News from Science China Press

Researchers at Fudan University have developed a crosslinked potassium polyacrylate skin membrane that lets microrobots generate electricity by walking on metal or silicon surfaces. The membrane uses atmospheric moisture and oxygen to convert environmental chemical energy into power, achieving 133 mW cm⁻² on zinc. It also senses substrate material and roughness, enabling active energy pursuit. The system powered over 10,000 walking steps and remained stable after 1,000,000 steps.

Rock weathering is an important process regulating atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and long-term climate evolution, yet how enhanced erosion affects rock weathering and its carbon effects remains poorly understood. Focusing on the Lancang River basin on the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, the authors quantitatively reveal the differential responses of silicate, carbonate, and sulfide weathering to changes in erosion. The results show that, as erosion intensifies, silicate weathering rates decrease while sulfide oxidation rates increase, causing weathering in the basin to tend toward a net carbon source. The related findings have now been published in Science China Earth Sciences.

A team of astronomers from the Einstein Probe (EP) collaboration has uncovered a previously hidden stage in the aftermath of one of the Universe’s most violent events—the merger of two compact stars. Designated EP250704a/GRB 250704B, the fleeting cosmic explosion was jointly captured by the China-led EP mission, the SVOM, and the Insight-HXMT, enabling astronomers to follow this transient simultaneously in gamma rays and soft X-rays from the very onset of the emission. Led by the EP fast extragalactic transients working group, a study published in Science Bulletin reports that, although the short gamma-ray burst (GRB) produced by the compact star merger lasted only about half a second, the source continued shining in soft X-rays for nearly ten minutes after the gamma-ray flash had faded. The discovery reveals that the merger remnant releases substantial energy well beyond the initial short GRB traditionally used to identify these events, allowing compact star mergers—the same cosmic collisions that also produce gravitational waves—to appear as minute-long fast X-ray transients. These X-ray transients therefore provide an electromagnetic counterpart to gravitational-wave events, offering a new probe for multi-messenger astronomy.

The high O–H bond strength of common alcohols prevents their direct hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) activation. By leveraging the β-silicon effect in α-silyl alcohols, the research group of Professor Xiao Shen at Wuhan University weaken the O–H bond to enable redox-neutral, photoinduced homolysis using thioxanthone. The resulting alkoxy radicals undergo Brook rearrangement to carbon radicals, which are intercepted by nickel catalysis for enantioconvergent cross-couplings with acyl chlorides and aryl bromides. This protocol tolerates substrates inert under classical SET/PCET conditions and establishes direct HAT as a versatile platform.

From rhythmic activity in localized populations of cortical neurons to dengue hotspots that repeatedly reappear across Medellín, Colombia, localized oscillations shape collective dynamics in complex networked systems ranging from the brain to urban epidemics. However, existing explanations are often constrained by strict requirements on system dimensionality. This study reveals a more general mechanism for the emergence of localized oscillations, showing how collective dynamics can transcend these conventional constraints and broadening the theoretical framework for understanding localized collective behavior.

HER2-positive breast cancer accounts for about 15% of all breast cancers, and although anti-HER2 targeted therapies have dramatically improved patient survival, primary and acquired drug resistance remain major clinical challenges. In a comprehensive review, researchers from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Kunming Medical University, and collaborating institutions map ten major categories of resistance mechanisms, evaluate strategies to overcome them—including next-generation antibody-drug conjugates—and highlight predictive tools that are paving the way toward precision treatment.

Researchers at Zhejiang University have developed AtomDiT, a machine learning framework that builds a digital twin of dislocations from a single high-resolution electron micrograph. The twin simultaneously reveals dislocation type and position, local stress, and chemical fields. Demonstrated across metals and alloys, including dual-phase systems and hydrogen-segregated grain boundaries, AtomDiT uncovers how stress and chemistry govern dislocation motion, offering a new route to understanding crystal deformation and damage.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team of researchers led by Professor Jia Xin from the Institute of Environmental Archaeology at Nanjing Normal University reconstructed the environmental evolution and human settlement adaptation processes at the Xuecheng archaeological site in the Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River during the Mid to Late Holocene. By integrating multiple environmental proxies and high precision topographic data, the study revealed how hydrological and landscape changes shaped prehistoric settlement migration and spatial organization, providing new evidence for understanding human environment interactions during the formation of early Chinese civilization.