In the science fiction movie "The Wandering Earth," artificial intelligence system "Moss" is able to explore all solutions to save the Earth in just a few seconds.

This miraculous scene is gradually transitioning from science fiction to reality. The ultra-high-performance optoelectronic chip proposed by the research team at Tsinghua University adopts a new architecture of optoelectronic fusion, which is disruptive to existing chip technologies, the team told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The technology not only opens up a new path for this future technology to become part of daily life, but also provides inspiration for the integration of other future high-performance technologies such as quantum computing and in-memory computing with current electronic information systems.

The results, titled "Purely Analog Optoelectronic Chips for High-Speed Visual Tasks," had been published in the recent issue of the journal "Nature."

In 1965, Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, proposed "Moore's Law," which has influenced the chip industry for over half a century. It predicts that the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double approximately every two years.

The semiconductor field has prospered for decades based on Moore's Law, and "chips" have become an important engine for humanity's entry into the era of digital intelligence. However, as transistor sizes approach their physical limits, Moore's Law has slowed down or even faced failure in the past decade. How to build a new generation of computing architecture and establish a "new" order of chips in the era of artificial intelligence has been a frontier hotspot of international concern.

To address this challenge, a joint research team from Tsinghua University, including Academician Dai Qionghai from the Department of Automation, Assistant Professor Wu Jiamin, Associate Professor Fang Lu from the Department of Electronic Engineering, and Associate Researcher Qiao Fei, proposed a new computing architecture that "breaks free" from Moore's Law: optoelectronic analog chips. In practical tests for visual tasks, the computing power of these chips reached over 3,000 times that of current high-performance commercial chips.

From a physical perspective, optoelectronic chips are based on a disruptive technology that is different from existing chip technologies, the research team explained in an interview with the Global Times on Wednesday. They noted that, at current stage, their work is focused on intelligent visual tasks, and they are also conducting further exploration to see if the new technology can achieve tasks of the same or even higher complexity as current chips, such as large language models.

In this small chip, the Tsinghua University research team creatively proposed an optoelectronic deep fusion computing framework. Starting from the most fundamental physical principles, it combines optical computing based on electromagnetic wave propagation in space with pure analog electronic computing based on Kirchhoff's law. It "breaks free" from the physical bottlenecks of data conversion speed, accuracy, and power consumption that constrain traditional chip architectures, and overcomes three international challenges: large-scale computing unit integration, efficient nonlinearity, and high-speed optoelectronic interfaces.

In the demonstrated intelligent visual scene tests in the paper, the system-level computing power of the optoelectronic fusion chip was thousands of times higher than that of existing high-performance chip architectures. However, such astonishing computing power is just one of the many advantages of this chip. In the intelligent visual tasks and traffic scene calculations demonstrated by the research team, the system-level energy efficiency (the number of operations that can be performed per unit of energy) of the optoelectronic fusion chip reached 74.8 Peta-OPS/W, which is over 4 million times that of current high-performance chips. In other words, the amount of electricity that can power existing chips for one hour can power this chip for over 500 years.

One key factor currently limiting chip integration limits is the heat dissipation problem caused by high density. The optoelectronic fusion chip, which operates at ultra-low power consumption, will greatly improve the chip's heat dissipation problem and bring all-round breakthroughs to the future chip design. Furthermore, the minimum linewidth of the chip's optical part is only in the hundreds of nanometers, while the circuit part uses 180 nanometers Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, achieving a performance improvement of multiple orders of magnitude compared to 7 nanometers process high-performance chips. At the same time, the materials used are simple and easily obtainable, and the cost is only a fraction of the latter.

Will the emergence of this cutting-edge chip technology help China achieve a "overtaking on the curve" in chip research and development? In response to this question, the research team told the Global Times that the research and development competition in the traditional chip technology field is becoming increasingly fierce, and facing international challenges such as the slowing down of Moore's Law, the world is seeking new computing architectures. It can indeed be understood as a kind of "curve" opportunity. Whether we can achieve "curve overtaking" depends on the joint efforts and ecological construction of all sectors. We are also working towards this goal.

