The pilot work of the 10K Chinese People Genomic Diversity Project (10K_CPGDP) has uncovered a complex genetic admixture landscape and biological adaptations among ethno-linguistically diverse groups in the Silk Road region of China. In this study, 1,207 individuals from four linguistically diverse groups were sequenced or genotyped, and a population split between Northwest Chinese minority ethnic groups and Han Chinese dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period was observed. The research provides new insights into the genetic architecture and adaptative history of these groups, shedding light on their genomic and phenotypic diversity and the complex evolutionary influences on human disease and health.

Professor Gang He’s group at Xi’an Jiaotong University synthesized zwitterion-modified NDI derivatives via the atmospheric pressure method. Electrostatic repulsion between molecules regulates the stacking mode. The synergy of zwitterions improves solubility, enhances aromaticity and decomposition resistance. The constructed battery shows no significant capacity decay after long-term cycling at high concentration. These findings are published in National Science Review.

Hadrons are bound by quarks and gluons through the strong interaction. Their properties at low energies are non-perturbative, especially because of the phenomenon of quark confinement. According to quark model, hadrons consist of two or three quarks, called mesons and baryons, respectively. Exotic hadrons, like those formed by four, five or more quarks are allowed by Quantum Chromodynamics, QCD. Since 2003, many exotic mesons have been observed, as the X(3872), Tcc(3875) and so on. Regarding exotic baryons, the \Lambda(1405), discovered in the late 1950s in bubble chamber experiments, has been one of the most controversial states. This is because this resonance has unusual properties as its two-pole structure, which makes it an ideal exotic baryon candidate. To gain insights on the properties of the Lambda(1405), researchers extracted the quark mass dependence of this state from a recent LatticeQCD simulation, or QCD in the discretized space-time, and confirm its two-pole structure.

A groundbreaking study reveals how strain rate influences anthracite crack characteristic Sstress under dynamic loading, offering a predictive model to assess crack stress thresholds. This research provides critical insights into damage evolution mechanisms, advancing strategies to predict and mitigate catastrophic events like rock bursts in underground mining.

How do piezoelectric actuators perform under extreme conditions such as high temperatures, strong vibrations, and nanoscale precision tasks?

In a review published in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, researchers examine their use in five major areas including positioning and alignment, biomedical devices, microrobotics, vibration mitigation, and advanced manufacturing.

The study highlights recent progress in materials, control methods, and system design that could support the development of more reliable and efficient precision technologies.

All-inorganic perovskite materials exhibit exceptional thermal stability and promising candidates for tandem devices, while their application is still in the initial stage. Here, a metal halide doping strategy was implemented to enhance device performance and stability for inverted CsPbI₃ perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which are ideal for integration into perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The lanthanide compound terbium chloride (TbCl₃) was employed to improve buried interface between [4-(3,6-Dimethyl-9H-carbazol-9-yl) butyl] phosphonic acid (Me-4PACz) and perovskite layer, thereby enhancing the crystallinity of CsPbI₃ films and passivating non-radiative recombination defects. Thus, the inverted CsPbI₃ PSCs achieved an efficiency of 18.68% and demonstrated excellent stability against water and oxygen. Meanwhile, remarkable efficiencies of 29.40% and 25.44% were, respectively, achieved in four-terminal (4T) and two-terminal (2T) perovskite/silicon mechanically tandem devices, which are higher efficiencies among reported all-inorganic perovskite-based tandem solar cells. This study presents a novel approach for fabricating highly efficient and stable inverted all-inorganic PSCs and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells.

Currently, numerous biomimetic robots inspired by natural biological systems have been developed. However, creating soft robots with versatile locomotion modes remains a significant challenge. Snakes, as invertebrate reptiles, exhibit diverse and powerful locomotion abilities, including prey constriction, sidewinding, accordion locomotion, and winding climbing, making them a focus of robotics research. In this study, we present a snake-inspired soft robot with an initial coiling structure, fabricated using MXene-cellulose nanofiber ink printed on pre-expanded polyethylene film through direct ink writing technology. The controllable fabrication of initial coiling structure soft robot (ICSBot) has been achieved through theoretical calculations and finite element analysis to predict and analyze the initial structure of ICSBot, and programmable ICSBot has been designed and fabricated. This robot functions as a coiling gripper capable of grasping objects with complex shapes under near infrared light stimulation. Additionally, it demonstrates multi-modal crawling locomotion in various environments, including confined spaces, unstructured terrains, and both inside and outside tubes. These results offer a novel strategy for designing and fabricating coiling-structured soft robots and highlight their potential applications in smart and multifunctional robotics.

In this week’s issue of the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, Prof. Joohoon Kang at Yonsei University and his team provide a comprehensive review that sheds light on how atomically thin 2D materials—especially those processed through solution-based methods—could offer scalable and cost-effective approaches for producing memristors, a type of memory device promising for in-memory and neuromorphic computing hardware.

The leading researcher, Prof. Joohoon Kang, commented: “Our work will serve as a milestone in solution-processed 2D memristor research—being the first review to extensively cover 2D memristors specifically fabricated using solution-based processing, from fundamental principles and materials production to device fabrication, switching mechanisms, and potential applications.”

The developed all-optical signal processing chips pave the way for ultra-low loss, high-speed, high-efficient, high-density information processing in future classical and non-classical communication and computing applications.