Tag Archives: China

As global temperatures rise scientists work on a breathable fabric that reflects sunlight made of boron nitride nanosheets

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An illustration of how the white, nanostructured fabric has been designed, using lightweight particles. Courtesy: University of South Australia

A November 20, 2025 news item on Nanowerk highlights research on a technical textile that could make you more comfortable in hot temperatures, Note: A link has been removed,

As global temperatures rise and heatwaves intensify, a new textile innovation promises to keep people cooler, drier, and more comfortable in extreme heat.

Partnering with researchers from Zhengzhou University in China, UniSA [University of South Australia] materials scientist Professor Jun Ma has helped to create a lightweight breathable fabric that reflects 96% of the sun’s rays in outdoor conditions.

The moisture-wicking composite fabric is described in the journal Nano Research (“Moisture-wicking fabric for radiation cooling”).

…

A November 20, 2025 University of South Australia (UNISA) press release, which originated the news item, provides technical details,

In outdoor field tests, the new textile lowered skin temperature by 2 degrees celsius under direct sunlight and by 3.8 degrees celsius at night compared with bare skin.

Unlike traditional cotton fabrics, which tend to trap heat and sweat, the polylactic acid/boron nitride nanosheet (PLA/BNNS) material actively releases warmth while keeping the skin dry.

Professor Ma, from UniSA’s Future Industries Institute, says the project addresses a critical challenge in personal comfort as the world adapts to rising heat stress.

“We’re seeing more frequent and intense heatwaves globally, and that has serious implications for outdoor workers, athletes and people living without access to air conditioning,” Prof Ma says.

“Our goal was to design a smart, sustainable fabric that passively regulates body temperature – not by using energy, but by harnessing natural physical processes.”

Using a scalable electrospinning technique, the researchers embedded boron nitride nanosheets – highly thermally conductive, lightweight particles – within a biodegradable polylactic acid fibre matrix. The result is a white, nanostructured fabric with exceptional solar reflectance and five times more breathability than cotton.

“The combination of high solar reflectance, heat radiation and moisture control means that the wearer feels noticeably cooler and drier,” Prof Ma says.

“It’s particularly beneficial for people who work outdoors in construction, mining, agriculture or emergency services, where heat exposure is both a comfort and safety issue.”

The study’s lead author, Associate Professor Yamin Pan from Zhengzhou University, says the collaboration with UniSA was instrumental in testing and refining the material’s thermal performance.

“UniSA’s advanced materials expertise helped us evaluate the heat transfer and radiative cooling properties of the fabric,” says Assoc Prof Pan. “The partnership shows how international collaboration can accelerate the development of smart, sustainable materials.”

Made primarily from biodegradable PLA, the fabric also aligns with the global shift towards environmentally responsible materials.

The researchers believe the technology could be easily adapted for sportswear, uniforms, outdoor workers, and even military and emergency clothing designed for extreme heat.

Prof Ma says the team is now exploring potential commercial applications and large-scale manufacturing opportunities.

“The electrospinning process is straightforward and cost effective, which means the fabric could be produced at industrial scale,” he says. “With further development, it has the potential to transform the next generation of cooling clothing.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Moisture-wicking fabric for radiation cooling by Zhenliang Gao, Yajie Wang, Yamin Pan1, Jun Ma, Xianhu Liu, Chuntai Liu, Changyu Shen. Nano Research Volume 18 Issue 10, October 2025
Article number: 94907537 DOI: 10.26599/NR.2025.94907537

This paper is open access.

Author Cixin Liu on why Chinese sci-fi (science fiction) like Netflix’s 3 Body Problem is booming

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Yesterday (March 11, 2026) I published a post about a new project being funded by the European Research Council (ERC) titled, SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity.

Today (March 12, 2026) I have a story about Chinese science fiction from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) radio programme, Ideas by Nicola Luksic, which was published online on September 2, 2025, Note: the radio interview is embedded in the article,

Chinese science fiction is booming, and this makes total sense to globally renowned sci-fi writer Cixin Liu. 

“Science fiction is different from traditional literature in that it can only prosper in the fastest developing, modernizing countries,” said Liu, speaking through a translator from his home in Tianjin — a city about 140km south west of Beijing.

Liu is the author of The Three-Body Problem — a trilogy adapted into a quarter-billion dollar eight-part Netflix series. 

The first installment of Three Body Problem was published in China in 2006, and translated into English in 2014. In 2015 it was the first Chinese book to win the Hugo Award — essentially the Nobel Prize for science fiction. 

…

Luksic\s September 2, 2025 article features some interesting comments from Liu,

Sci-fi tends to thrive in burgeoning empires [emphasis mine], observes Liu, pointing to the birth of popular sci-fi in 9th-century Britain and the flourishing of American sci-fi in the 1950s and ’60s. 

“Now the prosperity of science fiction is happening in China [emphasis mine], which is closely related to China’s rapid modernization,” said Liu. 

“It is impossible for science fiction to prosper in a backward and slow-developing country. The prosperity of science fiction in China should be inseparable from the background of China’s rapid development, and it is this big era that is driving it.”

Liu grew up in the 1960s and witnessed massive social, technological and economic change through the Cultural Revolution to today. 

“The social changes we witnessed from childhood to adulthood were probably the greatest in human history,” he said.

“This is not an exaggeration; the world around us during our childhood and adolescence is totally two worlds, and now Chinese society is still in rapid development, which makes Chinese society full of a very strong futuristic feeling, and this feeling provides a fertile soil for the development of science fiction literature.

“I think this is the most fundamental reason for the popularity of science fiction literature in China.”

