38 h. ago Chinese scientists unlock possible key to dark matter after almost 90 years

Chinese scientists have made the first direct observation of a quantum effect that was proposed almost 90 years ago and could help detect dark matter, the universe’s invisible “glue”. Soviet physicist Arkady Migdal developed a theory in Leningrad in 1939 about what would happen when a neutral particle – such as dark matter – collided with an atomic nucleus. Migdal believed that the collision would cause the nucleus to recoil and trigger a secondary electronic recoil, generating a detectable...

Politics

45 h. ago China’s supercooling tech packs 40% more punch into chips used in military radar

Chinese scientists have unlocked a revolutionary supercooling innovation in semiconductor technology, paving the way for a 40 per cent leap in the performance of gallium nitride-based radar systems, which are widely used in China’s most advanced stealth aircraft. The new Chinese-made chips can handle extreme power loads in the X and Ka bands – frequencies critical for advanced radar systems, satellite communications and next-generation wireless computer networks. “This is the most significant...

Events

69 h. ago Chinese military says it is developing over 10 quantum warfare weapons

China’s military says it is using quantum technology to gather high-value military intelligence from public cyberspace. The People’s Liberation Army said more than 10 experimental quantum cyber warfare tools were “under development”, many of which were being “tested in front-line missions”, according to the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily. The project is being led by a supercomputing laboratory at the National University of Defence Technology, according to the report, with a...

Events

3 d. ago Zheng Yu ‘rising star’ in chemical engineering from MIT, quits US for China

A leading young Chinese chemical engineer has left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to return home to Peking University. Zheng Yu recently completed her postdoctoral training in bioelectronics in the US but has now joined the Chinese university’s college of chemistry and molecular engineering as an assistant professor. According to her Peking University webpage, Zheng is working on wearable and implantable electronic devices, such as smart bandages that are used to monitor health. Her...

Science

3 d. ago Chinese risk study finds space solar power stations could accidentally zap satellites

As China pushes to take the global lead in building space-based solar power stations, a new study warns that powerful lasers beaming energy back to Earth could pose serious risks to other satellites in the increasingly crowded low-Earth orbit. If these beams miss their targets – because of tracking errors or system malfunctions – they could strike nearby spacecraft, overheat solar panels or trigger electrical discharges, according to a team from the Beijing Institute of Satellite Environment...

Events

4 d. ago Chinese firm Sinovac to supply vaccine to Chile ahead of flu season

The Chilean government has awarded a contract to Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech to supply its influenza vaccine ahead of the southern hemisphere winter. The vaccine will be part of Chile’s nationwide immunisation programme, which public health body Cenabast said was “internationally recognised for its impact on public health protection, particularly among high-risk groups”. Beijing-based Sinovac’s influenza vaccine uses an inactivated virus based on a split-virion platform – a...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘Resolution revolution’ pioneer Alexey Amunts leaves Max Planck to join China’s SMART

Alexey Amunts, whose pioneering work on mitochondrial ribosomes helped catalyse the cryo-electron microscopy “resolution revolution”, has left the Max Planck Institute in Germany to join China’s Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART) this month. Amunts confirmed he had joined SMART as a senior investigator and would “contribute to its international relations agenda”. He is internationally recognised for his breakthroughs in visualising life’s molecular machinery at...

Politics

4 d. ago China planning dozens of plants that use coal instead of oil to make plastics

China is stepping up its efforts to use its vast coal reserves instead of oil to produce plastics and synthetic rubber. Coal can be refined to make olefins – an essential raw material for tens of thousands of chemical products that include plastics, synthetic fibres and rubber. While the mainstream practice is to produce olefins from oil, using coal can bring significant cost savings and might help to reduce the country’s reliance on imported fuel at a time when Donald Trump is seeking to expand...

Politics

5 d. ago Flagship CEO Calls Out Attacks on Science, Warns of China Dominance

Flagship CEO Calls Out Attacks on Science, Warns of China Dominance  BioSpace

Events

5 d. ago Did a bowl of millet help end a migrant crisis in China 1,500 years ago?

Human migration is as old as history and as current as today’s headlines of law enforcement operations and tragedy. Amid the encounters, the question remains: how do strangers become a single people? Today, more than 90 per cent of China’s population identifies as Han Chinese, despite centuries of migration and upheaval. Historians once credited this unity to strong rulers, uniform writing and Confucius. But archaeologists in China are finding the answer in the bowl rather than the sword or pen....

