Search

Due to the transboundary nature of air pollutants, a province's efforts to improve air quality can reduce PM2.5 concentration in the surrounding area. The inter-provincial PM2.5 pollution transport could bring great challenges to related environmental management work, such as financial fund allocation and subsidy policy formulation. Herein, we examined the transport characteristics of PM2.5 pollution across provinces in 2013 and 2020 via chemical transport modeling and then monetized inter-provincial contributions of PM2.5 improvement based on pollutant emission control costs. We found that approximately 60% of the PM2.5 pollution was from local sources, while the remaining 40% originated from outside provinces. Furthermore, about 1011 billion RMB of provincial air pollutant abatement costs contributed to the PM2.5 concentration decline in other provinces during 2013–2020, accounting for 41.2% of the total abatement costs. Provinces with lower unit improvement costs for PM2.5, such as Jiangsu, Hebei, and Shandong, were major contributors, while Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian, bearing higher unit costs, were among the main beneficiaries. Our study identifies provinces that contribute to air quality improvement in other provinces, have high economic efficiency, and provide a quantitative framework for determining inter-provincial compensations. This study also reveals the uneven distribution of pollution abatement costs (PM2.5 improvement/abatement costs) due to transboundary PM2.5 transport, calling for adopting inter-provincial economic compensation policies. Such mechanisms ensure equitable cost-sharing and effective regional air quality management.

China is now confronting the intertwined challenges of air pollution and climate change. Given the high synergies between air pollution abatement and climate change mitigation, the Chinese government is actively promoting synergetic control of these two issues. The Synergetic Roadmap project was launched in 2021 to track and analyze the progress of synergetic control in China by developing and monitoring key indicators. The Synergetic Roadmap 2022 report is the first annual update, featuring 20 indicators across five aspects: synergetic governance system and practices, progress in structural transition, air pollution and associated weather-climate interactions, sources, sinks, and mitigation pathway of atmospheric composition, and health impacts and benefits of coordinated control. Compared to the comprehensive review presented in the 2021 report, the Synergetic Roadmap 2022 report places particular emphasis on progress in 2021 with highlights on actions in key sectors and the relevant milestones. These milestones include the proportion of non-fossil power generation capacity surpassing coal-fired capacity for the first time, a decline in the production of crude steel and cement after years of growth, and the surging penetration of electric vehicles. Additionally, in 2022, China issued the first national policy that synergizes abatements of pollution and carbon emissions, marking a new era for China's pollution-carbon co-control. These changes highlight China's efforts to reshape its energy, economic, and transportation structures to meet the demand for synergetic control and sustainable development. Consequently, the country has witnessed a slowdown in carbon emission growth, improved air quality, and increased health benefits in recent years.

Glutamate receptor-like genes (GLRs) are essential in the growth and development of plants and many physiological and biochemical processes; however, related information in soybean is lacking. In this study, 105 GLRs, including 67 Glycine soja and 38 Glycine max GLRs, were identified and divided into two clades (Clades II and III) according to their phylogenetic relationships. GLR members in the same branch had a relatively conservative motif composition and genetic structure. Furthermore, the soybean GLR family mainly experienced purification selection during evolution. Cis-acting element analysis, gene ontology, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomic annotations indicated the complexity of the gene regulation and functional diversity of the soybean GLR. Moreover, transcriptome data analysis showed that these GLRs had different expression profiles in different tissues, and Clade III members had higher and more common expression patterns. Additionally, the expression profiles under jasmonic acid treatment and salt stress indicate that the GLR participated in the jasmonic acid signaling pathway and plays a role in salt treatment. This study provides information for a comprehensive understanding of the soybean GLR family and a reference for further functional research and genetic improvement.

It is well recognized that carbon dioxide and air pollutants share similar emission sources so that synergetic policies on climate change mitigation and air pollution control can lead to remarkable co-benefits on greenhouse gas reduction, air quality improvement, and improved health. In the context of carbon peak, carbon neutrality, and clean air policies, this perspective tracks and analyzes the process of the synergetic governance of air pollution and climate change in China by developing and monitoring 18 indicators. The 18 indicators cover the following five aspects: air pollution and associated weather-climate conditions, progress in structural transition, sources, inks, and mitigation pathway of atmospheric composition, health impacts and benefits of coordinated control, and synergetic governance system and practices. By tracking the progress in each indicator, this perspective presents the major accomplishment of coordinated control, identifies the emerging challenges toward the synergetic governance, and provides policy recommendations for designing a synergetic roadmap of Carbon Neutrality and Clean Air for China.