…

I wonder if Liu is hinting at or predicting a ‘Chinese century’ or a ‘Chinese millenium’. Liu’s claims seem a little facey to me but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

The September 2, 2025 article delves into the publishing environment in China,

…

All publications in China are subject to review by the General Administration of Press and Publication before they can be sold on the mass market. It has the authority to censor and ban books deemed to be critical of the government, or books that promote what it sees as western values.

But that does not significantly limit the complexity of social issues and layers of story that can be told through sci-fi, according to PhD student Zichuan Gan. Originally from China’s Fujian province he is pursuing his PhD thesis in comparative literature at the University of Toronto. 

“There is a very hot discussion about how Chinese science fiction is inherently non-binary,” said Gan.

“Non-binary not only in the sense of gender, not just two genders, but also in the way we think about things. Instead of putting things into black and white categories like male or female, human or machines, west or east, Chinese science-fiction often shows that reality and life are more mixed and complicated.”

,,,

… he also points to the moral complexity of the main characters in The Three-Body Problem.

“When Western readers read Chinese science fiction, they very often assume like, ‘oh, this work has some political meaning’, but in many cases it’s not black and white, it is not propaganda, and this non-binary feature is worth discussing.”

…

Gan is particularly interested in how ethical questions about the promise of technology are introduced, developed and explored in Chinese sci-fi. Having grown up in a part of China that took on a lot of the world’s e-waste over the past two decades, he is wary of what’s called ‘techno-fetishism.’ Something he defines as “a tendency to view technology as something detached from society, something immaterial, something magical.”

“Technology is not neutral,” said Gan. “We often hear that technology is just a tool and the only thing that matters is how we use technology. But in reality, who designs technology and what purpose it serves all shape the final product.”

…

Here’s one last bit from the September 2, 2025 article and it’s about the history of science fiction in China,

While Chinese sci-fi is flourishing in the 21st century, the genre’s roots in the country go back to the late 1880s and into the early 20th century as the imperial period ended. 

“Everything was in turmoil. The dynasties that had been in place for thousands of years were suddenly crumbling. People didn’t know what to do,” said Ari Heinrich, professor of Chinese literature and media at the Australian National University.

…

“Science fiction was on the table as a way of introducing technology to build better tools for society,” said Heinrich. “So people were deeply invested in a kind of nationalist way in what kind of technologies were out there and science fiction was a way to imagine what those technologies could be.”

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[see article for image] First published in the 1880s, the fantastical illustrated journal Dianshizhai Pictorial, published three times a month out of Shanghai. (Wikimedia/Free Domain)

“It was an illustrated, widely circulated journal, and you can see these pictures in it of bizarre flying machines, like a ship in the sky with wings, but also, you know, a hot air balloon that is clearly based on an actual one,” said Heinrich. 

“So from a very early period people were writing stories that had all kinds of actual technology in it, even if it was tweaked and made weird, but it was still somehow grounded in a desire to improve Chinese capacity. And you could say that’s still going on now.”

…

If you have time, do check out the September 2, 2025 article and/or the embedded Ideas podcast/radio programme.

I have a few previous posts about Chinese science fiction and Chinese fantasy literature, Note: For those who are unfamiliar with the genres, they are often linked together as a category or in a story,

  • Chen Qiufan, garbage, and Chinese science fiction stories (May 31, 2019 posting)
  • Telling stories about artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese science fiction; a Nov. 17, 2020 virtual event (November 16, 2020 posting)
  • The science in science fiction television (scroll down to “3 Body Problem (television series)” (June 27, 2024 posting)
  • SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity (March 11, 2026 posting)

Given how important Korean pop culture has been internationally, it seems surprising that I haven’t stumbled across Korean science fiction/fantasy.

Single injection brings hearing back within weeks?

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This extraordinary development from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet was announced in a July 3, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily, Note: This treatment was designed for a very specific type of genetically based deafness,

Gene therapy can improve hearing in children and adults with congenital deafness or severe hearing impairment, a new study involving researchers at Karolinska Institutet reports. Hearing improved in all ten patients, and the treatment was well-tolerated. The study was conducted in collaboration with hospitals and universities in China and is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

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The study comprised ten patients between the ages of 1 and 24 at five hospitals in China, all of whom had a genetic form of deafness or severe hearing impairment caused by mutations in a gene called OTOF. These mutations cause a deficiency of the protein otoferlin, which plays a critical part in transmitting auditory signals from the ear to the brain.

Effect within a month

The gene therapy involved using a synthetic adeno-associated virus (AAV) to deliver a functional version of the OTOF gene to the inner ear via a single injection through a membrane at the base of the cochlea called the round window.

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Best results in children

The younger patients, especially those between the ages of five and eight, responded best to the treatment. One of the participants, a seven-year-old girl, quickly recovered almost all her hearing and was able to hold daily conversations with her mother four months afterwards. However, the therapy also proved effective in adults.

“Smaller studies in China have previously shown positive results in children, but this is the first time that the method has been tested in teenagers and adults, too,” says Dr Duan. “Hearing was greatly improved in many of the participants, which can have a profound effect on their life quality. We will now be following these patients to see how lasting the effect is.”

No serious adverse reactions

The results also show that the treatment was safe and well-tolerated. The most common adverse reaction was a reduction in the number of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. No serious adverse reactions were reported in the follow-up period of 6 to 12 months.

