Cucumber is a high-value horticultural crop, with fruit water content exceeding 90%, and is used for food, processing, and cosmetics, with continuously growing market demand.

Repairing large bone defects still relies on grafts that are in short supply or synthetic materials that integrate poorly. A review in The Innovation Reviews surveys a cell-free alternative: extracellular vesicles — nanoscale packages released by M2 macrophages, the anti-inflammatory arm of the immune system. These vesicles carry microRNAs and proteins that push mesenchymal stem cells toward bone-forming cells, quiet local inflammation, and stimulate new blood vessels. Loaded into scaffolds such as hydrogels and beta-tricalcium phosphate, they have improved implant integration and defect healing in preclinical models. The review also takes stock of the obstacles: imprecise targeting, batch-to-batch variability, difficulty scaling production, and missing regulatory standards — and argues that engineering vesicles into inflammation-responsive, on-demand delivery systems is the field's next step.

Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University developed a framework showing that representative seasonal conditions can change an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft’s achievable range by up to about 22%.

Accurate leaf monitoring is essential for smart agriculture because leaves reveal photosynthesis, growth, stress, and disease status. 

Researchers have developed a new way to reconstruct the branching architecture of poplar trees from low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds, turning dense point clouds into detailed branch skeletons and measurable traits. 

Lignin, wood's aromatic glue, can be turned into fuel-grade molecules — but only if oxygen is stripped efficiently. Conventional batch catalyst recipes promote metal particle growth, wasting active surface. Researchers at Guangdong University of Technology and Huaqiao University instead synthesized Ru/ZrPO4 in a continuous microfluidic reactor coupled with ethylene glycol reduction: capillary confinement and fast mixing yielded 3.03 nm Ru particles with 35.09% metal dispersion and no agglomeration, versus 9.67–9.97 nm by impregnation. In guaiacol hydrodeoxygenation at 240 °C and 1 MPa H2, the catalyst converted over 99% of substrate with 97.9% cyclohexane selectivity, outperforming impregnation (47.4%) and hydrothermal (79.7%) routes. Upgrading real lignin oil raised hydrocarbon content from 10.5% to 91.8%, and activity held over five recycles. The method generalizes to other noble-metal catalysts.

Forest restoration is widely promoted as a nature-based solution for climate mitigation, yet how recovering forests rebuild their three-dimensional structure — and what controls that rebuild — remains poorly resolved. Integrating satellite and spaceborne lidar observations across 30 years of natural forest regeneration in China, researchers show that the positive coupling between canopy structural complexity and aboveground biomass density strengthens significantly as stands age, following three stages: initial establishment, canopy closure and competition, and maturation. Early-established, biome-specific structural fingerprints persist through recovery. Crucially, the dominant environmental driver shifts predictably with age — temperature first, soil resources in mid-succession, and precipitation in mature stands. The dynamic framework supports biome-specific restoration targets and adaptive management for carbon sink assessment.

The North China Plain (NCP) supports more than 20% of China’s grain output with only 7% of the country’s water resources. The long-established winter wheat–summer maize double cropping system in this region relies heavily on groundwater irrigation, with annual agricultural groundwater withdrawals reaching 2.1×10¹⁰ m³. Wheat irrigation alone accounts for more than 40% of total regional irrigation, and groundwater overexploitation has become a core bottleneck constraining sustainable agricultural development.