Photothermal therapy, as an emerging cancer treatment method, has attracted significant attention due to its advantages such as minimal invasiveness, low toxicity, and strong spatiotemporal control. It overcomes the limitations of traditional therapies, which often involve large wounds and systemic toxicity. Recently, a study published in Biofunctional Materials reported the successful development of a novel nanomaterial. This material demonstrates excellent photothermal conversion efficiency and good biocompatibility, showing promising potential as a long-lasting and highly effective photothermal agent in experiments, thus offering new possibilities for precise tumor treatment.

A team led by Professor Guosheng Tang from Guangzhou Medical University, Associate Professor Yutao Liu from Tianjin University, and Professor Bin Liu from Nankai University has proposed an innovative probiotic delivery strategy. They successfully fabricated single-bacterium microgels using gas-shearing technology, significantly enhancing the survival rate and therapeutic efficacy of probiotics in the gastrointestinal tract. This study demonstrates the potential of this technology in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) through the precise encapsulation of Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN). The related work, titled "Fabrication of Single-Bacterium Microgel with Gas-Shearing Strategy for Precision Probiotic Delivery in IBD Therapy," is published in Research journal (Research, 2025 DOI: 10.34133/research.0955).

Researchers have developed a novel framework, termed PDJA (Perception–Decision Joint Attack), that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to address a long-standing challenge in the security of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) systems: how to effectively disrupt coordinated agents under realistic threat models. The new method improves both attack effectiveness and cross-layer vulnerability exploitation, opening new opportunities for evaluating the robustness of AI-driven autonomous systems such as robotics, traffic control, and distributed decision-making platforms.

Scientists have found that adding biochar to farm soils can help steady the release of carbon dioxide during increasingly erratic rain and drought cycles, potentially supporting climate friendly agriculture and healthier soils.

A growing body of research suggests that combining enzymes with biochar, a carbon-rich material made from agricultural and organic waste, could transform how scientists clean polluted water and soil. A new review published in Biochar provides the most comprehensive overview to date of how biochar-immobilized enzymes work, why they are effective, and what challenges remain before the technology can be widely applied.

Biochar has long been promoted as a climate-friendly soil amendment, but new research suggests that treating it as a one-size-fits-all solution may be limiting its full potential. A new open-access review published in Biochar shows that engineered biochar works best when it is carefully customized for specific agricultural and environmental goals, from boosting crop yields to suppressing soil-borne diseases and remediating contaminated land.