…

A July 2, 2025 essay for The Conversation by Maoli Duan, one of the study’s authors, associate professor, and senior consultant at the Karolinska Institutet, provides more detail and context for the work, Note: Links have been removed,

Up to three in every 1,000 newborns has hearing loss in one or both ears. While cochlear implants offer remarkable hope for these children, it requires invasive surgery. These implants also cannot fully replicate the nuance of natural hearing.

But recent research my colleagues and I conducted has shown that a form of gene therapy can successfully restore hearing in toddlers and young adults born with congenital deafness.

Our research focused specifically on toddlers and young adults born with OTOF-related deafness. This condition is caused by mutations in the OTOF gene that produces the otoferlin protein –a protein critical for hearing.

The protein transmits auditory signals from the inner ear to the brain. When this gene is mutated, that transmission breaks down leading to profound hearing loss from birth.

Unlike other types of genetic deafness, people with OTOF mutations have healthy hearing structures in their inner ear – the problem is simply that one crucial gene isn’t working properly. This makes it an ideal candidate for gene therapy: if you can fix the faulty gene, the existing healthy structures should be able to restore hearing.

In our study, we used a modified virus as a delivery system to carry a working copy of the OTOF gene directly into the inner ear’s hearing cells. The virus acts like a molecular courier, delivering the genetic fix exactly where it’s needed.

The modified viruses do this by first attaching themselves to the hair cell’s surface, then convincing the cell to swallow them whole. Once inside, they hitch a ride on the cell’s natural transport system all the way to its control centre (the nucleus). There, they finally release the genetic instructions for otoferlin to the auditory neurons.

Our team had previously conducted studies in primates and young children (five- and eight-year-olds) which confirmed the virus therapy was safe. We were also able to illustrate the therapy’s potential to restore hearing – sometimes to near-normal levels.

But key questions had remained about whether the therapy could work in older patients – and what age is optimal for patients to receive the treatment.

To answer these questions, we expanded our clinical trial across five hospitals, enrolling ten participants aged one to 24 years. All were diagnosed with OTOF-related deafness. The virus therapy was injected into the inner ears of each participant.

We closely monitored safety during the 12-months of the study through ear examinations and blood tests. Hearing improvements were measured using both objective brainstem response tests and behavioural hearing assessments.

From the brainstem response tests, patients heard rapid clicking sounds or short beeps of different pitches while sensors measured the brain’s automatic electrical response. In another test, patients heard constant, steady tones at different pitches while a computer analysed brainwaves to see if they automatically followed the rhythm of these sounds.

For the behavioural hearing assessment, patients wore headphones and listened to faint beeps at different pitches. They pressed a button or raised their hand each time they heard a beep – no matter how faint.

Hearing improvements were both rapid and significant – especially in younger participants. Within the first month of treatment, the average total hearing improvement reached 62% on the objective brainstem response tests and 78% on the behavioural hearing assessments. Two participants achieved near-normal speech perception. The parent of one seven-year-old participant said her child could hear sounds just three days after treatment.

Over the 12-month study period, ten patients experienced very mild to moderate side-effects. The most common adverse effect was a decrease in white blood cells. Crucially, no serious adverse events were observed. This confirmed the favourable safety profile of this virus-based gene therapy.

Treating genetic deafness

…

If you have time, Duan’s July 2, 2025 essay provides a few more details about the work and the researchers’ future plans.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

AAV gene therapy for autosomal recessive deafness 9: a single-arm trial by Jieyu Qi, Liyan Zhang, Ling Lu, Fangzhi Tan, Cheng Cheng, Yicheng Lu, Wenxiu Dong, Yinyi Zhou, Xiaolong Fu, Lulu Jiang, Chang Tan, Shanzhong Zhang, Sijie Sun, Huaien Song, Maoli Duan, Dingjun Zha, Yu Sun, Xia Gao, Lei Xu, Fan-Gang Zeng & Renjie Chai. Nature Medicine (2025) DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03773-w: Published: 02 July 2025

This paper is behind a paywall.

Machine vision sensor (robotic eyes) with quantum dots can achieve superhuman adaptation speed

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A July 1, 2025 news item on Nanowerk highlights research into machine vision, Note: A link has been removed,

In blinding bright light or pitch-black dark, our eyes can adjust to extreme lighting conditions within a few minutes. The human vision system, including the eyes, neurons, and brain, can also learn and memorize settings to adapt faster the next time we encounter similar lighting challenges.

In an article published in Applied Physics Letters (“A back-to-back structured bionic visual sensor for adaptive perception”), researchers at Fuzhou University in China created a machine vision sensor that uses quantum dots to adapt to extreme changes in light far faster than the human eye can — in about 40 seconds — by mimicking eyes’ key behaviors. Their results could be a game changer for robotic vision and autonomous vehicle safety.

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A July 1, 2025 American Institute of Physics news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the research in more detail,

“Quantum dots are nano-sized semiconductors that efficiently convert light to electrical signals,” said author Yun Ye. “Our innovation lies in engineering quantum dots to intentionally trap charges like water in a sponge then release them when needed — similar to how eyes store light-sensitive pigments for dark conditions.”

The sensor’s fast adaptive speed stems from its unique design: lead sulfide quantum dots embedded in polymer and zinc oxide layers. The device responds dynamically by either trapping or releasing electric charges depending on the lighting, similar to how eyes store energy for adapting to darkness. The layered design, together with specialized electrodes, proved highly effective in replicating human vision and optimizing its light responses for the best performance.

“The combination of quantum dots, which are light-sensitive nanomaterials, and bio-inspired device structures allowed us to bridge neuroscience and engineering,” Ye said.

Not only is their device design effective at dynamically adapting for bright and dim lighting, but it also outperforms existing machine vision systems by reducing the large amount of redundant data generated by current vision systems.

