The research group of Professor Chuandong Dou at the State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Jilin University, recently constructed two novel boron-hexane two-dimensional benzobenzenes using a borane-controlled cyclization strategy, elucidating the importance of boron atom doping. Using conjugated boranes as precursors, the researchers synthesized boron-hexane Z-type and bilayer benzobenzenes C₃₂B₂ via FeCl₃ and Bi(OTf)₃-mediated intramolecular cyclization reactions, obtaining narrow-spectrum fluorescence (half-width at half-maximum as narrow as 19 nm) and amplified spontaneous emission properties, demonstrating their potential application as gain mediators. Furthermore, by studying the electronic structures of their divalent anions and all-carbon isoelectronic forms, they revealed that boron atoms can perturb the aromaticity of the conjugated framework, thereby reconstructing the spin density distribution. This research expands the topological diversity of boron-containing carbon molecules and provides a new system for studying luminescent functions and spin properties. The article was published as an open access Research Article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

Heat stress limits the performance of biofertilizer microbes in hot climates. Researchers at QST combined adaptive laboratory evolution with repeated, precisely dosed gamma irradiation to rapidly generate Bradyrhizobium strains that thrive at higher temperatures, suggesting a faster, non‑transgenic route to robust industrial microorganisms with broad sustainability benefits for agriculture, biomanufacturing, and renewable fuels.

An international research team led by scientists from the University of Rostock, CNRS-École polytechnique in France, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has discovered a previously unknown form of superionic water for the first time: The researchers have succeeded in experimentally discovering an exotic, highly electrically conductive phase at the European XFEL X-ray laser near Hamburg and the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC in the USA. It may occur inside ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune.

A stable "exceptional fermionic superfluid," a new quantum phase that intrinsically hosts singularities known as exceptional points, has been discovered by researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo. Their analysis of a non-Hermitian quantum model with spin depairing shows that dissipation can actively stabilize a superfluid with these singularities embedded within it. The work reveals how lattice geometry dictates the phase's stability and provides a path to realizing it in experiments with ultracold atoms.