Since 2021, cobalt (Co) is in Europe classified as carcinogen in quantities exceeding 0.1 wt-%. This affects nickel-rich stainless steels, which contain about 0.2 wt-% Co impurities. Previous findings show the bioaccessibility of Co in stainless steel to be primarily determined by the corrosion resistance. It has been unclear whether Co is distributed heterogeneously in the alloy and the outermost surface and whether a specific location would pose a risk for Co release under specific exposure conditions. This study aimed at locating Co in stainless steel 316L (0.2 wt-% Co) surfaces prior to and after exposure to different synthetic body fluids for 24 h at 37 °C. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) investigated the location of Co in the surface oxide and extent of release along with other metals (iron, chromium, nickel, and manganese) into synthetic biological fluids (gastric fluid, pH 1.5; lysosomal fluid, pH 4.5; phosphate buffered saline-PBS, pH 7.4). Co was homogeneously distributed along with metallic nickel beneath the surface oxide and co-released with other metals upon surface reformation and passivation. Exposure in PBS resulted in the incorporation of both Co and phosphate in the oxide.

The widespread use of silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) has increased the risk of human exposure, which raised concerns about their adverse effects on human health, especially the reproductive system. Previous studies have shown that SiNPs could cause damage to reproductive organs, but the specific mechanism is still unclear. In this study, to investigate the underlying mechanism of male reproductive toxicity induced by SiNPs, 40 male mice at the age of 8 weeks were divided into two groups and then intraperitoneally injected with vehicle control or 10 mg/kg SiNPs per day for one week. The results showed that SiNPs could damage testicular structure, perturb spermatogenesis and reduce serum testosterone levels, leading to a decrease in sperm quality and quantity. In addition, the ROS level in the testis of exposed mice was significantly increased, followed by imbalance of the oxidative redox status. Further study revealed that exposure to SiNPs led to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, as shown by downregulation of the expression of positive cell cycle regulators and the activation of TNF-α/TNFR Ⅰ-mediated apoptotic pathway. The results demonstrated that SiNPs could cause testicles injure via inducing oxidative stress and DNA damage which led to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and thereby resulting in spermatogenic dysfunction

Hazard classification of metal alloys is today generally based on their bulk content, an approach that seldom reflects the extent of metal release for a given environment. Such information can instead be achieved via bioelution testing under simulated physiological conditions. The use of bioelution data instead of bulk contents would hence refine the current hazard classification of alloys and enable grouping. Bioelution data have been generated for nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) released from several stainless steel grades, one low-alloyed steel, and Ni and Co metals in synthetic sweat, saliva and gastric fluid, for exposure periods from 2 to 168 h. All stainless steel grades with bulk contents of 0.11–10 wt% Ni and 0.019–0.24 wt% Co released lower amounts of Ni (up to 400-fold) and Co (up to 300-fold) than did the low-alloyed steel (bulk content: 0.034% Ni, 0.015% Co). They further showed a relative bioaccessibility of Ni and Co considerably less than 1, while the opposite was the case for the low-alloyed steel. Surface oxide- and electrochemical corrosion investigations explained these findings in terms of the high passivity of the stainless steels related to the Cr(III)-rich surface oxide that readily adapted to the fluid acidity and chemistry.

Change in future climate will either expand, contract or shift the climatic niche of many species and this could lead to shifting of their geographical ranges. Prediction of suitable cultivation regions through modeling has evolved as a useful tool for the assessment of habitat suitability and resource conservation to protect medicinal plants. We modelled current and future distribution of C. tinctorius based on three representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for the year 2050s and 2070s using a maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) and geographical information system (GIS) in China. For modeling procedure 99 occurrence records and 11 Worldclim environmental factors was used in this paper. The results show that the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to evaluate model performance. All of the AUCs were greater than 0.970, thereby placing these models in the “Excellent” category. The jackknife test also showed that maximum temperature in March (tmax3), maximum temperature in February (tmax2), maximum temperature in November (tmax11), precipitation in July (prec7) and precipitation in August (prec8) were the main variables. From the area of current distribution, of the total 6276666.77 km2 (65.36%) area, 27.28% area (2619895.88 km2) was highly suitable for safflower in China, and the highly suitable area (with suitability between 66 and 100) was mainly concentrated in Sichuan (2.74%), Yunnan (2.09%), Shaanxi (1.82%), Hubei (1.76%), Guizhou (1.66%), Henan (1.66%) and Hunan (1.64%). Xinjiang was the largest suitable area, which accounts for 9.70%. It was worth noting, realized niche was little planting in Sichuan province due to market and economic price factors, social factors and other factors. Compared to the current distribution, the total area of the poorly suitable regions and moderately suitable regions for safflower under the three RCPs (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) would increase in 2050s and 2070s. However, the total area of the highly suitable regions under the three RCPs (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) in 2050s and two RCPs (RCP2.6 and RCP4.5) in 2070s would decrease. This research would provide theoretical suggestions for the protection, cultivation management, and sustainable utilization of C. tinctorius resources to face the challenge of global climate change. Keywords: C. tinctorius, MaxEnt model, Climate change, ArcGIS, Suitable habitat