Events

5 d. ago China unveils world’s first timekeeping software for the moon, where clocks ticks faster

Chinese researchers have released the world’s first software for lunar timekeeping, a tool designed to support precise navigation and landings as a new global race to the moon gathers pace. Clocks tick faster on the moon than on Earth due to weaker gravity – by about 56 millionths of a second per day. The effect, predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, is tiny but accumulates over time, making Earth time increasingly unreliable for lunar operations. To address this, a team...

Events

6 d. ago China applies to put 200,000 satellites in space after calling Starlink a crash risk

Chinese firms have signalled plans to launch more than 200,000 internet satellites, filing submissions with a UN agency just as Beijing criticised Elon Musk’s SpaceX for crowding shared orbital resources. A dozen or so submissions from various Chinese satellite players were filed with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the end of December. The biggest projects – CTC-1 and CTC-2 – were for 96,714 satellites each and filed by the newly established Institute of Radio Spectrum...

Events

8 d. ago US House lawmakers abandon bid to bring back controversial China Initiative

Following months of opposition from the Asian-American community, US House lawmakers on Thursday removed a provision from a bill aimed at restarting the China Initiative, a programme that unfairly targeted Chinese-American researchers. Last September, the proposal to “direct the re-establishment of the China Initiative” was included as a measure to “counter China and maintain America’s competitive edge” in the financial year 2026 appropriations bill approved by the House Committee on...

Society

8 d. ago China cites Biden’s message to Xi that Japan could build nuclear weapons ‘overnight’

China released an official report on Thursday stating that Japan “may already have produced weapons-grade plutonium in secret” and “has the technological and economic capabilities to achieve nuclear armament in a short period of time”. The report assessing Japan’s nuclear threat cited former US president Joe Biden’s direct message to Chinese President Xi Jinping that Japan had the capacity to have nuclear weapons “virtually overnight”. Biden first disclosed the information in an interview with...

Events

8 d. ago Why Chinese space station is studying how gravity affects battery performance

Led by only the second civilian the country has sent into space, China had started a series of experiments on board its Tiangong space station that could lead to the development of safer and more powerful space batteries, state media reported on Wednesday. The tests on lithium-ion batteries run by Zhang Hongzhang, a professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, could help scientists better understand how gravity affects the workings of the batteries. Zhang, 39, is one of the three...

Events

1 week ago China’s sensitive technology at risk after Trump abducts Venezuela leader Maduro

China risks losing access to satellite tracking stations and other sensitive technology infrastructure in Venezuela after the United States seized control of the country’s leadership and transferred its president Nicolas Maduro to New York for trial. Beijing’s embedded assets – from satellite ground stations to oilfield systems and telecommunications networks – could be compromised after US President Donald Trump said Washington would “run” Venezuela and “fix oil infrastructure” in the country...

Politics

1 week ago China’s sensitive technology at risk after Trump abducts Venezuelan leader Maduro

China risks losing access to satellite tracking stations and other sensitive technology infrastructure in Venezuela after the United States seized control of the country’s leadership and snatched its president, Nicolas Maduro, taking him to New York for trial. Beijing’s embedded assets – from satellite ground stations to oilfield systems and telecommunications networks – could be compromised after US President Donald Trump said Washington would “run” Venezuela and “fix oil infrastructure” in the...

Politics

1 week ago Could there be a link between glucose levels in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease?

An experimental Chinese treatment for Alzheimer’s disease focused on glucose levels has shown promise in a trial on mice, with researchers reporting significant improvement in late-stage symptoms. A team from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the mice showed a substantial reversal in memory loss and reduced brain plaque within weeks of being treated with the drug. The researchers reported the results of their study in peer-reviewed journal Advanced...

Politics

1 week ago Nobel Prize jurist Thomas Mikael Oliveberg joins top medical school in southern China

After working in Europe for 35 years, Mikael Oliveberg, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) and a judge of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, has taken a full-time position at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University in China. Oliveberg has left Stockholm University after nearly two decades as a tenured professor with its Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. He was welcomed to his new post by Li Lang, Guangxi Medical University’s vice-president, at a...

Politics

2 w. ago AI scientist Ling Haibin, father of world’s first plant ID app, leaves US for China

AI scientist Ling Haibin, the acclaimed computer scientist behind the world’s first mobile plant identification app, has left his position in the United States to take up a full-time role at Westlake University in Hangzhou, eastern China. One of Ling’s PhD research projects, which involved using computers to recognise leaves of different shapes, led to the creation of the identification app LeafSnap. The app teaches users about plant diversity, how to care for houseplants, diagnose disease and...

Politics