EurekAlert! Chinese Academy of Sciences - News Releases from CAS Institutes

News from CAS Institutes

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 24-Oct-2026 18:17 ET (24-Oct-2026 22:17 GMT/UTC)

Tethered balloon peers inside clouds to reveal hidden aerosol and electrical effects

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences & Partner Journals
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have used a tethered balloon to make detailed measurements inside clouds over the Tibetan Plateau, revealing how aerosols shape cloud droplets and offering rare observations of weak electrical activity in clouds without lightning.

Journal: Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

Different spider lineages, same funnel web: genomic clues to behavioral convergence

Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study published in Journal of Systematics and Evolution provides genomic clues to this question. Researchers from Southwest University, Dali University, and Arizona State University compared genomes from 15 spider species with different web-building strategies and identified evolutionary changes potentially associated with funnel-web construction.

Journal: Journal of Systematics and Evolution

China's 2025 climate: Distinct warm‑wet conditions and multiple new climate records

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences & Partner Journals
Peer-Reviewed Publication

China's 2025 climate: Distinct warm‑wet conditions and multiple new climate records

Journal: Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

Ant diversity of the Xisha islands: Community structure, exotic species colonization, and ecological functions in a tropical coral archipelago

South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New comprehensive survey catalogues 21 ant species across seven South China Sea islands, revealing human activity as primary driver for exotic ant establishment amid climate-vulnerable coral island ecosystems.

Journal: Biological Diversity
Funder: National Key Research and Development Program of China

Lung serves as "in vivo factory" to generate memory-like NK cells for cancer therapy

Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study published in Molecular Therapy, led by Prof. LI Yang and with Dr. YUAN Feng as the first author, from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), reports a strategy that uses the host lung as an in vivo bioreactor, generating functional memory-like NK cells directly in the body without ex vivo cell manipulation.

Journal: Molecular Therapy

Artificial photosynthetic hydrogel microspheres enable programmable CO2 valorization

Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team led by Profs. WANG Bo and YU Tao from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed an artificial photosynthetic hydrogel microsphere (APHM) which integrates photocatalysis, microbial CO₂ fixation and downstream biotransformation within a single platform, providing a new route for programmable CO₂ valorization.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society

Researchers develop lightweight collaborative AI agent for materials research

Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, a team led by YU Xuefeng from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a lightweight dual-model collaborative artificial intelligence (AI) agent, MatBrain, to support materials research by enabling AI to both reason about scientific problems and execute research tasks.

Journal: Nature Machine Intelligence

Researchers develop shape-changing hydrogels that transform over minutes to weeks

Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study published in Matter and led by DU Xuemin from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported a life-like hydrogel that can evolve their shape over minutes to weeks based on a new class of active chemical system termed spatiotemporally evolving reactive species (STERS).

Journal: Matter

From North America to Eurasia: the evolutionary history of marmots

Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study integrating fossil, distributional and molecular evidence traces the evolutionary history of marmots back to North America and reveals how geological and climatic changes drove their dispersal and diversification. Published in Journal of Systematics and Evolution

Journal: Journal of Systematics and Evolution

Multi-source observations improve thunderstorm gust identification

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences & Partner Journals
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Multi-source observations improve thunderstorm gust identification

Journal: Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

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