An innovative self-healing polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer, namely, PDMS-TFB, is reported by incorporating the reversibly dynamic imine bond as the self-healing points into the PDMS networks. The PDMS-TFB elastomer features good optical transmittance (80%) in full visible light region, high stretchability (≈700%), and excellent autonomous self-healing ability at room temperature. Surprisingly, the self-healing behavior can take place in water and even at a temperature as low as -20 °C in air, showing a promising outlook for broader applications. As a proof-of-concept, this study demonstrates the use of the PDMS-TFB elastomer for preparing anticorrosion coating and adhesive layer, and also the use of such an elastomer to be the platform for fabricating the flexible interconnector and chemical sensor. Remarkably, no significant difference is observed between the pristine and healed samples. Taking full advantage of these unique properties, it is anticipated that such a PDMS-TFB elastomer shows wide applications in the fields of materials science, electronics, biology, optics, etc.

The Chinese Loess Plateau in north central China contains one of the most valuable Cenozoic climate archives on land. Establishing the origin of this substantial archive of aeolian sediments is critical for the interpretation of loess climate proxies, past atmospheric wind patterns and changing climatic/tectonic controls on erosion over potentially the past 25 Ma. Despite this significance there are a number of disagreements over the precise source areas and the extent to which these vary through time and across the plateau. To address this, we utilize a multi-technique, approach of combined detrital singlegrain zircon U-Pb dating and heavy mineral analysis to establish the sources of loess through the Quaternary and constrain their variation geographically across the Loess Plateau. We combine our data with suitable published single-grain datasets from loess and possible source regions. The results

The origin and provenance of the loess deposits of the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) are still debated. In order to pinpoint the dust sources, surface samples from the piedmont of the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, the Gobi Altai Mountains, and modern eolian dunes from the Tengger desert and Mu Us sand field were analyzed by using the detrital zircon dating technique. In order to quantitatively discriminate the content of different potential sources, zircon grains of different ages were grouped according to their tectonic origin. Zircon grains aged from 1300 to 550 Ma were assigned to the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, and grains aged from 550 to 0 Ma to the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau or the Gobi Altai Mountains, or to a combination of the two. Zircon ages of around 2.8 Ga to 1.3 Ga may be a mixture of sources from the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, Gobi Altai Mountains, or North China Craton. Sediments from the Tengger desert and Mu Us sand field consist of a mixture of the three sources and exhibit a high degree of spatial variability in terms of their source. In the northern part of the two deserts, 43–83% of the sediments are derived from the Gobi Altai Mountains, while in the south, material from the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau comprises 51–98% of the sediments. Loess deposits from the CLP also comprise a mixture of the three different sources, with material from the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau making the dominant contribution (65–100%), with material from the North China Craton and the Gobi Altai Mountains comprising 0–35% and 0–40% of the loess deposits, respectively. The contributions from the three sources to the loess deposits on CLP vary spatially. Application of the novel statistical method of provenance group analysis demonstrates that the loess deposits comprise a mixture of material from a broad region of northern China and that the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau material makes the dominant contribution.

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Preparing an autonomous self-healing supramolecular elastomer with sunlight degradability is still a challenging task in related fields. In this work, we report a supramolecular elastomer by using the classic host–guest complexation of visible-light-photolabile picolinium-containing adamantanes (Ad) and β-cyclodextrin nanogels (β-CD). The as-synthesized elastomer possesses merits of high mechanical strength, excellent stretchability (>1500% strain), efficient self-healing (>85% at 60 min), ultrastability against electrolytes, and photodegradation properties, implying versatile applications in flexible and stretchable electronics. As proofs-of-concept, self-healable strain and pressure sensors using conductive elastomers are first fabricated, which feature exceptionally high sensitivity (e.g., 0.1% in capacitance at 0.2 kPa) and fast response to detect human body motions. A degradable and flexible supercapacitor is also fabricated using the conductive elastomer as the flexible matrix. Remarkably, both the elastomer and this supercapacitor can be degraded upon the exposure to sunlight irradiation in 48 h at very mild conditions. Therefore, it is anticipated that such a novel strategy and the as-prepared supramolecular elastomer can inspire further applications in the multidisciplinary fields of materials science, electronics, etc.

East Asian monsoon variability in the Pliocene warm world has not been sufficiently studied because of the lack of direct records. We present a high-resolution precipitation record from Pliocene fluvial-lacustrine sequences in the Weihe Basin, Central China, a region sensitive to the East Asian monsoon. The record shows an abrupt monsoon shift at ~4.2 million years ago, interpreted as the result of high-latitude cooling, with an extratropical temperature decrease across a critical threshold. The precipitation time series exhibits a pronounced ~100–thousand year periodicity and the presence of precession and half-precession cycles, which suggest low-latitude forcing. The synchronous phase but mismatched amplitudes of the East Asian monsoon precipitation proxy and eccentricity suggest a nonlinear but sensitive precipitation response to temperature forcing in the Pliocene warm world. These observations highlight the role of high- and low-latitude forcing of East Asian monsoon variations on tectonic and orbital time scales.