BEIJING, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China.

NOVEL ROBOTIC GRIPPER

A team of Chinese researchers has found a previously unknown morphological pattern on the surface of dehydrated passion fruits, which inspired them to develop a novel robotic gripper to grasp small objects.

Researchers from Fudan University and Tsinghua University found that during the dehydration process of passion fruits, the surface initially wrinkles into a buckyball pattern, a spherical structure of hexagons and pentagons found on a soccer ball.

THERMAL CONTROL DESIGNS IN SPACE

For taikonauts, staying cool and comfortable on China’s Tiangong space station is no problem.

The station orbits Earth in about 90 minutes at an altitude of 400 km. It experiences large fluctuations in temperature, ranging from 150 degrees Celsius when the station is exposed to the sun to minus 100 degrees Celsius when over the night side of the planet.

So how to protect station residents from extreme heat and cold during their six-month stay in orbit? The answer lies in several thermal control designs courtesy of the China Academy of Space Technology.

NEW CONSTRUCTED WETLAND

Chinese researchers have discovered that a new type of constructed wetland can not only enhance water purification efficiency but also control gaseous emissions.

The researchers from the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences have combined microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with constructed wetlands (CWs) based on the principles of electrochemistry and microbiology.