News from Science China Press

A joint team from China has published a survey paper in National Science Review. The study reviews recent advances in EEG-based emotion recognition from an interdisciplinary neuroscience and information-science perspective and introduces EEGEmoLib, an open-source Python toolbox that integrates psychological and neuroscientific priors into algorithm design, offering a standardized platform with theoretical grounding and practical usability.

An ultrasound-responsive micronanorobot combines a collagenase-secreting bacterium, bismuth ferrite nanoparticles, the drug DM4 and a targeting ligand to treat nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer. After intravesical delivery, it degrades tumor matrix, enhances drug penetration, and ultrasound triggers reactive oxygen species, achieving 90.8% cell death in vitro and 82.4% tumor inhibition in mice. The system also promotes antitumor immunity, increasing CD8+ T-cell infiltration and shifting macrophages toward the M1 phenotype.

Researchers have developed FINDSPINGROUP, an open-source online platform that places magnetic-moment arrangements and spin-orbit effects in one material-specific symmetry framework. It enables consistent comparison of properties with and without spin-orbit coupling, standardizes crystallographic outputs and supports the screening of unconventional magnets.

Using observations from NASA's Juno spacecraft, an international team led by Shandong University shows that magnetic reconnection in Jupiter's magnetodisk breaks magnetic field lines and deforms the current sheet into a rippling structure that rotates with the planet. The finding reveals a highly structured magnetodisk and offers new insight into how energy and particles are transported in giant-planet magnetospheres.

Can different growth recipes lead to the same structural target? Researchers have developed an AI-assisted inverse-design approach that identifies multiple synthesis routes to carbon nanotube arrays with closely matched height, density and alignment. Experiments across three targets demonstrate that similar array structures can emerge from different processing conditions, while individual nanotubes retain microscopic differences. The findings offer greater flexibility for controlled nanomaterial synthesis.

Oscillations are common in biological, physical and engineered systems, but it has remained unclear how structural complexity and delays jointly determine when they emerge. The study has developed a framework showing that network complexity, propagation delays and interaction types together shape transitions from steady to oscillatory states. Cooperative interactions were found to promote oscillations most readily.

Cotton breeders have long faced a trade-off: better fiber quality often comes at the cost of poor seed quality including oil and vigor, and vice versa. Researchers in China identified an antagonistic GhRCD1-GhMYC3 protein module that governs this developmental balance. The module fine tunes reactive oxygen species homeostasis and fatty acid partitioning between developing fibers and ovule derived seeds. The findings offer gene targets for designing new cotton varieties with both premium fiber and high quality seeds for field production.