A special review of this research, invited by the journal Nature, pointed out that the appearance of this chip may allow the new generation of computing architecture which will be integrated into daily life much earlier than expected. Academician Dai Qionghai, one of the corresponding authors of the paper, stated, "Developing a new computing architecture for the era of artificial intelligence is a summit, but truly implementing the new architecture in real life to solve major national and livelihood needs is a more important challenge and our responsibility."

The tourism phenomenon triggered by Harbin, the ice city in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, shows no sign of abating and most recently its popularity has led to a fierce competition among tourism authorities in several Chinese cities, as they strive to leverage the internet's potential to convert online engagement into real tourist footfall.

Starting from January 9, the official Douyin account of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Henan Province has seen an increase in the number of videos being posted, with 20 to 30 clips being released per day and a total of 112 in four days, enthusiastically showcasing its cultural and tourism resources. By posting videos such as "Shaolin Kung Fu" and "mutton stewed noodles" to show off its local cuisine, the account gained nearly one million followers within just a few days.

In January, North China's Shanxi and Central China's Henan provinces announced their partnership in tourism, achieving mutual exemption of admission tickets for 114 A-level scenic spots in six cities.

While culture and tourism authorities in Shanxi and Henan provinces are boasting their enriched tourism resources on social media, East China's Shandong Province, famous for being the birthplace of Confucius and the location of the famous Taishan Mountain and the Yellow River estuary, has also attracted much online attention.

The Department of Culture and Tourism in North China's Hebei Province changed their short video official name overnight, from "Hebei Tourism" to "Hebei Cultural and Tourism." This alteration was prompted by the fierce online competition to attract tourists, resulting in the phrase "cultural and tourism" gaining significant popularity across various social media platforms.

More interesting is that the video of the head of culture and tourism in Harbin's Acheng district dancing with performers from Harbin Ice-Snow World, the world's largest theme park of its kind, on short video platforms, has entertained millions of netizens.

These diligent efforts made by the local head of culture and tourism in Harbin to attract tourists to the city were joined by netizens across the country as they playfully boasted about the exceptional skills possessed by their own heads of culture and tourism bureaus, all in an effort to achieve similar success in their own cities.

Netizens from Southwest China's Sichuan Province, known for its giant panda bases, jokingly claimed that their head of local culture and tourism bureau has the extraordinary ability to "give birth to" giant pandas. While, netizens from Central China's Hunan Province proudly boasted that their head of cultural and tourism can devour a staggering 50 kilograms of red peppers. Hunan Province is renowned for its diverse pepper varieties and spicy cuisine, which locals take great pride in.

Netizens from Southwest China's Yunnan Province went as far as bragging that their head of cultural and tourism can consume three kilos of raw wild mushrooms. Yunnan is famous for its different types of wild mushrooms, some of which can be poisonous if not cooked properly.

With the rapid proliferation of social media, Harbin has swiftly become the most coveted tourist destination in the country. Recognizing this trend, cultural and tourism authorities aim to harness the power of the internet to transform online engagement into actual tourist visits.

Cities surrounding Harbin have also attempted to take advantage of the huge tourist flow brought with Harbin by frequently uploaded interesting videos.

Tourism in Harbin hasn't become popular overnight. It is a result of the long-term promotion of ice and snow sports in Northeast China, reflecting the booming popularity of China's ice and snow tourism, Jiang Yiyi, deputy head of the School of Leisure Sports and Tourism at Beijing Sport University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Jiang believes it might be difficult to reproduce the popularity of Harbin tourism. Its popularity and the booming Zibo barbecue phenomenon in 2023 are the results of unintentional efforts. However, both places have achieved good interaction with the tourists.

