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NDTV
a day ago
- Science
- NDTV
Chinese Scientists Turn CO2 Into Food In Major Scientific Breakthrough
In a remarkable scientific breakthrough, Chinese researchers have developed a method to convert methanol into white sugar, bypassing the need to grow sugar cane or sugar beets. Using a biotransformation system, the team claims that captured carbon dioxide can be converted into food. The team at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology has developed an in vitro biotransformation (ivBT) system that synthesises sucrose from methanol, a low-carbon chemical that is derived from industrial waste or carbon dioxide. By utilising enzymes to convert methanol, researchers have presented a sustainable alternative to traditional agriculture. "Artificial conversion of CO2 into food and chemicals offers a promising strategy to address both environmental and population-related challenges while contributing to carbon neutrality," the study published in the Science Bulletin highlighted. The Tianjin researchers built on the work of scientists at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, who developed a low-temperature method to convert carbon dioxide into methanol in 2021. The team managed to achieve an impressive conversion rate of 86 per cent, which marks a significant milestone in the field of biomanufacturing, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. The system not only synthesises sucrose but also produces starch, using less energy than traditional methods. "In vitro biotransformation (ivBT) has emerged as a highly promising platform for sustainable biomanufacturing. In this work, we successfully designed and implemented an [ivBT] system for sucrose synthesis from low-carbon molecules," the researchers said. Based on the initial success, the researchers adapted the ivBT system to convert a variety of compounds, including fructose, amylose, amylopectin, cellobiose and cellooligosaccharides. Excessive CO2 emissions have caused a global surface temperature increase of at least 1.1 degrees Celsius. With the global population expected to grow to 10 billion by the end of the century, the demand for food is expected to double. However, the chemical reduction of carbon dioxide has opened up the possibility of using the captured greenhouse gas as a raw material for the sustainable biosynthesis of various chemicals.
The Star
06-06-2025
- Science
- The Star
China's scientists unlock secrets of how early birds conquered the skies
Dinosaur feathers found trapped in Burmese amber have shed new light on the evolution of flight feathers, an essential step that allowed early birds to surpass their dinosaur relatives in conquering the skies, a Chinese study has found. Through a detailed structural study of feathers dating back 99 million years to the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years), the researchers were able to gain insight into how feathers evolved during this era. 'Feathers are critical for the flight of birds,' the team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Bulletin on May 13. An essential feature of the evolution of birds was the development of feathers that helped generate thrust and lift. While modern birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs, scientists believe that most feathered dinosaurs in the ancient world did not have the same ability to fly, though there has been evidence that some species could glide or have powered flight. When most people picture flying dinosaurs, the creatures they imagine with large, fleshy wings are actually non-dinosaur reptiles that lived in the same era, such as the pterosaurs. The evolution of feathers was an essential part of the evolution from birdlike dinosaurs to the first real birds, though studying this has been difficult as feathers are poorly preserved in the fossil record. Fossils preserved in amber offer a unique opportunity to study soft structures, as objects stuck in the hardened tree resin remain trapped in time. The team was able to obtain three-dimensional structural information about the feathers, providing new evidence for stages in feather evolution and helping to reconstruct the evolutionary path that led to the flight ability of early birds. A feather consists of the rachis, the central shaft of the feather, and two rows of barbs or branches on either side. Each barb also features a row of hairlike barbules on each side. In modern flying birds, the barbules on one side have tiny hooks, while the barbules on the other side have grooves that latch together like Velcro. This creates an interlocking hook-and-groove mechanism that forms a strong, airtight surface that is resistant to the tearing force of the air during flight. The hooklets and spines on the tip of barbules also form an additional locking mechanism called the slide-lock system, which was first described by CAS researchers several years ago. 'These synergistic mechanisms provide bird feathers with super durability and high self-repairing capability,' the researchers said. Current evolutionary models include five feather developmental stages, with the development of the barbules occurring in stage three and the interlocking mechanism appearing in stage four. 