of modern climate change and the response of the climate system to external forcing. Over China, climate evolution exhibits substantial regional heterogeneity under the combined influence of the East Asian monsoon and the complex topography of the Tibetan Plateau. Using high-resolution dynamical downscaling simulations, Professor Liang Ning and colleagues at Nanjing Normal University systematically investigated millennial-scale climate evolution over China since the Last Glacial Maximum. The results show that the regional climate model provides a more detailed representation of the spatial heterogeneity of temperature and precipitation associated with complex terrain. In addition, the contrasting Holocene trends of summer cooling and winter warming over northern China, the Tibetan Plateau, and northwestern China provide a new seasonal perspective on the Holocene temperature conundrum between proxy reconstructions and climate-model simulations. The study was published in the 2026 Issue 8 of the Chinese and English editions of SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences.

Ag-modified In₂O₃ (Ag-3/In₂O₃) catalyst converts methane to methanol and formaldehyde with 100% liquid-product selectivity under mild photo–thermal conditions (150°C, Xe lamp irradiation). Producing 6544 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹, it outperforms pure photocatalysis by 2.6 times. The catalyst’s unique band structure prevents formation of over-oxidizing hydroxyl radicals, while weak product adsorption avoids deep oxidation. This design eliminates CO₂ emission—a breakthrough for sustainable natural gas utilization.

Titanium is widely used in marine engineering and biomedical implants because of its excellent corrosion resistance. Researchers have discovered that marine electroactive bacteria can weaken titanium’s protective oxide layer through flavin-mediated extracellular electron transfer. The findings reveal a previously unknown bioelectrochemical corrosion pathway and provide new insights for designing titanium materials with improved resistance to microbiologically influenced corrosion.

Hydrogels have become essential to modern biomedicine, enabling advances in drug delivery, tissue engineering and wearable healthcare. Researchers have proposed an architecture-based framework for designing high-performance hydrogels beyond conventional, randomly crosslinked networks. Their review defines hydrogels with high-order structures, outlines four construction routes, including phase separation, molecular self-assembly, nanocomposite integration and polymer crystallization, and links multiscale organization to mechanical robustness, transport control and integrated biomedical functions.

This review assesses the state-of-the-art of functional liquid crystals with nanomaterials, including self-organized alignment enabled by nanotechnology, diverse properties of nanoparticle-doped systems, soft actuators and tunable structural color in nanohybrid elastomers, and provides critical perspectives on comparative advantages and remaining challenges.

This article collection features papers published in Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces since 2023 on the theme of materials‑driven environmental pollutant removal. It focuses on the development of novel materials and their practical applications in environmental pollutant remediation. All articles are freely available for reading.