A new study of European beech trees reveals that their root systems respond more to short-term changes in soil water than to the long-term wetness of their growing sites. During dry periods, beech trees grow thinner, longer roots with more tips, enhancing water absorption, while wetter conditions lead to shorter, thicker roots. This seasonal root flexibility allows the trees to adapt rapidly to fluctuating soil moisture, highlighting the importance of monitoring short-term water availability for understanding tree resilience to drought.

In an article published in Science China Earth Sciences, two senior scientists at China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and University of Science and Technology of China present comprehensive arguments for the past and present of intracontinental orogens, developing a holistic model of mountain building from intracontinental reworking of fossil plate margins. The intracontinental orogeny involves dual dynamic mechanisms via either far-field compressional stress transmission from remote plate margins or near-field extensional stress focus from local plate bottom. This provides new insights into the formation and evolution of continental tectonics with respect to inheritance and development in both structure and composition from preceding plate margins.

A research paper by scientists at Beijing Institute of Technology presented a carrier-free tumor-suppressing peptide–daunorubicin–siRNA (PDR) nanoassembly.

The rational design of platinum-based electrocatalysts with optimized metal-support electronic interactions remains a fundamental challenge in achieving atom-efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).

Scientists have developed an innovative "sulfur-for-oxygen exchange" method to synthesize a porous Fe₂(MoO₄)₃/CoMoO₄ heterojunction electrocatalyst. This material demonstrated exceptional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance, requiring only 244 mV of overpotential to achieve a current density of 10 mA·cm⁻² – significantly outperforming commercial benchmarks. Furthermore, it exhibited outstanding stability, operating continuously for over 100 hours. This breakthrough paved the way for scalable, cost-effective green hydrogen production.

CS/Ti₃C₂T_x/Co@CNTs composite could obtain the minimum reflection loss (RL_min) of -55.01 dB at the thickness of 3.4 mm and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) could reach 9.07 GHz. It should be emphasized that the average density of CS/Ti₃C₂T_x/Co@CNTs is only 0.03 g/cm³. The electrostatic self-assembled CS/Ti₃C₂T_x/Co@CNTs composites behaved the excellent conductive loss, polar loss and the impedance matching.

A research paper by scientists at Chinese Academy of Sciences presented a magnetically actuated soft electrode (MSE) with precise navigation, adaptive attachment, and high-fidelity signal acquisition.

A novel fiber optic sensing platform captures real-time bubble dynamics during hydrogen evolution, revealing how bubble growth and detachment impact catalyst performance. This breakthrough bridges interfacial gas behavior with electrochemical efficiency, offering new strategies for green hydrogen optimization.