分类： science

Nearly six months into their historic stay aboard China’s Tiangong space station, the three-person Shenzhou XXI crew has opened a window into their daily orbital work through a newly released video diary, putting a spotlight on the groundbreaking aerospace medical experiments they are conducting to advance human long-duration spaceflight knowledge.

Released Sunday by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the vlog follows astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang as they move smoothly between specialized research racks aboard the orbiting outpost. Clad in standard blue short-sleeved mission polos, the crew demonstrates practiced precision as they handle biological samples, calibrate research hardware, and tick off a packed schedule of experimental and maintenance tasks. Per CMSA’s latest update, all three crew members remain in excellent physical shape, maintaining sharp coordination and steady motivation more than five months into their mission.

The core focus of the work highlighted in the vlog centers on advancing understanding of how long-duration exposure to microgravity and isolated space conditions impacts human bodily function and performance. To this end, the crew has already completed a battery of cognitive function assessments and emergency decision-making drills, data from which will fill critical gaps in current research on human adaptation to extended space travel.

One of the most notable experiments showcased in the diary sees the crew using a specialized space-grade Raman spectrometer to analyze metabolic components in urine samples. The insights gathered from this work will allow scientists to refine existing metabolic indicator frameworks and health evaluation standards for astronauts on future long-duration missions. The team also collected and cryogenically preserved saliva samples, which will be transported back to Earth for ground-based analysis of gut flora and digestive system changes in microgravity.

Following experimental protocols, the crew also successfully drew and processed blood samples for three key lines of research: bone metabolism regulation, integrative omics, and the impact of spaceflight on circadian sleep rhythms. After processing the samples with a specialized on-orbit centrifuge, the specimens were stored securely to await return to Earth for further study.

Beyond medical research, the crew also continued progress on microgravity physical science experiments during the period covered by the vlog. Tasks completed included replacing research samples in the orbiting laboratory’s fluid physics experiment cabinet, swapping out burners and gas cylinders in the combustion science module, and cleaning research materials from the containerless experimental chamber. When off-duty, the astronauts stick to a structured health maintenance routine, with the vlog capturing them working out on the station’s treadmill and using resistance bands to counteract the muscle and bone density loss associated with long-term microgravity exposure.

The Shenzhou XXI mission launched on October 31, 2025, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China. To date, the crew has completed two planned extravehicular activity sessions: the first in December 2025, and the second in mid-March 2026, marking steady progress across all mission objectives.

For decades, scientists have chased clues about how the raw materials for life first arrived on the early Earth, and a groundbreaking new discovery from a Chinese-led international research team has brought that story into sharper focus than ever before. In a first for planetary science, the team has successfully identified multiple nitrogen-bearing organic compounds on the surfaces of lunar soil grains brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e 5 and Chang’e 6 missions, opening new windows into how organic matter moved through the early solar system. The team’s findings, which include contributions from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of New Mexico, and Changsha University of Science and Technology, were officially published in the peer-reviewed journal *Science Advances* on April 10, 2026.

The longstanding core hypothesis among planetary scientists holds that asteroids and comets acted as cosmic delivery couriers in the chaotic early days of the solar system, shuttling critical organic compounds and life-essential elements—including carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—to the rocky terrestrial planets of the inner solar system. These deposited materials, researchers argue, likely supplied many of the fundamental chemical building blocks that allowed life to emerge and evolve on early Earth. But tracing this history has proven extraordinarily difficult on our home planet: billions of years of constant geological activity, tectonic shifts, and biological processes have erased nearly all traces of these earliest organic inputs. The Moon, by contrast, has almost no geological activity, making it a perfectly preserved time capsule that retains 4.5 billion years of solar system history, including records of these ancient organic delivery events.

