Phosphorus is a “life element” for crop growth. However, about one-third of agricultural soils in China and globally are facing a shortage of bioavailable phosphorus. On the one hand, the current-season utilization rate of phosphate fertilizer is extremely low, and a large amount of applied phosphorus is “locked” by soil, forming “legacy phosphorus” that is difficult for crops to use. On the other hand, long-term dependence on phosphate fertilizer has become a potential threat to national food security and ecological security. Vermicompost, as an organic amendment rich in beneficial microorganisms, has been proven to effectively activate soil phosphorus, but the specific microbial mechanisms involved have not yet been systematically revealed.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex and dynamic ecosystem that plays a pivotal role in cancer progression and therapy resistance. Its heterogeneity and constant remodeling present significant challenges for effective treatment. The emergence of nanomedicine integrates nanotechnology and medicine, aiming to overcome and ameliorate the limitations of conventional therapeutic agents in cancer treatment. Despite the broad biomedical applications of nanomaterials, the clinical translation of nanodrugs remains hindered by the complexity and heterogeneity of the TME as well as challenges related to the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials. This paper published in iMetaMed underscores key challenges and difficulties currently faced by nanomaterials in cancer treatment, including: issues related to nanomaterial biosafety and long-term toxicity assessment; uncertainties in vivo biotransformation and metabolic pathways; therapeutic efficacy variations caused by spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the TME; barriers from laboratory research to clinical translation; and insufficient selectivity in the precise modulation of TME components.

Helping European regulations to reflect better the actual pollution levels produced by vehicles when driving on the road. This is the aim of a study by the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), which analyses real-world driving data to evaluate new emissions monitoring tools. Its findings have been published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment

- KAIST and TU Dresden identify, at the nanoscale, how information is recorded in a next-generation memory material

- New information-storage regions form while existing ones spread at the same time, and a single model now explains two processes previously treated separately

- The model describes information writing from its onset to its spread and is expected to support the design of faster, more stable, low-power nonvolatile memory and neuromorphic devices for AI