Professor Jun Ma's research group at the University of Science and Technology of China reported a novel green ammonia synthesis strategy based on high-energy electron beam dissociation collisions. This work utilizes a MeV-level electron beam to directly act on an N₂/H₂ gas-phase system, achieving ammonia generation at room temperature, atmospheric pressure, and without an external heating source. The study shows that the high-energy electron beam can activate stable N≡N triple bonds through ionization, excitation, and secondary electron induction processes, driving the conversion of nitrogen and hydrogen into NH₃. In the catalyst-free system, an ammonia generation rate of 0.14 μmol·L⁻¹·s⁻¹ can be obtained by optimizing the electron beam parameters; further, the introduction of Ru nanocatalysts increases the ammonia yield by up to 2.8 times compared to the catalyst-free system. This work provides a new research approach for achieving small molecule activation and green ammonia synthesis using high-energy electron beams. The article was published as an open access Research Article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

Agricultural trade between the United States and China is dominated by crops such as soybeans and maize that are shipped across the Pacific to feed livestock in China. A new study suggests that changing what is traded could bring substantial environmental and economic benefits.

Paraxial optical skyrmions, defined by Stokes vectors, have attracted significant attention due to their ability to propagate in free space with preserved topological structures. Recently, this exotic topological structured light has been extended to the spatiotemporal domain, though so far only in the visible and near-infrared regimes. The team led by Academician Zhuang Songlin and Professor Yi Liu at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology theoretically explores, for the first time, the generation and control mechanisms of extreme-ultraviolet spatiotemporal skyrmions based on the high-harmonic generation process. The discovery is published in the journal PhotoniX.

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China proposed and numerically demonstrated a scheme to realize the self-healing effect of non-Hermitian skin modes in photonic Floquet lattices. They introduced the concept of skin mode tunability (SMT), a mechanism in which the spectrum of skin modes localized at one boundary can be tuned via a potential applied at the opposite boundary. Using a tight-binding Floquet Hamiltonian and the beam propagation method (BPM) simulation in coupled helical waveguides with experimentally accessible parameters, the researchers showed that a targeted skin mode can be spectrally isolated and transformed into a self-healing state that recovers its profile after encountering a disturbance. The study provides a general framework for engineering skin modes through local perturbations and for controlling wave dynamics in non-Hermitian photonic systems.

Leading voices from across the aerospace industry and academia gathered in Florence, Italy for the panel titled "Engineering Innovation Enabling Scientific Research," examining how advances in engineering are unlocking new scientific missions and how ambitious science goals are, in turn, driving engineering breakthroughs.

The panel, moderated by Alison Nordt, Director of Space Sciences & Instrumentation at Lockheed Martin Space's Advanced Technology Center, brought together six panellists to discuss the evolving relationship between space science and systems engineering: Marius Anger (Aalto University), Jon Arenberg (Northrop Grumman), Mayra Montrose (L3Harris), Giampiero Di Paolo (Thales Alenia Space Italia), Steve Squyres (Blue Origin) and Eric Stallmer (Voyager).

Diallyl disulfide is an organosulfur compound derived from garlic, and R-carvone is a monoterpenoid derived from spearmint. Researchers processed these compounds into oil-in-water nanoemulsions and applied it to the adzuki bean beetle—a known legume pest. The researchers found that the nanoemulsions were highly toxic against the pest, suggesting that they could be a promising environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic pest-control agents.

Kanazawa University, Japan – Research group led by Prof. Keiichi Hirano and Assistant Prof. Akira Matsumoto have developed a novel synthetic method for the selective cleavage of strong carbon–hydrogen (C–H) bonds while preserving weaker carbon–silicon (C–Si) bonds. This transformation enables the upgrading of structurally simple α-silyl alcohols into functionalized derivatives that are difficult to access by conventional methods. The key to this success lies in utilizing a finely tuned phosphonium ylide catalyst in combination with an organophotoredox catalyst under visible-light irradiation.

As a widely used device in photonic integrated circuits, coupled resonator optical waveguide (CROW) faces the challenge in increasing bandwidth, which is fundamentally limited by the tradeoff between the free spectral range (FSR) and finesse. Recently, by introducing topological coupler, researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have substantially alleviated this tradeoff and experimentally realized broadband CROW. The study is published in the journal PhotoniX.

Added protein is showing up in foods from breakfast cereal to pasta, but not many condiments … yet. Researchers reporting in ACS Food Science & Technology have now developed an enriched tomato ketchup by incorporating protein extracted from algae. A panel of taste testers preferred the recipes containing up to 3% added algal extract, saying the samples maintained the sweet, tangy taste and reddish appearance expected of the condiment.