Prior studies of lunar samples collected by NASA’s Apollo missions successfully detected simple carbon- and hydrogen-containing organic compounds in lunar regolith, but concrete evidence of nitrogen-bearing organics had never been found—creating a critical gap in the hypothesis that organic materials were delivered to the inner solar system via asteroid and comet impacts. To fill this gap, the research team deployed cutting-edge analytical techniques: high-resolution microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and high-precision spectroscopic methods, which allowed them to map and characterize tiny organic deposits on individual lunar soil grains at a micro scale.

Their analysis confirmed that the organic matter found on the lunar grain surfaces is primarily composed of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, with no uniform fixed chemical structure. “In some of the samples we tested, we detected amide functional groups, a key structural component of biological molecules like proteins,” explained Dong Mingtan, first author of the study and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. “This confirms these materials are not just inert graphitized carbon—they have undergone complex chemical reprocessing that brings their structure much closer to the type of organic molecules that could be used by developing life.”

Further isotopic analysis revealed that the hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen isotopic compositions of these lunar organics are generally lighter than the same organic materials found in carbonaceous chondrites (primitive asteroid fragments that fall to Earth) and directly collected asteroid samples. Dong noted that this specific isotopic signature matches the expected outcome of impact processing: when asteroids or comets collide with the Moon, extreme impact heat triggers the decomposition and volatilization of organic molecules from the impacting extraterrestrial body, leading lighter isotopes to preferentially condense and deposit onto lunar mineral grains.

In another landmark finding, the team also identified clear signatures of solar wind implantation in the lunar organic matter for the first time. “We observed distinct shifts in hydrogen isotopic composition and hydrogen-to-carbon ratios close to the surfaces of the soil grains, which matches the pattern one would expect from prolonged exposure on the lunar surface and continuous irradiation by solar wind particles,” said Hao Jialong, the study’s corresponding author and a senior engineer at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics. “Crucially, these patterns rule out the possibility that the organic compounds came from terrestrial contamination after the samples were returned to Earth.”

The research team’s work outlines a clear, continuous evolutionary pathway for lunar organic matter: initial delivery by extraterrestrial impacting bodies, followed by chemical restructuring driven by impact heat, and final modification by long-term lunar space weathering. This sequence provides transformative new insights into the evolution of small solar system bodies and the full history of organic delivery to the inner solar system. Beyond advancing our understanding of early solar system evolution, the new analytical techniques developed for this research have broad applications for future deep space exploration. Dong emphasized that these methods can be adapted to identify microscale organic matter and trace its evolutionary history in samples collected by future sample return missions—including China’s Tianwen 2 mission, which is scheduled to return the country’s first asteroid samples to Earth by the end of 2027.

For nearly 40 years, the full extent of biological diversity across the Cangshan Mountain range in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province has eluded scientific understanding. Now, a groundbreaking three-year comprehensive biodiversity census has pulled back the curtain on one of China’s most ecologically significant landscapes, revealing surprising ecological richness that defies its relatively small geographic footprint.

Covering just 1,000 square kilometers — an area equal to 0.25% of Yunnan’s total land mass — the mountain range is home to nearly 25% of all vascular plant species recorded across the entire province, according to the survey results publicly released Friday. This marks the first systematic, full-scope study of Cangshan’s ecosystems since international joint research expeditions conducted work in the region in the 1980s, and it formally confirms the long-suspected status of Cangshan as a globally critical biodiversity hotspot.

Over the course of the three-year survey, research teams from across the country’s top forestry and botanical institutions documented more than 4,600 distinct plant species, 578 vertebrate species, and multiple previously unknown taxa new to global scientific classification. “This is the first time we have gained a complete, evidence-based picture of all the biological life that exists across Cangshan,” noted Zhong Mingchuan, lead research team member and head of the Yunnan Academy of Forestry and Grassland. “This research answers the most fundamental, long-unanswered questions about the region’s biological resources.”

In addition to cataloging species, the research team developed the first comprehensive vegetation classification system specifically for the mountain range, and identified several vegetation types that had not been formally recorded in the region before, including monsoon evergreen broadleaf forests. Xiang Chunlei, a researcher with the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized that every species documented fulfills a unique, non-substitutable function in maintaining the mountain’s overall ecological balance. “It is misleading to rank species by perceived importance,” Xiang explained. “Every organism has an irreplaceable role within the broader Cangshan ecosystem.”

