News from Science China Press

A Peking University team has automated cataract screening from routine IOL Master 700 scans. Their "lens average density" biomarker achieved an AUC of 0.975 and correlated strongly with the clinical LOCS III standard (ρ = 0.804). The study revealed that highly myopic eyes (axial length ≥26 mm) carry a distinct nuclear cataract signature—83% prevalence versus 40% in normal-length eyes—emerging roughly 12 years earlier. The approach could embed early screening into existing workflows without extra patient burden.

Cancer immunotherapy offers long-term remissions but struggles with primary resistance, complex progression, and severe side effects. A landmark review in Science Bulletin highlights how multimodal AI integrates multi-scale data—from spatial omics and pathology to imaging and health records—to transform patient stratification. Tracing AI's evolution into foundation models and "virtual cells," the authors outline a clinical roadmap balancing efficacy, toxicity, and disease dynamics.

Researchers have developed a scalable polyolefin bilayer membrane that helps roofs stay cool while resisting the loss of reflectivity caused by aging and dirt. The membrane achieved 94.1% solar reflectance and retained 83% after xenon-arc aging equivalent to ten years under the adopted testing protocol. Outdoor tests showed an average roof-temperature reduction of 9.4 degrees Celsius and a maximum reduction of 18.1 degrees Celsius, highlighting its potential for long-term building energy savings.

A research team led by Professor Jiandong Ding at Fudan University has derived a set of equations for random degradation inspired by the classic Poisson raindrop problem, providing the first theoretical framework to quantify “acquired heterogeneity” — the uneven degradation that emerges during service rather than from manufacturing defects. Applying this framework to biodegradable metal stents, the team discovered that coating iron with polylactide (PLA) increases the corrosion rate by 3-fold but reduces corrosion inhomogeneity by 4,000-fold in blood-mimetic medium, paradoxically leading to later device fracture despite faster degradation. The resulting metal–polymer composite stent was validated in preclinical porcine studies, clinical trials involving 1,108 patients across multiple cohorts, and 5-year follow-up of 45 first-in-human cases, demonstrating safety, durability, and reliability. The theoretical framework is, in principle, applicable to any field where random spatiotemporal variability undermines system performance, from ship corrosion and bridge fracture to climate variability and big data analytics.

The FAST All Sky HI Survey (FASHI) team has released its second data set (DR2), cataloging 156,411 extragalactic neutral hydrogen (HI) sources over ~19,500 square degrees — nearly half the entire sky. The number of detected sources is nearly four times that of the first data release (DR1) and five times that of the Arecibo ALFALFA survey. With a median sensitivity of 0.57 mJy/beam, FASHI DR2 represents the largest and most sensitive blind HI survey ever conducted, providing a landmark dataset for studies of galaxy evolution, cosmology, and large scale structure in the local Universe.

Researchers at Wuhan University developed a molecular-sieve-assisted confined molten-salt route to grow 2.66 nm Na₂Nb₄O₁₁ single-crystal sheets. Devices made from the material combined sensitive ultraviolet detection with millisecond response and stable cycling, and enabled UV imaging and proof-of-concept two-wavelength physical-layer information encoding.

Researchers from Soochow University in China have developed a fast vapor-deposition strategy to fabricate twisted vertical heterostructures (TVHs) from two-dimensional organic crystals. By precisely controlling the deposition temperature through adjusting diffusion distance, the yield of vertical epitaxial structures is dramatically increased from below 20% to over 70%. The resulting TVHs exhibit a fixed 45° twist angle between crystal layers, enabling color-tunable interlayer coupling emission that ranges from blue to yellow-green. This work provides a practical approach for kinetic control of vertical heteroepitaxy and lays a material foundation for integrated photonics applications.