The Second International Conference on Space Science and Technology was successfully held in Suzhou, China, from May 22 to 24, 2025. Over 300 experts, scholars, and corporate representatives from more than ten countries gathered to discuss cutting-edge research and innovations in the aerospace field. The conference, hosted by Beijing Institute of Technology and co-organized by several institutions, featured a main forum and four sub-forums with over 30 high-quality reports on topics like deep space exploration, intelligent aerospace technology, and aerospace information processing. It aimed to foster global cooperation and cross-disciplinary innovation in space science and technology. The next venue of the conference will be held at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from July 22 to 24, 2025.

Parasitic worms that infect humans are not interbreeding with those that infect cattle as previously thought. This is good news for when it comes to controlling schistosomiasis, a disease caused by these worms that affects more than 200 million people globally.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, an international team of researchers present the new details about the enhancement of aragonite precipitation during photosynthesis in Skeletonema costatum in artificial and natural seawater. By directly measuring cell surfaces, it reveals the mechanism of diatom-mediated promotion of CaCO₃ precipitation. Based on this mechanism, it suggests that diatom-mediated calcification can occur in the oceans, which is supported by relevant phenomena. The newly found calcification pathway connects particulate inorganic and organic carbon flux, facilitating the reassessment of marine carbon export fluxes and CO₂ sequestration efficiency. And this discovery may have significant implications for evaluating marine carbon cycling and predicting the impacts of future ocean acidification.

 

The research, spanning five jurisdictions—Delhi (India), Jordan, Rwanda, Shanghai (China), and Wales—reveals that middle-tier instructional leaders fulfill four critical roles: providing accessible support for teachers, fostering collaboration within and across schools, utilizing international and local knowledge, and serving as intermediaries between education ministries and schools. These insights highlight the potential of middle-tier leaders to drive sustainable educational reforms and empower teachers in complex systems.

In a paper published in National Science Review, an international team led by Prof. Xuanmei Fan presents a deep learning-based framework that utilizes a novel global database of nearly 400,000 earthquake-triggered landslides to predict landslide probability for any earthquake worldwide with ~82% spatial accuracy in less than one minute without requiring prior local field data.

Good indoor air quality is a basic prerequisite for human health and is crucial for the ability to concentrate at work, or while studying. A nationwide study by Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) has now shown that most Austrian schools do not comply with national and European guidelines on ventilation. In the past school year, the guideline value for the daily average CO₂ concentration of 1000 ppm was exceeded in 75 per cent of the classrooms examined. In winter, the rate even rose to 88 per cent. In individual cases, the average hourly CO₂ values exceeded 6900 ppm, almost seven times the guideline value. Worse still, A quarter of all classrooms did not even provide the absolute minimum level of ventilation (4 litres of air per second per person) that is required by current European and Austrian standards (10 litres per second per person is recommended under normal operating conditions). This means that many school children are getting less than 40 % of the recommended air flow rate per person.