BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China.

FIREFLIES' LIGHT ORGANS

Chinese researchers have recently revealed key mechanisms related to the development of adult light organs in fireflies, providing new insights to the study of bioluminescence and the flash signal control in insects.

Adult fireflies exhibit unique flashing courtship signals, emitted by specialized light organs, which develop mostly independently from larval light organs during the pupal stage. The mechanisms of adult light organ development have not been thoroughly studied.

In this regard, researchers at the Huazhong Agricultural University used comparative genomics, comparative transcriptomics and gene interference techniques to study the light organs in the early, middle and late development of the firefly Aquatica leii.

BRAIN ANALYSIS CHIP

A group of Chinese brain scientists got inspired by space exploration and designed a real-time analysis system for whole-brain imaging of zebrafish, a model animal used in biomedical research to mimic biological processes or diseases found in humans.

The revolutionary neural recording technology has enabled dynamic measurements of large-scale neuronal clusters, but the subsequent real-time analysis of those massive dynamical imaging data remains a challenge.

The researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences realized that high-throughput neural data analysis is similar to how scientists deal with fast radio burst observations in astronomical research.

HUMAN BRAIN MYSTERIES

As China's space station enters the application and development stage, one of the astronauts' main tasks is to carry out scientific experiments. Among them is the in-orbit electroencephalogram (EEG) test, which focuses on the human brain in space.

According to Wang Bo, a researcher from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, an in-orbit EEG test platform has recently been established. As a safe, reliable, portable, and easy-to-use platform, it can be used to carry out all kinds of EEG research experiments.

"Starting from the Shenzhou-11 mission, we have started the first EEG experiment and verified the applicability of brain-computer interaction technology in orbit through brain-controlled robots," said Wang. Enditem

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