Beyond its extraordinary biodiversity, the survey also highlights Cangshan’s underrecognized critical role in sustaining the health of Erhai Lake, one of Yunnan’s largest and most ecologically and economically important freshwater resources. Using cutting-edge isotope tracing technology, researchers confirmed that more than 65% of Erhai Lake’s total water volume comes from surface runoff and groundwater recharge originating in Cangshan’s mountain ecosystems.

Encouragingly, the survey data also documents clear, long-term ecological improvement across the mountain range over the past four decades. Since the late 1980s, overall vegetation coverage across Cangshan has increased steadily, and researchers have classified roughly two-thirds of the entire mountain range as being in “good” or “excellent” ecological condition today.

These scientific findings align closely with the on-the-ground changes experienced by local communities who call Cangshan’s slopes home. In Guangming Village, located on the mountain’s western slope, resident Chen Jiaru has observed a sharp rise in the number of domestic and international tourists traveling to the area specifically to learn about the mountain’s unique natural ecosystems. “More and more visitors come here specifically to explore and understand Cangshan’s natural environment,” Chen said. “Our village has become an accessible window for people from across the country and around the world to experience the mountain’s extraordinary biodiversity.”

Local villagers have adapted to this growing interest by partnering with scientific educators to host educational study groups and guided ecological walking tours, while older community members share generations of traditional ecological knowledge about the mountain’s native plants and wildlife with visitors. For conservation managers, the new comprehensive species map has also allowed for far more targeted and effective protection efforts. At the management station for the Cangshan Erhai National Nature Reserve, head ranger Zhao Tichao explained that the survey’s findings have removed much of the uncertainty that previously guided conservation work. “We now have a clear, accurate understanding of exactly which species live here, and where they are located,” Zhao said. “This allows us to focus our limited conservation resources far more effectively than ever before.”

For generations, Earth’s most destructive geological giants — supervolcanoes — have concealed the secrets of their origins. These extraordinary formations can unleash eruptions that eject more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic material, enough to bury an entire major metropolis under tens of meters of debris and send catastrophic ripple effects through global ecosystems, climate patterns, and human civilization. Now, a collaborative research effort between Chinese and American scientists has pulled back the curtain, offering the first complete, evidence-based account of how the massive magma system beneath one of the world’s most famous supervolcanoes forms and endures over geologic time.

The joint project, led by researchers from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Illinois, was published in the peer-reviewed academic journal *Science* on April 11, 2026. The study centers on the Yellowstone caldera, the iconic supervolcano located within Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, which has long served as a natural research laboratory for volcanologists thanks to its well-documented geological activity and abundant geophysical data. Over the last 2.1 million years, Yellowstone has produced two catastrophic eruptions, ejecting roughly 2,500 and 1,000 cubic kilometers of material respectively, cementing its status as one of the most closely studied supervolcanic systems on the planet.

For decades, the dominant scientific model held that supervolcanoes are fueled by large, continuous reservoirs of fully liquid magma trapped in Earth’s crust. According to this long-standing theory, molten rock gradually accumulates underground, building pressure until it fractures the surrounding rock and triggers a massive eruption, with heat supplied by a vertical plume of hot rock rising from thousands of kilometers deep in the mantle. Over the past ten years, however, new observations have upended this consensus. Recent studies have confirmed that magma beneath supervolcanoes rarely exists as a large, fully liquid pool; instead, it typically forms a crystalline “mush” — a semi-solid mixture of molten rock and solid mineral crystals that can remain stable underground for millions of years. Geophysical surveys have also revealed a surprising geological quirk: Yellowstone’s entire magma system is tilted diagonally, rather than vertical as the classic plume model predicted, extending progressively farther to the southwest as depth increases.