“Conventional systems process visual data indiscriminately, including irrelevant details, which wastes power and slows computation,” Ye said. “Our sensor filters data at the source, similar to the way our eyes focus on key objects, and our device preprocesses light information to reduce the computational burden, just like the human retina.”

In the future, the research group plans to further enhance their device with systems involving larger sensor arrays and edge-AI chips, which perform AI data processing directly on the sensor, or using other smart devices in smart cars for further applicability in autonomous driving.

“Immediate uses for our device are in autonomous vehicles and robots operating in changing light conditions like going from tunnels to sunlight, but it could potentially inspire future low-power vision systems,” Ye said. “Its core value is enabling machines to see reliably where current vision sensors fail.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A back-to-back structured bionic visual sensor for adaptive perception by Xing Lin, Zexi Lin, Wenxiao Zhao, Sheng Xu, Enguo Chen, Tailiang Guo, Yun Ye. Appl. Phys. Lett. 126, 26 3503 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0268992 Published: June 30, 2025

This paper is behind a paywall.

A world without blood type constraints and the first human transplant of a modified kidney

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In fact, it should be “imagine a world without blood type constraints.” That’s what you’ll find on The Avivo Biomedical homepage, a University of British Columbia (UBC) spin-off company, which is associated with at least one of the researchers involved in this rather extraordinary work. From an October 3, 2025 UBC news release, also received via email *ETA October 3, 2025 1640 PT: and available on EurekAlert*,

The first successful human transplant of a kidney converted from blood type A to universal type O used special enzymes developed at the University of British Columbia to help prevent a mismatch and rejection of the organ.

Published today [October 3, 2025] in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the achievement marks a major step toward helping thousands of patients get kidney transplants sooner.

In a first-in-human experiment, the enzyme-converted kidney was transplanted into a brain-dead recipient with consent from the family, allowing researchers to observe the immune response without risking a life.

For two days, the kidney functioned without signs of hyperacute rejection, the rapid immune reaction that can destroy an incompatible organ within minutes. By the third day, some blood-type markers reappeared, triggering a mild reaction, but the damage was far less severe than in a typical mismatch, and researchers saw signs that the body was beginning to tolerate the organ.

“This is the first time we’ve seen this play out in a human model,” said Dr. Stephen Withers, UBC professor emeritus of chemistry who co-led the enzyme development. “It gives us invaluable insight into how to improve long-term outcomes.”

The breakthrough is the result of more than a decade of work. In the early 2010s, Dr. Withers and colleague Dr. Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu, a UBC professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine and the Centre for Blood Research, were focused on making universal donor blood by stripping away the sugars that define blood types.

Those same sugars, or antigens, coat organ blood vessels. If a recipient’s immune system detects the wrong antigen, it attacks. Type-O patients—more than half of kidney waitlists—can only receive type-O organs, yet type-O kidneys are often given to others because they’re universally compatible. As a result, type-O patients typically wait two to four years longer, and many die waiting.

Traditional methods for overcoming blood-type incompatibility in transplants require days of intensive treatment to strip antibodies and suppress a recipient’s immune system—and require organs from living donors. This new approach changes the organ rather than the patient, meaning transplants could be performed faster, with fewer complications, and for the first time could unlock the use of blood-type mismatched organs from deceased donors—when every hour can determine whether a patient lives or dies.

The key to this approach is the 2019 discovery by the UBC team of two highly efficient enzymes that remove the sugar that defines type-A blood, effectively converting it to type O. “These enzymes are highly active, highly selective, and work at very low concentrations,” said Dr. Kizhakkedathu. “That made the whole concept feasible.”

The next challenge was applying this to whole organs, achieved in 2022 when a Toronto team showed lungs could be converted. After successful tests on blood, then lungs and kidneys (with the University of Cambridge) outside the body, the question remained: Could an enzyme-converted organ survive inside a human immune system?

The answer came in late 2023 on an overseas trip for Dr. Kizhakkedathu. “Our collaborators showed me their data where, using our enzymes, they had converted a human kidney and transplanted it into a brain-dead recipient. It was working beautifully.” He stayed up late to call Dr. Withers first thing in the B.C. morning. “I was so thrilled. It was a dream moment.”

Blood-type antigens act like nametags on cells, and the UBC enzymes act as molecular scissors, snipping off the ‘nametag’ that marks type A and revealing type O beneath. “It’s like removing the red paint from a car and uncovering the neutral primer,” said Dr. Withers. “Once that’s done, the immune system no longer sees the organ as foreign.”

Regulatory approval for clinical trials is the next hurdle, and the partner UBC spin-off company Avivo Biomedical will lead development of these enzymes for transplant application and to enable the creation of universal donor blood on demand for transfusion medicine.

The potential is enormous. “This is what it looks like when years of basic science finally connect to patient care,” said Dr. Withers. “Seeing our discoveries edge closer to real-world impact is what keeps us pushing forward.”

Before getting to the citation and link for the paper, Rachel Fieldhouse’s October 3, 2025 article for Nature offers a little more detail, Note: This article is behind a paywall,

Scientists have converted the blood type of a donor kidney and transplanted the organ into a person. The procedure — the first of its kind — could improve access to donor organs, specialists say, because the blood type of the donor would no longer matter.

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Researchers from Canada and China used an enzyme to remove type-A antigens from a donor kidney1. The enzyme converts type-A blood into type-O, says study author Stephen Withers, a chemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The type-O kidney was then transplanted into a 68-year-old brain-dead man in Chongqing, China. The organ remained healthy for two days before showing signs of rejection. It produced urine for six days. The results are published in Nature Biomedical Engineering today [October 3, 2025].