'However, the information regarding the evolution of the barbs and barbules [from stage three to stage four] is limited due to challenges in preserving these ultrastructures during fossilisation,' the team said. Some feathers found in Cretaceous amber have had identifiable hooks, but it remains unclear whether they also had corresponding grooves, meaning there was no direct evidence for the evolutionary history behind the locking mechanisms. When examining two types of feathers found in the Burmese amber, designated as Type I and II, the team classified them as belonging to stage three and stage four, respectively. The Type I feathers are more similar to primitive feathers found in non-avian theropods – or three-toed dinosaurs – than modern birds, with slightly curved barbules and no hook-groove mechanism. The Type II feathers had a thicker rachis and asymmetrical barbules like those of modern flight feathers, with clear grooves and hooks that formed an interlocking mechanism. The shape of the barbules would have allowed air to pass through, suggesting weak aerodynamic performance. The team also found nodules on the barbules of one specimen, which are the oldest evidence of the slide-lock system in feathers to date. 'This discovery provides the first evidence that, besides the hook-and-groove mechanism, the slide-lock system was also present during the Cretaceous,' the team said. Their findings indicated that stage four of feather evolution could be divided into two parts: the first with the hook mechanism absent, and the second in which the hooking mechanism and slide-lock mechanism were present. The team also studied melanosomes – the organelles of pigment cells that store melanin – in the Cretaceous feathers and found that the Type I feathers were probably black with a red lustre, while the Type II feathers were a grey or 'penguin-like' black colour. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
South China Morning Post
05-06-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Chinese study of feather fossils reveals how birds beat dinosaurs in conquering the sky
Dinosaur feathers found trapped in Burmese amber have shed new light on the evolution of flight feathers, an essential step that allowed early birds to surpass their dinosaur relatives in conquering the skies, a Chinese study has found. Advertisement Through a detailed structural study of feathers dating back 99 million years to the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years), the researchers were able to gain insight into how feathers evolved during this era. 'Feathers are critical for the flight of birds,' the team led by Feathers are critical for the flight of birds,' the team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Bulletin on May 13. An essential feature of the evolution of birds was the development of feathers that helped generate thrust and lift. While modern birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs , scientists believe that most feathered dinosaurs in the ancient world did not have the same ability to fly, though there has been evidence that some species could glide or have powered flight. Advertisement When most people picture flying dinosaurs, the creatures they imagine with large, fleshy wings are actually non-dinosaur reptiles that lived in the same era, such as the pterosaurs.
The Star
08-05-2025
- Science
- The Star
China fires up powerful radar to search for lunar ice that can make or break moon race
Water ice is likely to exist at the moon's south pole, but it would be fragmented, scattered and buried deep beneath the surface, posing significant challenges for detection and extraction, according to a new study by Chinese researchers. Using powerful Earth-based instruments, including the world's largest radio telescope and one of the most advanced radar systems, the team estimated that ice made up no more than 6 per cent of the material within the top 10 metres (33 feet) of lunar soil in the region. The ice was thought to exist as metre-sized chunks buried 5-7 metres underground in the moon's most promising 'cold traps', known as permanently shadowed regions. Smaller, isolated patches might also lie near the surface, the team wrote in the latest issue of the Chinese journal, Science Bulletin. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. The findings, the researchers wrote, could help in the selection of landing sites for future lunar missions and inform the design of the proposed China-led research base on the moon. Hu Sen, a planetary geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing, called the work 'impressive'. He said that using China's newly built incoherent scatter radar in Sanya (SYISR) alongside the FAST telescope to search for water ice was a 'really creative approach'. While Hu was not involved in the research, he noted that the results aligned with previous impact experiment findings and added new evidence that water ice existed on the moon. 'The study also opened a new pathway to investigate water abundances on the moon,' he said. So far, no liquid water has been found on the moon. 'What we do know is that some water is bound within the lunar soil as 'structural water', and some is preserved as ice in cold traps inside permanently shadowed regions,' Hu said on Wednesday. But the moon's surface is an unforgiving environment, marked by a high vacuum, strong radiation and extreme temperature swings. 