To resolve these contradictions and unlock the true origins of the Yellowstone system, the research team constructed a cutting-edge high-resolution three-dimensional model of the geological structure beneath western North America. The model integrates decades of data across three core disciplines — geology, geophysics, and geochemistry — to simulate both Yellowstone’s prehistoric eruptions and its current active state.

The study’s findings upend previous assumptions about where supervolcanic magma originates. The team’s simulations show that magma forms much deeper than the scientific community once believed, originating near the base of the North American lithosphere — Earth’s rigid outer rocky layer, which extends roughly 100 kilometers below the continental surface. At this depth, hot, partially molten rock moves slowly eastward through a narrow geologic channel directly beneath Yellowstone. As this buoyant hot material is stretched and carried by mantle flow beneath the thicker section of the North American lithosphere, pressure drops dramatically, triggering widespread melting of the rock to generate large volumes of magma.

This process is shaped by a key tectonic interaction: the North American continental plate is slowly moving westward, pushing against the deeper eastward flow of mantle rock. The opposing forces act to pull apart the base of the continental lithosphere, creating a diagonal pathway that allows magma to rise toward the surface. This mechanism directly explains the tilted, non-vertical shape of Yellowstone’s magma system that geoscientists have observed in seismic surveys.

“This study delivers the first comprehensive explanation of how magmatic systems beneath supervolcanoes form and evolve,” stated Liu Lijun, the corresponding author of the paper and a senior researcher at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Cao Zebin, the paper’s first author and a postdoctoral researcher on the team, noted that the newly identified mechanism is not unique to Yellowstone. It is likely applicable to many other large volcanic systems around the globe, including Indonesia’s Toba supervolcano in Southeast Asia and the Altiplano-Puna volcanic complex in the South American Andes.

Looking forward, Liu explained that the refined 3D model could eventually enable more accurate forecasting of volcanic activity, similar to how modern meteorology predicts weather events. If further validated, the model could help authorities anticipate supervolcanic activity far in advance and drastically reduce the risk of loss of life and infrastructure from these rare but catastrophic geological events.

Against a backdrop of rising climate-driven threats to global staple crop production, a collaborative team of Chinese plant scientists has announced a landmark discovery: a newly identified gene that confers robust resistance to bacterial leaf blight, a globally destructive rice pathogen that threatens food security across continents.

Published in the leading academic journal *Nature* on April 13, 2026, the breakthrough comes after 20 years of rigorous research led by the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with partners from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Zhejiang University. Bacterial leaf blight, which erodes rice plants’ ability to carry out photosynthesis, causes stunted, shriveled grains and can result in complete total crop loss in severe outbreaks. Climate change has amplified the spread of this pathogen, as rising temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events including typhoons and floods create ideal conditions for the bacteria to move between fields and regions.

To pinpoint the new resistance gene, the research team systematically screened more than 3,000 distinct rice varieties, ultimately isolating the unique gene, which they have named Xa48. Scientists explain that Xa48 functions like a customized biological security system for the rice plant: it detects a specific effector protein produced by the blight-causing bacteria, then immediately triggers the plant’s natural immune defenses to neutralize the invader. Unlike older previously identified resistance genes that primarily target bacterial strains prevalent only in Southeast Asia, Xa48 delivers particularly strong protection against pathogen variants common in Northeast Asia.

Building on this finding, the researchers combined Xa48 with an older, broad-spectrum resistance gene called Xa21 to engineer a “dual-layer” immune defense for cultivated rice. This innovative approach replicates the natural, robust disease resistance seen in wild rice — a trait that has largely been lost from modern commercial rice varieties, as decades of selective breeding prioritized high yields over defensive traits.

The discovery is already moving beyond laboratory testing into real-world agricultural application. Multiple leading seed companies and national agricultural research institutions, including Longping High-Tech Agriculture Co and the China National Rice Research Institute, are already integrating the gene into breeding programs to develop new disease-resistant rice cultivars.

