World’s first carbon fiber metro train in Qingdao

http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0110/c90000-20264742.html

The world’s first carbon fiber metro train named “CETROVO 1.0 Carbon Star Express began passenger service on the Metro Line 1 of Qingdao, Shandong Province. The debut of the carbon fiber metro train marks a groundbreaking upgrade in China’s metro train lightweight technology. The carbon fiber metro train is approximately 11 percent lighter, with operational energy consumption reduced by 7 percent. And each train can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 130 tons annually, the CCTV report noted.

The key load-bearing structures of the carbon fiber metro train, such as the car body and bogie frame, are made from carbon fiber composite materials. And this design offers multiple technical advantages, including being lighter and more energy-efficient, having higher strength, better environmental adaptability, and lower operation and maintenance costs throughout its life cycle.

Carbon fiber has advantages such as being lightweight, high-strength, fatigue-resistant, and corrosion-resistant. Its strength is more than five times that of steel, while its weight is less than a quarter of steel, making it an excellent material for lightweight rail vehicles, The use of carbon fiber materials not only enhances the strength of the car body, providing greater impact resistance and extending the structural lifespan, but also improves the vehicles’ vibration reduction and isolation, resulting in smoother operation, reduced noise, and a more comfortable ride.

The Qingdao Metro Line 1 spans approximately 60 kilometers and has 41 stations. It serves as a major north-south backbone line in Qingdao.

more insights

An automated digital colony picker monitors growth and metabolite production, eliminating the need for culturing cells

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63929-7

http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/life/202510/t20251014_1089412.shtml

The group around Jian XU from the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) has developed a fully automated “Digital Colony Picker” (DCP). This device identifies and retrieves high-performance microbial clones by simultaneously monitoring their growth and metabolite production—eliminating the need for culture plates, sampling needles, or manual picking.

Designed for the “design-build-test-learn” framework widely adopted in synthetic biology, the DCP streamlines the traditionally slow, labor-intensive “test” phase into a fast, parallel workflow with little hands-on time. It has a microfluidic chip containing 16,000 addressable microchambers that isolate single cells and track their expansion into micro-colonies. An integrated AI engine conducts time-lapse analysis of both brightfield and biosensor signals to quantify growth kinetics and metabolite production in real time. Once target colonies are identified, a laser-induced bubble technique exports them as droplets directly into standard culture plates. This contact-free transfer minimizes cross-contamination and preserves cell viability.

The equipment which was tested for identifying high-yield or lactate-tolerant Zymomonas mobilis mutants is broadly applicable to adaptive evolution studies, functional gene discovery, and phenotype screening across diverse microbial species.

Epigenetic modifications help algae to adapt to low CO2 environments

http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/life/202510/t20251010_1089023.shtml

https://www.cell.com/plant-communications/pdf/S2590-3462(25)00296-2.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590346225002962%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

A research team from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified a specific histone modification as the key regulator governing microalgae’s adaptation to low-CO₂environments.

The study focused on Nannochloropsis oceanica, tracking its epigenomic dynamics as it transitioned from an environment with 5% CO₂ to one with just 0.01% CO₂. Using multi-dimensional epigenomic sequencing techniques, the researchers discovered that global DNA methylation in the alga remained stable at 0.13%, effectively ruling out DNA methylation as a major driver of its low-CO₂response. By contrast, H3K4me2 methylationwas found to be closely associated with 43.1% of the genes that respond to low-CO₂ conditions. These genes include those critical to photosynthesis and ribosome biogenesis, two processes essential for the alga’s survival under carbon-limited stress. Further analysis revealed that H3K4me2 appears to regulate gene transcription by altering chromatin accessibility, a mechanism that aligns with its role as a central regulator of low-CO₂ adaptation.

To validate their findings, the team used CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology. They knocked out NO24G02310—a gene that encodes an H3K4 methyltransferase, the enzyme responsible for adding methyl groups to H3K4. The modified algae showed a roughly 22% reduction in growth rate and a 15% decrease in biomass. Additionally, the levels of another histone modification (H3K4me1) dropped, and the genome-wide localization of H3K4me2 shifted—providing direct evidence of H3K4me2’s role in low-CO₂ adaptation. Further experiments uncovered that H3K4 modification may act via two pathways: by regulating enzyme networks and by modulating chloroplast transmembrane pH gradients. Both mechanisms work to optimize the alga’s use of available CO₂, enhancing its survival under low-carbon conditions.

Sorting cells by Raman fingerprint

Nachrichten aus der Chemie (2025) 73, p. 37 – 39 (in English)

Raman article

Back to …

青岛 Qingdao
a hub for S&T