…

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Enzyme-converted O kidneys allow ABO-incompatible transplantation without hyperacute rejection in a human decedent model by Jun Zeng, Ming Ma, Ze Tao, Zhengsheng Rao, Chaomeng Wu, Saifu Yin, Xiaojuan Jiang, Guo Chen, Zhiling Wang, Dan Huang, Mengli Zhu, Ling Liu, Wenqian Huo, Hao Yang, Hui Guo, Gang Chen, Feng Li, Chengyu Zheng, Dajiu Huang, Peter Rahfeld, Jayachandran N. Kizhakkedathu, Stephen G. Withers, Xiaofeng Lu, Keqin Zhang, Tao Lin & Turun Song. Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01513-6 Published0: 3 October 2025

This paper is behind a paywall.

Bravo to all of the researchers involved in this multi-year and multi-continent effort.

E-tattoos for plants

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Silver nanowires, which appear as a faint circle on a leaf’s surface, provide insight into a plant’s health before symptoms appear by measuring natural electrochemical impedance..IEEE Spectrum; Original imagery: Tianyiyi He, Jinge Wang, et al [downloaded from https://spectrum.ieee.org/plant-health-monitoring-electronic-tattoo]

Meghie Rodrigues’ June 2, 2025 article for the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] Spectrum magazine discusses electronic tattoos (e-tattoos) for plants, Note: Links have been removed,

Imagine a future in which farmers can tell when plants are sick even before they start showing symptoms. That ability could save a lot of crops from disease and pests—and potentially save a lot of money as well.

A team of researchers in Singapore and China have taken a step toward that possibility with their development of ultrathin electronic tattoos—dubbed e-tattoos—to study plant immune responses without the need for piercing, cutting, or bruising leaves.

The e-tattoo is a silver nanowire film that attaches to the surface of plant leaves. It conducts a harmless alternating current—in the microampere range—to measure a plant’s electrochemical impedance to that current. That impedance isa telltale sign of the plant’s health.

Lead author Tianyiyi He, an associate professor of the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University’s [MSU is Moscow State University and BIT is Beijing Institute of Technology] Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, says that a healthy plant has a characteristic impedance spectrum—it’s as unique to the plant as a person’s fingerprints. “If the plant is stressed or its cells are damaged, this spectrum changes in shape and magnitude. Different stressors—dehydration, immune response—cause different changes.”

This is because plant cells, He explains, are like tiny chambers with fluids passing through them. The membranes of plant cells act like capacitors, resisting the flow of electrical current. “When cells break down—like in an immune response—the current flows more easily, and impedance drops,” He adds.

Detecting Plant Stress Early with E-Tattoos

Different problems yield different electrical responses: Dehydration, for example, looks different than an infection. Changes in a plant’s impedance spectrum means that something is not right—and by looking at where and how that spectrum changed, He’s team could spot what the problem was, up to three hours before physical symptoms started appearing.

…

The team tested the film on lab-grown thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) for 14 days. They mixed the nanowires in water so that they could transfer smoothly to the plant, by simply dripping the mix onto the leaves. Then they applied the e-tattoo in two different positions—side by side on a single leaf and on opposite faces of a leaf—to see how the current would flow. Then, with a droplet of galistan (a liquid metal alloy composed of gallium, indium, and tin), they attached a copper wire with the diameter of a human hair to the e-tattoo’s surface to apply an AC current from a small generator. He’s team collected data every day to see how plants would react.

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He says liquid-carried silver nanowires worked better than other highly conductive metals such as copper or nickel because they were not soft enough to entirely “glue” to plants’ leaves and stay perfectly plastered even as the leaf bends or wrinkles. And in the case of thale cresses, they also have tricomas, tiny hairlike structures that usually protect and keep leaves from losing too much water. Tricomas, He explains, hinder perfect attachment since they make a leaf’s surface uneven—but silver nanowires managed to get around the problem in a better way than other materials.

…

Advancements in Plant Impedance Spectroscopy

This isn’t the first time tattoos or electrical impedance spectroscopy have been used for plants, says Stavrinidou.[Eleni Stavrinidou, principal investigator in the electronic plants research group from Linköping University’s Laboratory of Organic Electronics in Sweden, who was not involved in the work. He’s {Tianyiy He} team published its work on 4 April {2025} in Nature Communications.]

What’s new in the study, Stavrinidou says, “is the validation—they show this approach works on delicate plants like Arabidopsis and links clearly to immune responses.”

…

Here’s a link to and a citation to He and team’s study,

Epidermal electronic-tattoo for plant immune response monitoring by Tianyiyi He, Jinge Wang, Donghui Hu, Yanqin Yang, Eunyoung Chae & Chengkuo Lee. Nature Communications volume 16, Article number: 3244 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58584-x Published: 04 April 2025

This paper is open access.

It’s not all about simulating the synapse for neuromorphic (brainlike) computing: presenting dendritic integration

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Michael Berger’s May 20, 2026 Nanowerk Spotlight article features a new (to me) aspect (or, if you prefer, challenge) to neuromorphic computing, Note: A link has been removed,

Efforts to design computing systems that operate more like the brain have pushed engineers to rethink how information is processed, transmitted, and stored. Biological neurons are not simple relays. Their ability to process input relies not just on synapses—the connections between neurons—but also on dendrites. These branching structures collect and integrate signals across both time and space, shaping how a neuron responds.