These two major tourism events in China and the popularity of a grassroots basketball tournament known as Village BA are not only developed based on the tourism resources in these regions, but also achieved by actively grafting them with local culture, Jiang noted.

Industry observers noted that the key to turning one-time booming tourism into a persistent trend lies in the continuous cultivation of a pleasant destination to visit and fostering a warm-hearted hospitality.

In the beginning of this winter, Harbin has effectively addressed tourists' complaints regarding the organization and services of Harbin Ice-Snow World, as well as overcharging by local restaurants. This crisis management has left a positive impression of the city. Harbin has also taken the initiative to provide considerate services to tourists, media reports said. For example, numerous free warm and comfortable rest stations have been established at major tourist attractions, which have been well-received by visitors.

Both last year's Zibo barbecue and this year's ice and snow fever reflect the fast recovery of China's tourism industry. As winter, the traditional tourism off-season, draws new tourism fever, these events signal the fast tourism development in China, Jiang noted.

The hope for US' first moon landing in more than 50 years has appeared to have crashed, after a US private company's spacecraft reported "critical fuel leak" hours after Monday's launch. Experts said the failed attempt suggests that commercial space sector still faces challenges in breaking through the threshold of deep space exploration, and could impact the US Artemis program, which faces even more obstacles along the way following several delays and launch failures.

The lunar lander, named Peregrine and developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology, encountered abnormalities shortly after a successful lift-off from Florida. Ground research teams found the spacecraft unable to place itself in a position facing the sun, which prevented it from charging its batteries, CNN reported.

Shortly after the spacecraft became fully operational, it soon became apparent that there was "a critical loss of fuel," further diminishing the chances of a scheduled lunar landing on February 23.

This is the first lunar mission undertaken by the US since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, and also the first time that a private company has taken on this task.

According to media reports, NASA gave a $108 million funding to the private company to develop Peregrine, which aims to fulfill the space agency's vision to reduce the cost of lunar missions by asking the private sector to compete for such contracts.

Song Zhongping, a space analyst and TV commentator, said the US' adoption of a commercial model for deep space exploration is commendable, as it could indicate a more sustainable development path. The encouragement of private capital to enter the aerospace industry has led to the flourishing development of private space ventures in the US in recent years, and has fostered a healthy cycle of competition, cooperation, and technological collaboration among various players in the industry, the expert told the Global Times on Tuesday.

However, some experts pointed out the pickle of this model. As a project is usually co-developed by several ventures, there is a wide gap in the technological capabilities among them with many still insufficient to support such deep-space endeavors, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"Lunar explorations are highly complex. It involves precise trajectory selection, stringent spacecraft design, and the ultimate hurdle of a soft landing on the lunar surface. Peregrine's failed attempt also sounded the alarm that commercial enterprises may still lack technological feasibility to achieve such feats," Wang said.

By far, only four countries have made it to the Moon, namely the Soviet Union, the US, China, and India. Since the 21st century, only Chinese and Indian spacecrafts successfully landed on the lunar surface, while others from Israel, Russia and Japan all crashed.

While the Peregrine mission is considered part of the wider Artemis program with NASA placing several flying experiments onboard, experts said it is unlikely to cause major setbacks for NASA, but could hint at even more obstacles along the way, after experiencing repeated delays of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launch and the failed liftoff of SpaceX's Starship rocket.

Song called for the US to abandon its Cold War mentality and open up its arms to cooperate with China, as the latter can offer a variety of assistances to its grand lunar return, for example, crucial scientific data from the previously retrieved lunar soils by the Chang'e-5 mission.

In December 2023, NASA greenlighted and urged scientists it funds to apply for access to China's Chang'e-5 lunar samples in an exception to the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits such bilateral activities with China.

"The Wolf Amendment is originally intended to create barriers for latecomers. However, time has proven that it has not hindered China who has been following its own path through independent innovation. With China's research capabilities constantly advancing, it can be said that China is at least on par with or even partly ahead of the US in certain fields, including lunar exploration," Wang noted.

