News from Science China Press

Researchers have developed an orally administered chirality-engineered nanozyme that protects the heart from chemotherapy-induced damage by targeting the gut rather than the heart itself. The nanozyme reshapes gut microbiota and host metabolism through the gut-heart axis, significantly alleviating doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity while preserving the anticancer efficacy of doxorubicin. The study highlights stereochemical engineering as a promising strategy for designing next-generation nanozyme therapeutics.

By pre-programming dense stacking faults into diamond, researchers have created a material that stays ultrahard (140 GPa) yet resists cracking, with toughness improved by 120%. The defects actively respond to crack-tip stress, triggering local phase transformations that absorb energy from the very moment a crack starts. This strategy offers a new path to alleviate the hardness–toughness trade-off in superhard materials.

A latest study published in National Science Review has resolved inconsistencies in the responses of Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) to greenhouse warming that arise from earlier definitions. The study reports a robust increase in WPSH’s area and intensity, its northwestward expansion, as well as in occurrence of stronger, longer-lasting record-breaking WPSH events under the past and future climate change scenario. These changes imply increasing risk exposure to monsoon rainfall extremes and heatwaves beyond historical experience for human society and communities.

As brain-computer interfaces become increasingly precise in reading human emotions, a practical question arises: Will a model trained today still be able to recognize the emotions of the same person tomorrow, in a few weeks, or even months later? Recently, the team led by Shuang Liu from the Medical School of Tianjin University/Haihe Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interaction and Human-Machine Integration published a research paper titled "Toward Sustainable Cross-Time Affective Brain–Computer Interfaces: Explicit Modeling and Structural Calibration of Temporal Variability" in the National Science Review (NSR). This study offers a cross-time "EEG ruler" for affective brain-computer interfaces (aBCIs). To address temporal variability in cross-time emotion recognition, the researchers propose a Multi-level Dynamic Integrated Perception Network (MDIN), which explicitly models and structurally calibrates temporal variability on three levels: emotional neural representation, dynamic functional connectivity, and cross-time discriminative structures, offering a new technical pathway for long-term stable affective brain-computer interfaces. This work may further accelerate the transition of aBCIs from short-term experimental validation to long-term, adaptive use in real-world mental health monitoring and human-machine interaction.

Structures critically control hydrothermal gold mineralization and orebodies distribution. Using borehole data, deep geophysical surveys, and 3D geological models from typical Jiaodong gold deposits, this study reveals the ore-controlling role of fault-dip variations. Gold orebodies preferentially occur in gently dipping fault segments and at steep-to-gentle transitions, forming a step-like mineralization pattern. Comparison with gold deposits across China identifies three step-control styles: (1) gently dipping segments and steep-to-gentle bends of a single fault; (2) subsidiary gently dipping faults linked to a steep master fault; (3) gently dipping interlayer structures bounded by steep faults. Mechanical analysis shows that gently dipping faults concentrate stress, provide good sealing, and have low wall-rock shear strength, which together promote fluid focusing and gold precipitation. These findings refine the theory of hydrothermal gold mineralization and offer valuable guidance for deep gold exploration.

Adoptive T cell therapy works well in some blood cancers but remain less effective against solid tumors. Researchers developed T-FOLactis, a probiotic–T cell chimera that links engineered bacteria directly to T cells. In colorectal cancer models, the platform improved tumor localization, strengthened local immune coordination, and produced greater antitumor activity than conventional T cell therapy.

A new review in SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences maps how different types of RNAs regulate growth, development, and stress responses in plants. The authors synthesize decades of research and provide a roadmap for harnessing RNA-based strategies to address food security and sustainable agriculture in a changing climate.

Researchers observed an anomalous splitting of image-potential states on higher-order topological Bi(111). By tuning film thickness and substrate screening, they linked the splitting to a radial active electric field and the development of Bi(111) surface states. The anomaly provides a possible spectroscopic signature of a monopole-like topological magnetoelectric response.