Most neuromorphic devices developed so far have focused on mimicking synaptic functions. Dendritic behavior, which governs how multiple inputs are combined and modulated, remains less explored. This gap limits the capacity of neuromorphic hardware to emulate the full computational complexity of biological neurons.

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For anyone unfamiliar with dendrites, here’s a description from the Dendrite Wikipedia entry, which follows the image, Note: Links not included in the caption for the image have been removed,

Credity: Curtis Neveu – Own work. Caption: The neuron contains dendrites that receives information, a cell body called the soma, an an axon that sends information. Schwann cells make activity move faster down axon. Synapses allow neurons to activate other neurons. The dendrites receive a signal, the axon hillock funnels the signal to the initial segment and the initial segment triggers the activity (action potential) that is sent along the axon towards the synapse. Please see learnbio.org for interactive version. CC BY-SA 4.0
File:Anatomy of neuron.png
Created: 17 May 2022
Uploaded: 17 May 2022

A dendrite (from Greek δένδρον déndron, “tree”) or dendron is a branched cytoplasmic process that extends from a nerve cell that propagates the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the neuron from which the dendrites project. Electrical stimulation is transmitted onto dendrites by upstream neurons (usually via their axons) via synapses which are located at various points throughout the dendritic tree.

Dendrites play a critical role in integrating these synaptic inputs and in determining the extent to which action potentials are produced by the neuron.[1]

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Berger’s May 20, 2026 article explains how scientists are attempting to create artificial dendrites, Note: Links have been removed,

Artificial dendrites are difficult to construct. Unlike synapses, which can often be replicated with resistive memory elements (memristors), dendrites require spatially distributed signal processing and sensitivity to the timing of input spikes. Biological dendrites perform this by managing ion flow across complex membrane structures, often with localized chemical and electrical variations. Traditional electronic systems, which rely on electrons in solid-state circuits, struggle to reproduce these dynamics.

Ionic devices offer a more faithful analogue. In particular, nanofluidic memristors—devices that transport ions through confined channels—can mimic how neurons regulate ionic currents. Prior work has shown that such systems can simulate synaptic plasticity and memory. Yet most rely on electrical stimulation, which adds complexity to control circuitry.

In contrast, light offers a clean, contactless way to manipulate ion behavior. Optogenetics, a biological technique that uses light to activate ion channels in neurons, has shown how effective this can be. Researchers have started applying similar principles to synthetic systems, but artificial dendrites with full spatiotemporal integration remain rare.

A study published in Advanced Materials (“Optogenetics‐Inspired Nanofluidic Artificial Dendrite with Spatiotemporal Integration Functions”) introduces a nanofluidic device that addresses this challenge. Developed by a team at Northeast Normal University [NENU], the system integrates layered graphene oxide (GO) into a flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix. It uses light to control sodium ion (Na⁺) transport through nanochannels. This approach simulates how dendrites integrate signals from different spatial locations and over time. It also lays the groundwork for more advanced neuromorphic machines that include artificial sensory-motor reflexes.

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This work shows how optical modulation of ionic pathways can be used to create functional artificial dendrites. It opens a path toward more realistic neural circuits in hardware, capable not just of memory and learning, but of the nuanced signal processing required for perception and motor control. As components like this are refined, they could play a central role in building autonomous systems that interact more naturally with their environment.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Optogenetics-Inspired Nanofluidic Artificial Dendrite with Spatiotemporal Integration Functions by Zhuangzhuang Li, Ya Lin, Xuanyu Shan, Zhongqiang Wang, Xiaoning Zhao, Ye Tao, Haiyang Xu, Yichun Liu. Advanced Materials First published: 16 May 2025 Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue 2502438 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202502438

This paper is behind a paywall.

If you have the time, Berger’s May 20, 2026 article provides more detail about the device.

Cellulose-based carbon nanomaterials (C-BCN) derived from bamboo for an ultra-robust hydrogel

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A May 16, 2025 article on bioengineer.org announces a new hydrogel,

In the relentless quest to develop materials that combine flexibility, durability, and functionality, a novel breakthrough in hydrogel technology shines a promising light on the future of wearable electronics and soft robotics. Engineers and material scientists from Southwest Forestry University in China have synthesized an ultra-robust hydrogel utilizing bamboo cellulose-based carbon nanomaterials (C-BCN), a development that could set new standards in the performance of flexible devices.

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A May 16, 2025 Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts press release on EurekAlert, which originated the article, delves further into the topic,

Hydrogels have long been recognized for their potential in various applications, including tissue engineering, drug delivery, and wearable electronics. However, traditional hydrogels often lack the mechanical strength and durability needed for demanding applications. Now, researchers from Southwest Forestry University in China have developed an innovative solution using bamboo cellulose-based carbon nanomaterials (C-BCN) to create an ultra-robust hydrogel with remarkable properties.

The study, published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, details the process of creating the hydrogel. The researchers treated bamboo fibers with phthalic anhydride and then carbonized them to produce C-BCN. These nanomaterials were integrated into an acrylamide precursor solution to synthesize a conductive hydrogel (PAM-C-BCN) with exceptional mechanical properties. The hydrogel exhibited a fracture strength of 363 kPa, an elongation of 2,254%, a fracture energy of 30 kJ/m², and a toughness of 3.04 MJ/m³. Additionally, the hydrogel demonstrated high adhesion (up to 7.5 kPa on pigskin) and conductivity (0.21 S/m).