"Eventually, the clause only ends up a constraint on their own development. In fact, many from the scientific community in the US are questioning the necessity of this clause," the expert said.

From the Adora Magic City's completion of its maiden commercial voyage on Sunday to Chinese shipbuilders obtaining the most orders from global clients in 2023, China's high-end manufacturing sector, represented by the steadily progressing shipbuilding industry, has become a new driving force in the country's economic development. 

The Adora Magic City, China's first domestically built large cruise ship, completed its maiden commercial voyage on Sunday after taking more than 3,000 tourists from 16 countries and regions for a seven-day trip to destinations in South Korea and Japan. 

China has been advancing its shipbuilding technology especially in high-value added segments with strong international competiveness. The ability to build ultra-large container ships and use green fuels is also leading the world, Zheng Ping, chief analyst with industry news portal chineseport.cn, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Last year, Chinese shipyards won the highest number of global orders, with deliveries as far off as 2028, according to media reports. 

The delivery dates for Guangzhou Shipyard International Co run into 2027 and 2028, as fleet operators worldwide are attracted by the company's strengths in green production and environmental protection, said Li Hao, an official from the company, as China Media Group (CMG) reported on Saturday.

More than 60 percent of the company's on-hand orders are methanol-powered dual-fuel ships or LNG- fired (liquefied natural gas) () dual-fuel models. Compared with conventional container ships, ultra-large container ships powered by dual-fuel sources can reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent, nitrogen oxide emissions by 85 percent and sulfur emissions by 99 percent, CMG reported.

In 2023, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group delivered 17 vessels, which was 106 percent of the annual plan. The number of medium- and high-end vessels exceeded 90 percent of the total deliveries, the company said in a statement it sent to the Global Times earlier. Hudong-Zhonghua is now building 16 LNG vessels simultaneously, and it plans to deliver nearly 50 LNG carriers in the next five years.

China has basically closed the technological gap with South Korea in building high-value added ships, Zheng said, and China's shipbuilding boom will persist this year.   

In 2023, Chinese shipbuilders won the most new orders worldwide for a total of 24.46 million compensated gross tons (CGT), 59 percent of the total, data from UK-based Clarksons Research showed. South Korea was second for the third consecutive year with 10.01 million CGT. 

China's shipbuilding industry is striving to advance its high-quality development through intelligent and green technology. 

The intelligent transformation has also boosted the efficiency of shipbuilding, which is traditionally a labor-intensive process. Through intelligent transformation, the entire workshop for building a ro-ro passenger ship with more than 20,000 square meters can be reduced from 200 people to 50 people by integrating more automation and robotics technology, according to the CMG report. 

Intelligent ports are becoming popular in China with the expanding utilization of autonomous trucks and other types of smart equipment, Zheng said. 

He said that the domestic industry is still in the early stages of smart development, and  more emerging technologies will be  integrated into future manufacturing.  

From January to November 2023, China completed ships totaling 38.09 million deadweight tons (dwt), up 12.3 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. 

New orders rose 63.8 percent to 68.45 million dwt, and orders on hand totaled 134.09 million dwt as of the end of November.

China's figure skating team set their sights on competing in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final on home ice as the skating pairs had an open training session on Thursday at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing. 

The 2023 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series consists of six international senior events that culminate with the final to be held in Beijing from ­December 7 to 10. 

Currently, Chinese skaters are gearing up for the fourth leg of the series, which will take place in Southwest ­China's Chongqing Municipality from November 10 to 12. The three pairs who will compete in Chongqing and a junior pair took part in the training session. 

Figure skating has been one of the most popular winter sports in China since pair skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo clinched China's first figure skating gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. 

Since Chinese pair skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong stepped out of competition after winning gold in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Peng Cheng and Wang Lei have emerged as the top pair for China.  

Yao Jia, manager of the national figure skating team, told the Global Times after the training that she expects the young skaters to gain experience and win enough points at each international event to qualify for the final in Beijing and the year 2024's world championships in Canada.

