[Editor’s Note: Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth and is critical to the functioning of ecosystems. Biodiversity is essential for both aesthetic and cultural factors; it provides a rich heritage and a sense of identity for many places and their inhabitants, including people. In a response to obtaining more knowledge on biodiversity, a group of young eco enthusiasts residing on Zhejiang University's International Campus have established a students' club with a mission t...

“Reproductivity is a crucial factor for explaining the different germline mutation rates between species.” The scientists from China, Denmark, France, Germany and USA discovered the underlying causes and evolutionary patterns of variations in terms of the germline mutation rate across species. Their groundbreaking findings were published in Nature on March 2.As an ultimate source of genetic diversity and a major driver for evolution, DNA mutations are in the spotlight in evolutionary biol...

[Editor’s Note: The 5th China International Import Expo (CIIE in short) reportedly brought together 145 national, regional, and international (including more than 280 Fortune 500 and industry-leading) enterprises and allegedly led to significant contractual agreements and business deals back in November 2022; a lot of companies regard the CIIE as a great platform with tremendous business opportunities. In addition, the Double Eleven Shopping Festival has also brought about a spending spree; con...

Despite the rapid development of medicine in recent years, people still “turn pale” when hearing doctors mention cancer. Many draw parallels between having cancer and a death sentence.In fact, not all cancers are life-threatening with high mortality rates. For example, there is a type of cancer that progresses so slowly that some patients may never even be aware of having it and will be living a normal life. Prostate cancer ranks sixth in the list of high-incidence diseases among men in China,...

On March 8, four female members of the 28th Chinese medical team were featured on the front page of “Aujourd’hui, a leading newspaper in the African country of Mali where the medical team is providing their humanitarian services.Dr. CHEN Congcong, a senior anesthesiologist from The Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine (SAHZU), is one of the highlighted “super women”. As a member of the Chinese Society of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesiology, Dr. C...

[Editor’s Note: The term SRDI (specialized, refinement, differential, innovation) was introduced at the press conference held in July 2011 pertaining to the Report on China’s Industrial Development and Policy. Since then, it has gradually turned into an everyday term for Chinese society. As Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are continuously growing in size and in numbers, SRDI can serve as a compass for them, providing both guidance of the universal management theory and contex...

Multiple myeloma is a malignant disease characterized by the proliferation of clonal plasma cells in the bone marrow. While numerous advances in treatment, such as proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, and monoclonal antibodies, have significantly improved patient survival over the years, the disease remains incurable. Novel immunotherapies, particularly chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, show promise for treating relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. B-cell maturation a...

Prof. ZHOU Xueping and Prof. LI Fei from the Zhejiang University College of Agriculture and Biotechnology led their team to publish their latest work on the world’s first Geminiviridae-Plant-Insect database (GPIBase) in the journal Molecular Plant on February 21. This database serves as a vast reservoir containing comprehensive information about geminivirus genes, plant hosts, insect vectors, and virus-plant-insect interactions. It also provides a wide range of online tools such ...

A new device offers a glimpse into various topological phenomena exhibited by quantized light, advancing the knowledge for building quantum computers.A quantum device fabricated by Zhejiang University researchers could help to advance the design of quantum computers as it offers topological control over the units that store information within them. Their results were published in Science in December 2022.Since their discovery around 2007, quantum materials, known as topological insulators, ...

When we speak of fat in food, we will easily associate it with its negative effect of “gaining weight”. However, one type of fat has a “weight-losing” effect – it is omega-3 fatty acids. Not only can omega-3 fatty acids reduce fat, but they can also strengthen the brain, regulate the blood pressure, and ease inflammation. Therefore, they can be found in many health products and infant formula powder.What has led to these substantial differences? Recently, Prof. ZHANG Yan from the Zhejia...