Current Chinese Science - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2021

Background: Predicting the three-dimensional structure of globular proteins from their amino acid sequence has reached a fair accuracy, but predicting the structure of membrane proteins, especially loop regions, is still a difficult task in structural bioinformatics. The difficulty in predicting membrane loops is due to various factors like length variation, position, flexibility, and they are easily prone to mutation. Objective: In th Read More

Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials with unique anisotropy and electronic properties are deemed as an ideal platform for establishing clear relationships between structure and catalytic reactivity. Knowledge of their structures is essential for understanding the catalytic behavior, which further facilitates the development of high-performance catalysts. In this review, we focus on the recent progress of synchrotron radiati Read More

Background: The use of an amine solution to capture CO2 from flue gases is one of the methods applied commercially to clean up the exhaust gas stream of a power plant. One of the issues in this process is foaming which should be known in order to select a suitable amine for design. Objectives: In this work, all possible types of amines used for CO2 capture, namely, alkanolamines, sterically hindered alkanolamines, m Read More

Background: Obesity is an emerging pandemic considered to be an outcome of change in lifestyle owing to more processed food and the use of mechanical locomotives. Obesity has not only appeared as a problem in the esthetic appearance of an individual rather is a serious health issue due to its associations with various chronic diseases such as coronary and cardiovascular problems, hypertension, osteoarthritis, type-II Read More

Background: CRISPR-Cas9 is a powerful technology that allows us to modify DNA sequences in a specific manner across a variety of organisms. Due to its high efficiency and specificity, and ease of use, it becomes a commonly used method for gene editing. Although many structural and biochemical studies have been carried out to understand the fundamental mechanism of CRISPR/Cas9, our understanding of CRISPR/Ca Read More

Mangroves forests inhabiting the south coast of China are crucial habitats for the functioning of the coastal zone. This role has not been carefully considered in China and compared to their functional role worldwide. China’s mangroves currently occupy 20,303 ha. Average forest biomass is equivalent to the global average, but the mean ratio of below-ground to above-ground biomass is high (46%), reflecting the young age o Read More

Background: The basic principle of genome selection (GS) is to establish a model of genome estimated breeding value (GEBV) by using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covering the entire genome. Despite the decreasing cost of high-throughput genotyping, the GS strategy remains expensive due to the need for phenotyping and genotyping for a large number of samples. Simulation analysis of genome selection is a Read More

Gas sensing materials essentially dominate the performances of the gas sensors which are widely applied in environmental monitoring, industrial production and medical diagnosis. However, most of the traditional gas sensing materials show excellent performances only at high operating temperatures, which are high energy consumptive and have potential issues in terms of reliability and safety of the sensors. Therefore, Read More

For decades, the over-exploitation of fossil fuel has made it urgent to develop alternative energy. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising approach to generate hydrogen, which is referred to as the fuel of the future due to its high enthalpy of combustion and zero pollution. Though impressive progress has been made over the years, PEC water splitting efficiency is still far from volume production of hydrogen Read More

Background: Essential Balm (EB) is a commonly used medicine with high volatility and short shelf-life during storage. Objective: Slowing down the volatilization rate of EB and exploring the effect of fiber on the volatilization rate of EB. Methods: In this study, electrospinning technology was used to convert the liquid EB into solid EB in order to improve the balm’s storage and longevity. Results: Specifically, core-sheath nanofibers c Read More

Background: Noble-metal nanocrystals have been extensively studied over the past decades because of their unique optical properties. The polyol process is considered an effective method for silver (Ag) nanocrystals’ synthesis in solution even though the reproducibility of its shape controlling is still a challenge. Here, Ag nanowires and nanocubes were synthesized by the polyol process, in which the Ag+ ions are directly reduced Read More

Three polymers containing different numbers of thiophene groups were constructed. Degradation experiments on the aqueous solutions of tetracycline and norfloxacin revealed that the polymer with three thiophene groups in the monomer indicated the best degradation efficiency of 73.7% for tetracycline and 56.9% for norfloxacin. Moreover, this polymer had a relatively stronger ability to separate and transport phot Read More

Background: As an advanced design technique, topology optimization has received much attention over the past three decades. Topology optimization aims at finding an optimal material distribution in order to maximize the structural performance while satisfying certain constraints. It is a useful tool for the conceptional design. At the same time, additive manufacturing technologies have provided unprecedented opport Read More

Background: The corrosion of steel bar leads to the deterioration of structural behaviors, high cost maintenance, shortened service life. The bridge deck structures constructed by Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) bars and High-Volume Fly Ash-Self-Compacting Concrete (HVFA-SCC) can achieve low energy consumption, sustainable construction and high durability. However, the structural behaviors of this bridge deck are still uncl Read More