"For the new season, we have set different goal for each member. As to Peng and Wang, their goal is to qualify for the grand prix final in Beijing, which means that they need to achieve a podium finish at two of the six legs of the grand prix," said Yao. 

Pair skaters and men's skater Jin Boyang are favorites to reach the final. Jin will also compete in Chongqing after finishing the third leg in France this week, Yao noted.

Regarding the pressure of competing on home ice, Yao said a growing number of domestic fans have given them more motivation, and she sees getting into the final as a success for the team. 

Peng won fifth place in pair skating at the Beijing Olympics with former partner Jin Yang. Since striking up a new partnership with Wang in March, the duo has made steady progress. 

In their debut at the international event, Peng and Wang came from behind to triumph at the ISU 2023 Shanghai Trophy on October 4. 

"From their current form and overall difficulty, they have achieved their initial goals. However, pair skating requires cooperation. I think they still need more time to enhance mutual understanding and cultivate a stronger chemistry," Yao said.

Wang, 35, told the Global Times that the most important thing is to remain true to his original aspiration and that he wants to go further with his new partner. "We're getting better on the ice. Peng is an excellent skater. We have good communication, and we can remain calm and summarize what we didn't do well during daily training," Wang said. 

Peng is grateful for her partner's support and trust. 

"We've overcome a lot of difficulties in the past months. Staying composed against the odds is crucial to our partnership," Peng noted. 

"He takes the initiative to inquire about my emotional shifts and unravel the complexities within my heart. We can shoulder the challenges together," said Peng. 

As one of the legacies of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, more international winter sports events have come to China and provided young skaters opportunities to progress. 

In addition to the grand prix final in Beijing, the Chinese team is also preparing for the 2024 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, which will take place in Shanghai from January 30 to February 4, 2024. 

"We have fielded young skaters to compete in the ISU Junior Grand Prix as more international events will help them improve. I hope young players could win enough points to participate in the four continents championships," Yao said. 

Situated in Li county in Northwest China's Gansu Province, commonly seen as the birthplace of China's Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) culture, a local archaeological site has recently been found to have been a large-scale architectural complex used for sacrificial ceremonies.

The Sijiaoping Ruins are located on an excavated flat platform on the top of a mountain in the county. The ancient man-made platform covers an area of 28,000 square meters and was encircled by a rammed earth wall. At the center of the site is a square platform with annexes on either side of it.

Archaeologist Wang Meng told the Global Times that the entire configuration of the site delivers a "sense of grandeur and solemnity." The symmetrical and square designs are often seen in many ancient Chinese designs, especially in high-grade and royal architecture. The "symmetrical" design is particularly common as it embodies Chinese people's belief in harmony.

Exquisitely made ancient objects like eaves tiles, also known as wadang, decorated with cloud patterns and tiles featuring a rope pattern were found scattered inside the ruins. Those artifacts gave experts the clues they needed to narrow down the specific time period of the site.

Hou Hongwei, the lead expert of the Sijiaoping archaeological project, said that the tiles and eaves tiles were "very similar" to the ones discovered in the mausoleum of the Qin Dynasty Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

"According to the production techniques and decorative details on those unearthed building materials, we can preliminarily identify the Sijiaoping site as a high-level ceremonial building from the Qin Dynasty," the expert said.

Besides the visible structures, the Qin ceremonial site also contained a half-crypt space. The space was covered with tiles on both the walls and floor. Experts predict it was once a water pool. The pool was most likely closely tied to the Qin people's "belief in the virtues of water," Hou remarked.
While the function of the Sijiaoping ruins is only recently identified, their importance had already been noticed by scholars when the site was first discovered in 2019.

The Sijiaoping site was discovered near another site, the Dabaozi Mountain site, which is also in Gansu Province. The Dabaozi Mountain site is a tomb cluster covering some 18 square kilometers.