Beyond protecting crop yields, the breakthrough offers notable environmental benefits. “Improving disease resistance of crops will also reduce pesticide use, contributing to greener agricultural production,” explained He Zuhua, a senior researcher and co-corresponding author of the *Nature* study. Even with current widespread pesticide application, experts estimate that China loses a minimum of 18 million metric tons of grain to pests and diseases each year. Preliminary field trials of the new rice lines developed through this research have already demonstrated that the modified cultivars maintain high yields and retain strong resistance even when exposed to flood and typhoon stress.

“This is the first time in crops that the combination of two immune networks has been shown to reconstruct such broad-spectrum disease resistance like wild rice,” noted Lin Hui, co-first author of the research paper. For agricultural communities grappling with growing climate uncertainty, the discovery marks a critical step toward developing more resilient staple crops that can protect global food supplies for decades to come.

After four decades of drifting and gradual transformation through the Southern Ocean, what was once recognized as the world’s largest iceberg, A23a, has reached the end of its lifecycle, with its final collapse fully captured by China’s network of Fengyun meteorological satellites, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

When A23a first calved off Antarctica’s Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, it was a massive frozen structure spanning 4,170 square kilometers, measuring nearly 400 meters thick, and weighing an estimated one trillion tons. For decades, the giant iceberg remained grounded in the Weddell Sea, locked in place and largely unchanged until around 2020, when warming ocean temperatures melted enough surrounding ice to free it from the seafloor. It remained stationary for another two years, however, before significant movement began in late 2022.

By early 2023, A23a still covered 4,035 square kilometers, earning it an official Guinness World Record as the largest iceberg on the planet at that time. From that point, the iceberg entered a period of steady northward acceleration: it exited the Weddell Sea in 2024 and entered the powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which carried it steadily toward warmer waters. Between June and September 2025, the iceberg suffered multiple large-scale fracture events, shrinking its total area from 3,536 square kilometers at the start of the year to roughly 1,400 square kilometers. By January 2026, further breakup reduced the iceberg’s main remaining body to just 503 square kilometers.

Propelled by the swift currents of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, A23a continued its rapid drift, experiencing three more major collapse events in its final weeks. Data from the Fengyun-3 meteorological satellite confirms the iceberg completed its final breakup between late March and early April 2026. By April 3, a final collapse event reduced the largest remaining fragment to just 11 kilometers long and 35.2 square kilometers in area — a size that no longer meets the official classification threshold for an iceberg, closing the book on A23a’s 40-year existence.

A research team led by Zheng Zhaojun, chief expert at the National Satellite Meteorological Center’s International User Service Center, has leveraged high-resolution remote sensing data from Fengyun satellites to track A23a’s trajectory, morphological shifts, and gradual disintegration over its entire lifecycle. The Fengyun-3 satellite series, in particular, has proven uniquely suited for monitoring massive ice formations in polar and subpolar waters, thanks to its on-board Medium Resolution Spectral Imager (MERSI). With a spatial resolution of 250 meters, the instrument can capture both the full outline of giant icebergs and fine-grained details of their surface structure, allowing researchers to track growing structural instability long before major collapse events occur.

These continuous observations have already revealed new insights into the physical processes that drove A23a’s rapid final breakup, the center noted. Beyond glaciological research, the satellite data has also uncovered notable ecological shifts in the waters surrounding A23a during its final disintegration. Starting in late 2025, satellite imagery captured a gradual “greening” of the ocean in the iceberg’s fragmented ice zone, with expanding green plumes shifting across the sea surface as meltwater flowed into the surrounding waters.

This visible discoloration is tied directly to phytoplankton blooms, which are triggered when nutrient-rich meltwater from melting icebergs enters the open ocean. Zheng explained that the research team is continuing to analyze the data to build a clearer understanding of the broader ecological impacts of iceberg melt in polar regions. The continuous, high-quality observations of A23a’s entire lifecycle collected by Fengyun satellites will provide a valuable open-access dataset for future research into polar glacial change and polar ecosystem dynamics, Zheng added.