The researchers found that the C-BCN significantly enhanced the mechanical resilience and energy dissipation capabilities of the hydrogel. The nanomaterials formed strong interfacial interactions with the polyacrylamide (PAM) matrix, creating a densely interpenetrated network. This structure not only improved the hydrogel’s mechanical properties but also provided excellent fatigue resistance and adhesion. The hydrogel’s ability to restrain crack propagation was particularly noteworthy, making it highly suitable for applications requiring high mechanical performance.

The study’s findings have significant implications for the development of flexible electronics and wearable devices. The PAM-C-BCN hydrogel’s excellent mechanical properties, combined with its high conductivity and adhesion, make it a promising material for applications such as electronic skin, soft robotics, and strain sensors. The researchers suggest that further optimization of the C-BCN production process could enhance the hydrogel’s performance even further.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Fabricating ultra-robust hydrogels with adhesive properties by restraining crack propagation with bamboo cellulose-based carbon nanomaterials by Xin Duan, Huanxin Huo, Hongshan Li, Yihong Gao, Haoran Shi, Feng Kuang, Yumeng Chen, Jianyong Wan, Jingjie Shen, Guanben Du, Long Yang. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobab.2025.05.002 In Press, Corrected Proof Available online 14 May 2025 Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed)

This paper is open access.

Tracing charismatic river porpoises’ 1,400 year decline with ancient poems

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A May 5, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces a ‘poetic’ analysis of China’s river porpoises over a 1400 year time span,

Endemic to China’s Yangtze River, the Yangtze finless porpoise is known for its intelligence and charismatic appearance; it looks like it has a perpetual smile on its face. To track how this critically endangered porpoise’s habitat range has changed over time, a team of biodiversity and conservation experts compiled 724 ancient Chinese poems referencing the porpoise from historic collections across China. Publishing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 5 [2025], their results show that the porpoise’s range has decreased by at least 65% over the past 1,400 years, with the majority of this decline occurring in the past century.

“We’re connecting 2,000 years of Chinese culture with biodiversity,” says author Zhigang Mei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who grew up alongside the Yangtze River revering the porpoises; elders in his community taught that they were like spirits, predicting the weather and the fish levels, and that hurting them was bad luck. “Our work fills the gap between the super long-term information we get from fossils and DNA and the recent population surveys. It really shows how powerful it can be to combine art and biodiversity conservation.”

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Caption: A Ming Dynasty woodblock-printed illustration from “Sancai Tuhui” (in English, Compendium of the Three Powers), compiled by Wang Qi (1573–1620), which is a 49-volume book of poems on birds and animals. This poem meticulously documents the Yangtze finless porpoise through morphological details, surfacing postures, and maternal care behaviors. Credit: “Sancai Tuhui,” compiled by Wang Qi (1573–1620) License:
CC BY-SA

A May 5, 2025 Cell Press news release, which originated the news item, provides more context for and detail about the analysis,

The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world, stretching 6,300 km from the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau until it spills out into the East China Sea near Shanghai. Historically, people—including many prolific poets such as Qianlong, the emperor of the Qing dynasty—relied on the river and its tributaries to travel around the region. Along the way, many caught glimpses of the Yangtze finless porpoise, which is the world’s only known freshwater porpoise and used to inhabit most of the river. 

“Compared to fish, Yangtze finless porpoises are pretty big, and they’re active on the surface of the water, especially before thunderstorms when they’re really chasing after fish and jumping around,” says Mei. “This amazing sight was hard for poets to ignore.” 

Indeed, as the team systematically collected, filtered, and collated their way through preserved poems dating back to the year 618, the researchers found hundreds of references to the porpoises. Mei says that the fact that a freshwater mammal like the Yangtze finless porpoise appears so often in these poems reflects the deep connection between people and nature in Ancient China. 

“One of the biggest challenges in this research was just the sheer number of Chinese poems out there, and the fact that every poet had such a different style,” says Mei. “We had to figure out how accurate the poets were being. Some might have been really focused on realism, describing what they saw as objectively as possible. Others might have been more imaginative, exaggerating the size or behavior of things they saw. So, once we found these poems, we had to research each poet’s life and writing style to make sure the information we were getting was reliable.” 

By contextualizing the porpoise references within the rest of the poem and alongside historical records of the poet’s life events, the researchers were able to pinpoint the chronological time and geographic location of the sightings. They found that the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912 CE) had over half of the total porpoise poetry with 477 poems mentioning the Yangtze finless porpoise, followed by the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE) with 177 poems, the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368 CE) with 27, the Song Dynasty with 38, and the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) with just 5 poems. 

Next, the researchers used the information gathered from the poems to reconstruct the porpoise’s distribution over time. They found that the sharpest habitat-range decrease occurred over the past century—between the Qing dynasty and modern times. They also observed that the porpoise’s range throughout the main part of the river has decreased by 33% since the Tang Dynasty, while its range among the tributaries and lakes that the Yangtze feeds into has decreased by 91%. 

The finding that the Yangtze finless porpoise’s range has declined so sharply over the past century aligns with previous research, which showed that their dwindling population can be largely attributed to human alterations to the Yangtze River—especially through hydraulic engineering projects. The porpoises likely disappeared from the Yangtze’s lakes and tributaries as a direct result of dam constructions in the 1950s that blocked off movement to and from the river’s mainstem. Two other species endemic to the Yangtze—the baiji dolphin and the Chinese paddlefish—have gone functionally extinct over the past few decades, likely due to the same habitat changes. 

“Protecting nature isn’t just the responsibility of modern science; it’s also deeply connected to our culture and history,” says Mei. “Art, like poetry, can really spark an emotional connection, making people realize the harmony and respect we should have between people and nature.” 

