Recently, the research team led by Xiang Ma and Fan Gu from East China University of Science and Technology developed a luminescent soft material by doping coronene into an epoxy-based shape memory polymer, demonstrating both actuation capability and tunable ultralong afterglow property at high temperature. This strategy enabled real-time visual monitoring of dynamic material deformation at temperatures up to 200 °C, opening up new avenues for intelligent equipment monitoring, information encryption and circuit protection in extreme environments.

Sand may seem simple, but for scientists it is one of nature’s trickiest materials to model. At the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), researchers are reimagining sand one grain at a time, showing how tiny changes in shape can make sand flow, pile up, resist pressure—or even withstand attacks like a fortified (sand)castle. The findings were presented at a leading computer graphics conference and published in ACM Transactions on Graphics.

The release of marine isoprene is an important component of material exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, and its long-term variability and climatic drivers have attracted widespread attention. A research team led by Professor Jialei Zhu at Tianjin University constructed a global marine isoprene emission flux dataset spanning 1950–2020 using machine learning and an improved parameterization scheme. Basing on this dataset, they have revealed mechanisms through which the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modulates the interannual variability of marine isoprene emissions by influencing sea surface temperature, solar radiation, surface winds, phytoplankton activity, and other environmental factors. This study has been published in 2026 Chinese and English editions of SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences.