A research team from Harbin Institute of Technology has developed a new solar driven photocatalyst that uses industrial sulfite waste to rapidly break down toxic dyes in wastewater. The study demonstrates a sustainable approach that improves water quality while transforming an abundant industrial by product into a valuable resource.

In a groundbreaking exploration of the environmental impacts of fires, researchers are shedding light on how gaseous smoke pollutants affect both air and soil quality. This critical study, titled "Impact of Gaseous Smoke Pollutants from Modelled Fires on Air and Soil Quality," is spearheaded by Mikhail Nizhelskiy from the Academy of Biology and Biotechnology Named After D.I. Ivanovskiy at Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation. His work offers a deeper understanding of the often-overlooked consequences of fires on our environment.

Pedagogical chatbots, which have become more capable and widely available with the rise of generative AI, promise to transform personalized learning at scale by providing individualized, on-demand support to students. But generative AI is not without fault. Sometimes chatbots make mistakes, provide incomplete information, invent facts, or misconstrue logic, which may harm their users’ learning. A new study sheds light on whether users can detect those errors and suggests ways to improve AI-powered teaching. 

Anthocyanins are major pigments responsible for the vivid colors of ornamental flowers. 

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is a highly contagious human herpesvirus responsible for chickenpox upon primary infection and shingles upon viral reactivation. While Varicella-zoster immune globulin (VZIG) can offer post-exposure protection for high-risk individuals, structural insights into neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) derived from natural infection remain limited. Glycoprotein E (gE), the most abundant and immunogenic envelope protein of VZV, plays an essential role in viral infection and is the sole antigen in the recombinant zoster vaccine.

As China’s poultry industry is rapidly moving towards standardization and large-scale development, high-yield breeds in large-scale farms are particularly sensitive to environmental changes.

Any plan to send a human crew to explore Moon or Mars requires many tons of propellant to blast off from Moon or Mars for return to Earth. Two propellants are needed: (a) a fuel, typically either methane or hydrogen, and (b) oxygen. Oxygen represents the greatest mass of propellant, and in situ propellant production (ISPP) for oxygen only would provide a significant mass saving. Lunar and Martian ISPP processes range widely in complexity and degree of difficulty, with equally wide ranges in risk and apparent return on investment (ROI). Moreover, operating autonomous chemical engineering plants on remote bodies, in some cases involving mining, transporting, delivering, discharging, and processing planetary soil under severe environmental conditions, presents significant challenges. Difficulty in providing power compounds the problems. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between autonomous processes that are simple and straightforward to implement that lend themselves naturally to first landings versus processes that are complex and challenging and, because of that, likely to be relegated to second-generation or even third-generation landings, if at all.