A Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines review outlines how AI can help clarify the molecular mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine formulas, from pharmacokinetics prediction to target and synergy discovery.

The Australian monsoon season (ASM) typically arrives in mid-December to mid-January each year but arrived on 7 February 2025 during the 2024-2025 season, more than five weeks later than usual. A group of researchers investigated whether the official arrival of the ASM in 2024-2025 was due to a true delay of the monsoon season or monsoon measurement criteria and variations in local weather conditions.

Professor Ying-Wei Yang's research group at Jilin University successfully constructed an azobenzene-modified metal-organic framework (MOF)-based nano-impeller platform using a dimensional engineering strategy. They synthesized two-dimensional layered Zn-Azo-MOF-1 and three-dimensional network Zn-Azo-MOF-2 with the same composition but different dimensions. They found that the photoisomerization efficiency of the two-dimensional framework (cis isomer content 33%) was an order of magnitude higher than that of the three-dimensional framework (3%). Mechanical grinding triggered interlayer slip in the two-dimensional structure, breaking the spatial confinement and activating efficient photoisomerization. Analysis of rotational energy barriers and framework-ligand interactions revealed the mechanism by which dimensionality and mechanical activation synergistically regulate the photo-switching dynamics. The constructed two-dimensional Zn-Azo-MOF-1 achieved 99% cargo release within 50 minutes under alternating UV-Vis irradiation, successfully extending the nano-impeller function from an amorphous platform to a crystalline platform, providing a dimensional engineering design principle for the programmable switching behavior of stimulus-responsive materials. The article was published as an open access Research Article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

A research team from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS), together with collaborators, used complementary molecular dynamics simulations, combining ab initio and deep-learning potential methods. Their findings, published in Science Advances on January 28, reveal that under deep lower mantle and core–mantle boundary (CMB) conditions, water and the key hydrous mineral δ-AlOOH enter a superionic state—which combines features of a solid crystal lattice with liquid-like mobile ions—thereby fundamentally altering their stability and dehydration behavior.

While paleontologists have uncovered dozens of such Cambrian soft-bodied fossil sites—including China's early Cambrian Chengjiang biota in Yunnan and Canada's middle Cambrian Burgess Shale biota, the most famous examples of their kind—no equivalent top-tier soft-bodied fossil deposit had ever been found from the critical post-Sinsk Event time interval.

That changed over the past five years, however, with the discovery of the Huayuan biota—a world-class soft-bodied fossil deposit dating to shortly after the Sinsk Event. The deposit, located in Huayuan County, Hunan Province, was identified by a research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), whose findings were published in Nature on January 28.