Archaeologist Xue Ruiming told the Global Times that the Dabaozi Mountain site reveals that Li county was once the "center of the Qin regime during the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC)."

The Sijiaoping architectural complex was established after the Qin Kingdom was unified. The Sijiaoping site is the only "systematic" and complete building complex from the time period discovered to date. It demonstrates the burial and ritual traditions of the Qin.

"The close connections between the two sites help our contextual analysis of the Qin Dynasty's burial and ritual traditions. Such a discovery contributes to scholar's analysis of early Chinese sacrificial traditions," said Xue.

Unlike Western ceremonial buildings that often carry a religious mission, ancient ritual buildings in China reflect the country's ancient philosophy.

Their unique shapes and configurations during different historical periods were manifestations of ancient Chinese people's perspectives on people-to-people relations, the dynamic between human beings and nature and ethics.

Compared to the Qin Dynasty's "solemn" style, ceremonial buildings of the Xia Dynasty (c.2070BC-c.1600BC) were more pragmatic as they hosted collective activities. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770BC-256BC), the design of ritual buildings paid closer attention to the ease of transportation.

Saltwater intrusion in Vietnam's Mekong Delta is forecast to come early this year, Vietnam News reported Thursday.

Localities in the region are preparing plans to ensure adequate water for the winter-spring rice harvest and reduce the damage inflicted by drought and salinity, according to the report.

The rainy season this year is predicted to have remained in the delta only in the previous and the current months, concluding midway through next month.

The early end of the rainy season leads to anticipated water shortage in local farming areas.

Throughout the dry spell of this year and the next, the intrusion of saltwater is expected to appear a month sooner than the multi-year average, commencing in mid to late December.

According to the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research, the total rainfall this year is forecast to be about 1,350 mm, only 1 percent higher than 2015, which saw severe drought, and about 13 percent lower than the average of many years.

Vietnam's Mekong Delta region, which comprises 12 provinces and Can Tho City, is normally affected by saltwater intrusion from the sea during the dry season which lasts from December to April.

In the severely dry season from 2015 to 2016, saltwater intrusion and drought caused the loss of 1 million tons of paddy in the delta, and 500,000 households in the delta suffered a shortage of daily use water.

The first leg of the 8th EU-China Literary Festival took place at the Xi Yue Tang Library, Cultural, and Creative Park in Beijing, on Tuesday, to further deepen contemporary literary dialogue between China and Europe.

With the theme "Voices of the Present: Contemporary Literature," and an emphasis on the diversity of the contemporary literary landscape, the festival aims to depict the perspectives and cultural nuances of contemporary European writers.

Renowned Greek author Amanda Michalopoulou, participated in the 8th EU-China Literature Festival along with well-known Chinese writer Sheng Keyi. Together they engaged in a literary dialogue, on issues related to "Identity and Belonging" in contemporary European literature. Diplomats from the Greek Embassy attended the event.

Michalopoulou also discussed "Gender and Sexuality" with the Chinese writer and literary critic Wang Hongtu on Thursday at Shanghai's Fandeng Bookstore - C·PARK.

Aside from the writer dialogue, people have the opportunity to enjoy reading Greek books and participate in the "European literature reading corners" in six well-known bookstores throughout the country in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, in a series of events that promoted cultural and literary exchanges between China, Greece, and Europe. 

The reading corners activity runs until November 30.

A Chinese experimental team released a video on social media on Tuesday, saying that they successfully verified the synthesis of LK-99 crystal that can be magnetically levitate for the first time, with larger levitated angle than that of the previous sample obtained by a South Korean team, which is expected to realize the true significance of non-contact superconducting magnetic levitation.

The video was released by a team led by Chang Haixin, a professor at the School of Materials Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, with postdoctoral researcher Wu Hao and doctoral student Yang Li.