Going forward, the authors plan to dig back into the poems they’ve collected to see what they can learn about what the river looked like in the past, how big the groups of porpoises used to be, and how they might have behaved before their numbers dwindled. They hope that their work can eventually help the remaining Yangtze finless porpoise population recover and potentially inspire more scientists to gain ecological insights from poetry—as well as from other historical art forms such as novels and paintings. 

“This work made me rethink the scientific value of historical literature and showed us the power of thinking across disciplines,” says Mei. “Chinese poetry, this ancient art form, can be a serious scientific tool. Using the past to understand the present, ‘decoding’ the stories behind the art: it’s not just research, it’s like having a conversation with the poets of the past.”  

Sara Hashemi’s May 6, 2025 article for the Smithsonian magazine gathers together more perspectives on the work from a variety of articles, Note: Links have been removed

The work highlights the connection between culture and science. “Poems are actually ancient citizen science [emphasis mine],” says study co-author Jiajia Liu, an ecologist at Fudan University in China, to McKenzie Prillaman at Science News. “These data are not perfect. … But they do have a lot of information if you use them correctly.”

Poetry as citizen science? I like that.Hashemi’s May 6, 2025 article offers more delights.

Caption: A photo of a Yangtze finless porpoise hunting in Poyang Lake. Credit: Yu Huigong Licence: CC BY-SA

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Range contraction of the Yangtze finless porpoise inferred from classic Chinese poems by Yaoyao Zhang, Jiajia Liu, Shilu Zheng, Jianghua Wang, Kexiong Wang, Ding Wang, Zhigang Mei. Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 9, 5 May 2025, Pages R329-R330 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.02.052

This paper is behind a paywall.

AI governance in the real-world ‘city brain’ project: possible pitfalls

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An April 16, 2025 Trinity College Dublin press release illustrates the pervasiveness of generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI, GenAI, or GAI) in the management of cities,

The work underscores what can go wrong when an AI that manages city transport, safety, health and environmental monitoring predicts the future and intervenes in the present, significantly influencing urban governance and public policy development.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is boosting anticipatory forms of governance around the world, helping state actors to predict the future and focus their efforts in the present where the AI predicts they can have the greatest positive impact.

This phenomenon is particularly evident in China, but similar forms of governance mediated by generative AI are also becoming increasingly popular in Europe and the seeds of this trend are already visible in Ireland.

In this context, “city brains” represent an emerging type of generative AI currently employed in urban governance and public policy in a growing number of cities. City brains are large-scale AIs residing in vast digital urban platforms, which use Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate visions of urban futures: visions that are in turn used by policymakers to generate new urban policies. In China alone, there are over 500 cities developing city brains.

However, one of the main foreseeable dangers is the formation of a policy process that, under the influence of unintelligible LLMs, risks losing transparency and thus accountability, with another being the marginalisation of human stakeholders (citizens, in particular) as the role of AI in the management of cities keeps growing and governance begins to turn posthuman.

And by focusing on a real-world city brain project operating in the Haidian district of Beijing (China), which has a population of around 3,000,000 people and gathers data from over 14,000 CCTV cameras and over 20,000 environmental sensors, the researchers have been able to show these dangers are not just theoretical.

A person stands looking at an interactive dashboard of an existing City Brain system in China, at an interactive exhibition centre for the public. The dashboard of an existing City Brain system in China. Image credit: Dr Ying Xu.

Dr Federico Cugurullo, Associate Professor in Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, is a leading expert in AI urbanism and the first author of the research, which has been published in the journal Policy and Society.

He said: “We can think of the Haidian city brain project as a gigantic panopticon that constantly observes what is happening it the city. It is operated by AI and focuses on three main areas of governance that are shaped by its predictions: environmental risk management, traffic management and public security.”

“For example, in the case of an impending natural disaster, policies are rapidly implemented to build new infrastructure meant to reinforce riverbanks and increase the efficiency of the city’s drainage systems. Outcomes also include direct interventions when, for example, police officers are dispatched to prevent illegal activities in an area where, according to the city brain, crimes are likely to take place in the near future.”

“However, the predictions of the Haidian city brain are far from being infallible. Our research reveals that the accuracy rate of what the city brain predicts varies from 60% to 90%, which leaves a significant margin of error around such important decisions, for which there is no understanding as to why they have been implemented. This is particularly dangerous when it comes to predictive policing, since any error made by AI means that an innocent person will be targeted by the police for hypothetical crimes that never took place.”

This research forms part of the ORACLE project led by Professor Cugurullo, which was funded by Research Ireland (formerly the Irish Research Council).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

When AIs become oracles: generative artificial intelligence, anticipatory urban governance, and the future of cities by Federico Cugurullo, Ying Xu. Policy and Society, Volume 44, Issue 1, January 2025, Pages 98–115, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae025 Published online: 01 August 2024

This paper is open access.

For anyone unfamiliar with the ‘panopticon’, there’s an entry in Wikipedia, Note: Links have been removed,

The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single corrections officer, without the inmates knowing whether or not they are being watched.

Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates’ cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched motivates them to act as though they are all being watched at all times. They are effectively compelled to self-regulation. The architecture consists of a rotunda with an inspection house at its centre. From the centre, the manager or staff are able to watch the inmates. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, and asylums. …

I have not been able to find a website for Cugurullo’s ORACLE project but I did find Cugurullo’s January 3, 2025 essay “AI could make cities autonomous, but that doesn’t mean we should let it happen,” which discusses a new field “AI urbanism” and includes the example of an enormous Saudi Arabian project, Neom and its linear city, The Line.