'Before anyone can actually make use of that water, we need to understand where it comes from, how it's distributed and how it's stored,' he said. One of China's key science goals for the coming Chang'e-7 mission, set to launch next year, is to determine the amount, origin and physical state of water ice at the moon's south pole. The mission is expected to significantly advance understanding of lunar water, he said. Still, the topic remains contentious. There is no conclusive proof that water ice exists in usable quantities on the moon. Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University, said he believed there was 'extremely little' water on the moon. 'All the talk about what a valuable resource this is seems like baloney to me,' he said on Tuesday. However, planetary geologist Clive Neal at the University of Notre Dame in the United States suggested that the actual amount of water ice at the lunar south pole could be higher than what this study detected. Radar only covered limited areas, mostly crater slopes, he said. 'It is expected that the water ice would be in the bottom of the craters,' he said, adding that the areas visible to the radar were also affected by Earthshine, which could cause any surface ice to evaporate. In recent years, researchers have paired high-powered, large-aperture incoherent scatter radars – typically used to study the ionosphere – with large radio telescopes to capture imagery of the moon's surface, according to the paper's lead author Li Mingyuan, of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics. For instance, the Arecibo planetary radar system in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia have jointly produced lunar polar images with resolution ranging from 20 to 150 metres, according to Li. Building on that approach, Li and his team used the Sanya incoherent scatter radar and the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) to carry out a ground-based radar imaging experiment focused on the moon's south pole. The SYISR radar, with its wide beam, was used to track the moon's centre of mass and scan its entire near side. Meanwhile, the narrower beam of the FAST telescope focused specifically on the south pole region to receive radar echoes, he said. Thanks to FAST's high sensitivity, the team could produce radar images covering latitudes of 84 and 90 degrees south, at a resolution of about 500 metres by 1.2km. Li noted that their analysis assumed the radar signals were caused by water ice. However, one of the key parameters – the circular polarisation ratio, which measures how much of the radar signal bounces back in a rotated form – can also be elevated by surface roughness or buried rocks, making it difficult to distinguish ice from non-ice terrain. The study offered a preliminary estimate, Li said, and further work required integrating data from multiple instruments or radar frequencies to improve the accuracy of identifying water ice. More from South China Morning Post: For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2025.
South China Morning Post
08-05-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
China fires up powerful radar to search for lunar ice that can make or break moon race
Water ice is likely to exist at the moon's south pole, but it would be fragmented, scattered and buried deep beneath the surface, posing significant challenges for detection and extraction, according to a new study by Chinese researchers. Advertisement Using powerful Earth-based instruments, including the world's largest radio telescope and one of the most advanced radar systems, the team estimated that ice made up no more than 6 per cent of the material within the top 10 metres (33 feet) of lunar soil in the region. The ice was thought to exist as metre-sized chunks buried 5-7 metres underground in the moon's most promising 'cold traps', known as permanently shadowed regions. Smaller, isolated patches might also lie near the surface, the team wrote in the latest issue of the Chinese journal, Science Bulletin. 01:57 China's Chang'e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon's far side China's Chang'e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon's far side The findings, the researchers wrote, could help in the selection of landing sites for future lunar missions and inform the design of the proposed China-led research base on the moon. Hu Sen, a planetary geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing, called the work 'impressive'. He said that using China's newly built incoherent scatter radar in Sanya (SYISR) alongside the FAST telescope to search for water ice was a 'really creative approach'. While Hu was not involved in the research, he noted that the results aligned with previous impact experiment findings and added new evidence that water ice existed on the moon. Advertisement 'The study also opened a new pathway to investigate water abundances on the moon,' he said. So far, no liquid water has been found on the moon. 'What we do know is that some water is bound within the lunar soil as 'structural water', and some is preserved as ice in cold traps inside permanently shadowed regions,' Hu said on Wednesday.