However, the video  also stated that they have currently only verified the Meissner effect. Although this crystal exhibits diamagnetism, it is relatively weak and does not possess "zero resistance," and its overall behavior is similar to that of a semiconductor curve. The publisher believes that even if LK-99 has superconducting properties, they are only in trace amounts of superconducting impurities, unable to form a continuous superconducting path.

Previously, a research team from South Korea uploaded two papers on arXiv claiming to have discovered the "world's first room-temperature superconducting material," attracting attention from the globe. It is reported that this material is mainly a modified perovskite crystal structure (referred to as LK-99), a type of lead phosphate with copper doping.

However, the team has faced skepticism due to the insufficient experimental data they have currently provided to prove LK-99 is  a superconductor. Multiple research teams worldwide are attempting to synthesize LK-99 to verify the experimental results at the moment.

After the two papers on LK-99 from South Korean scientists were made public, researchers from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Beihang University and the Shenyang National Research Center for Materials Science also released their relevant research findings.

Researchers Sun Yan and Liu Peitao from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated that they primarily conducted theoretical calculations. According to the computational results, there is a possibility of room-temperature superconductivity using  LK-99. The results also provided some explanations from the perspective of energy bands, but this does not serve as definitive proof.

The research team from Beihang University conducted tests on the synthesized LK-99 and found that its room-temperature resistance is not zero, and no magnetic levitation was observed. The paper states that the material exhibits characteristics similar to a semiconductor rather than a superconductor.

Room-temperature superconductivity would enable long-distance lossless power transmission, leading to a new wave of global infrastructure development in the electricity network. Additionally, breakthroughs are expected in areas such as superconducting magnets, superconducting cables, and superconducting maglev trains, according to  media reports.

The breakthrough in room-temperature and atmospheric pressure superconducting materials would undoubtedly bring about revolutionary changes in various fields, including energy, transportation, computing, and medical diagnostics.

The humble tumbleweed — that icon of the American West, blowing across the dusty, dry landscape of every old Western movie — is an immigrant.

And it isn’t a single species, but several. The first known tumbleweed species to arrive in the United States, Salsola tragus, or Russian thistle, is thought to have hitched a ride in a package of flax seed that some Russian immigrants brought with them to South Dakota in 1873. Over the years, other tumbleweed species arrived, including S. australis, which is thought to be a native of Australia or South Africa, though their paths into the country are less well known.

The species all look pretty similar, though despite the name, they don’t all tumble. They are all weeds, and ones that can pose a fire hazard during drought — a flaming ball of dry plant material that can be blown from place to place. It’s such a serious problem that scientists have even suggested importing fungi from Russia to control the plants.

So scientists have incentive to keep track of the tumbleweed invasion. In 2002, researchers reported that there was a new tumbleweed on the scene in California, S. ryanii. The new species was truly new; it combined the 36 chromosomes of S. tragus with the 18 chromosomes of S. australis to form a hybrid species with 54 chromosomes. S. ryanii was an intermediate of its two parents, with traits like fruit size and tumbling behavior falling square in the middle of the two others. And in 2008, scientists predicted that this made it likely that S. ryanii wouldn’t be as much of a problem as its parent species because it wouldn’t be as well adapted to the landscape.

It appears that isn’t the case. Shana Welles, now at the University of Arizona, and Norman Ellstrand of the University of California, Riverside surveyed tumbleweeds at 53 sites across California. In 2002, S. ryanii had been found in just two places in the San Joaquin Valley, but in 2012, the researchers found the plant in nine. In addition, the species also showed up at six other sites, including in coastal areas near San Francisco and Ventura. Clearly, the weed is spreading, Welles and Ellstrand report March 29 in the American Journal of Botany.

“It seems likely that the range of S. ryanii will continue to expand and [the species] is likely to become an important invasive species,” the team writes. It’s now another lookalike invader that can cause problems in the drought-prone West.

It’s even possible that S. ryanii could become an invasive species in other countries, the scientists say, should its seeds find a way to hitchhike across international borders, just like its great-great-great-great-great-grandparents did.