Biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from biomass, offers a promising pathway for storing carbon in agricultural soils, helping to offset climate change. Despite its potential, the precise mechanisms, particularly the role of diverse microbial communities, influencing its long-term effectiveness remain poorly understood. A comprehensive analysis, published in Carbon Research, examines how biochar application impacts soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in Chinese croplands, shedding light on the critical interactions with soil microorganisms.

Researchers from Northwest A&F University compiled an extensive dataset from 90 prior studies conducted across China, incorporating 392 observations and over 2600 data points related to SOC and microbial characteristics. Their meta-analysis combined quantitative data extraction, geographical mapping, and linear mixed-effects modeling to spatially predict carbon sequestration rates and explore the nuanced responses of soil microbial communities to varying biochar application rates and durations. This robust approach allowed for a broad assessment of biochar's impact across diverse Chinese agricultural regions.

Paddy soils are critical ecosystems for global food security, yet also significant contributors to atmospheric greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. These unique wetland environments, characterized by prolonged flooding, play a complex role in the global carbon cycle. Scientists at the Guangdong Academy of Sciences and South China Normal University undertook a detailed investigation to understand the specific biogeochemical turnover of organic carbon fractions within these soils during flooding. This work aims to unravel the intricate mechanisms that govern carbon's fate, helping to predict and manage emissions from these vast agricultural lands.

The world faces an urgent challenge to achieve carbon neutrality, demanding innovative solutions for managing strategic gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and hydrogen (H₂). CO₂ capture is vital for emissions reduction, CH₄ requires careful valorization and control due to its potent global warming impact, and H₂ is rapidly emerging as a cornerstone of future energy systems. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of porous materials recognized by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, are rapidly changing possibilities for strategic gas management due to their exceptional tunability.

A new review in Carbon Research provides a critical and integrated assessment of MOFs' potential across these three domains. Led by Reda Elkacmi from Sultan Moulay Slimane University, the authors detail how MOFs’ unique attributes—including surface areas exceeding 6000 m² g⁻¹, tunable pore environments, and modular coordination chemistry—enable significant CO₂ uptakes, high methane storage capacities, and impressive hydrogen volumetric densities. These properties empower MOFs to address multiple environmental and energy challenges simultaneously.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) – one of Earth's most hostile habitats – forms when sulfide minerals are exposed to air, water and microbes, generating pH levels below 3 and high concentrations of heavy metals. 

A team from Tsinghua University reports Au–TiO₂ metasurfaces that convert visible light into singlet oxygen at high speed and extremely high local density. By combining quasi-BIC field confinement with hot-carrier transfer across an ultrathin interface, the device produces molar-level singlet oxygen locally within seconds, which is surprisingly ~10⁶ times that achieved by conventional approaches. Besides, the on-chip generator enables wavelength- and pixel-selective cytotoxicity for targeted tumor cell killing in photodynamic therapy.

Peter H. Raven, one of the most influential botanists and biodiversity advocates of the modern era, passed away on April 25, 2026, at the age of 89. In a commemorative review published in Biodiversity Science, CAS academician Keping Ma of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, honors Raven’s legacy with a deeply respectful remembrance—framing him not only as a scientific giant but as a cherished international friend to China’s plant science community. The article published in Vol. 34 with doi: 10.17520/biods.2026169 or cstr: 32101.14.biods.2026169.

Every time an autonomous drone dives to explore the ocean floor, the very armor designed to protect it simultaneously blinds its sonar. In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, Chinese researchers have solved this long-standing engineering paradox by inventing a soft, custom-molded acoustic "contact lens" that actively corrects outgoing sound waves before they pass through the drone's protective shell.

Perovskite single-crystal heterojunction arrays exhibit significant application potential in advanced optoelectronics, however, achieving comprehensive control over crystallographic and spatial properties of the array remains challenging. Here, we report a selective epitaxial growth strategy for fabricating single-crystal MAPbCl₃/MAPbBr₃ and MAPbBr₃/MAPbI₃ heterojunction arrays. This method employs patterned polymer templates to define the pixel dimension and arrangement, while the underlying single-crystal substrate guides the crystal orientation of the heterojunction array, enabling precise control over the pixel size, pixel arrangement angle and crystal plane. The self-powered photodetector arrays were fabricated based on these heterojunctions, showing a specific detectivity of 6.0 × 10¹¹ Jones, a weak-light detection limit of 9 nW cm⁻² and long-term operation stability under zero bias. Furthermore, the light pattern with different illumination intensities could be clearly imaged by the device array in the self-powered mode. This work establishes a robust method of fabricating the single-crystal heterojunction arrays for advanced optoelectronic applications.

Antibiotic pollution is an increasingly urgent environmental challenge. Many antibiotics are not fully metabolized by humans or animals and can pass into wastewater, rivers, lakes, and even drinking water sources. Once released, these compounds may persist in the environment, disrupt aquatic ecosystems, and contribute to the spread of antimicrobial resistance.