Land plants began colonizing the continents and shaping Earth's surface environment much earlier than previously thought, a study led by Chinese scientists showed. The research, led by researcher Zhao Mingyu at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, provides fresh geochemical evidence that early plants expanded massively on land between 455 million and 445 million years ago -- pushing back the timeline by more than 20 million years from the traditional view of around 420 million years ago.

A comprehensive 10-year fishing ban implemented in the Yangtze River Basin has successfully halted a 70-year decline in fish resources and triggered initial ecological recovery, according to a recent study published in the journal Science. A group of researchers coming from the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with domestic and international collaborators, evaluated the ban's early impacts using systematic monitoring data collected from 2018 to 2023.

Scientists in northwestern China are releasing soil "seed" into arid desert areas to form artificial biological soil crusts, as part of efforts to stabilize dunes and create a suitable foundation for future plant growth. The "seed" is solid cyanobacteria inoculum of artificial biological soil crusts developed by the Shapotou Desert Research and Experiment Station, the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Scientists in China have mapped out how genetic mutations allow tumors to build "immune barriers", a discovery that could explain why modern cancer treatments often fail in patients whose cancer has spread. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Cell, offers a potential road map for making immunotherapy — a treatment that uses the body's own immune system to fight disease — more effective against metastatic tumors, which are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

Chinese researchers have developed a novel model to explain the origin of an ultra-long gamma-ray burst (GRB), challenging the conventional understanding of these violent cosmic events. A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of High Energy Physics conducted a comprehensive analysis of satellite observational data, including Insight-HXMT and GECAM. They examined the data from 30 days around the burst and discovered that the gamma-ray emission lasted an unprecedented 29 hours, shattering previous duration records.

As millions of families in China come together to celebrate the Lunar New Year, countless scientists and engineers are still hard at work in their laboratories, the Gobi Desert, freezing observation stations, and on engineering sites. They're pushing forward with crucial projects that will shape the future of energy, materials, and space missions.

Twenty-two Chinese scientists were honored with the 2026 Tan Kah Kee Science Award and the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Award in Beijing on Thursday, recognizing their significant contributions to original innovation in science and technology and their leadership in international frontier research.

China's Tianguan satellite -- also named the Einstein Probe -- has likely captured an intermediate-mass black hole tearing apart and devouring a white dwarf star, marking the first time such an extreme event has been observed, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC).

Chinese scientists have recently quantified the correlation between prehistoric human population fluctuations and climate cycles in the lower Yangtze River region, revealing patterns of societal change, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics. By systematically analyzing chronological data from thousands of archaeological sites, experts from the institute and collaborating institutions identified clear cyclical fluctuations in the region's population size between 10,000 and 3,000 years ago.

For the first time, scientists have confirmed that the impact cratering rates on the near and far sides of the moon are essentially consistent, laying a solid basis for the establishment of a globally unified lunar chronology system.

Scientists have long believed that around 700 million years ago, Earth experienced extreme cold conditions, known as a "snowball Earth", where ice stretched from the poles to the equator. However, the exact degree of this coldness has remained uncertain. Now, an international research team led by Chinese scientists has achieved a significant breakthrough by providing the first quantitative measurements of ocean temperatures from that period.

To give kelp a chance against climate change, a research team led by Professor Tifeng Shan of the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) in Qingdao, has developed a new method for breeding triploid kelp cultivars. Hopes are high that the method will help accelerate the development of hardier, faster-growing kelp strains that can better withstand warming oceans, ultimately supporting marine ecosystems, and improving food and carbon sequestration potential in a changing climate.

A research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has achieved significant advances in the field of scalable quantum networks, bringing this transformative technology closer to real-world application. Their landmark findings have been published in both Nature and Science.

Chinese scientists have recently uncovered the long-term interaction between climate change and mercury (Hg) deposition in a lake on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, according to the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (NIEER) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The population of the Yangtze finless porpoise, the only freshwater porpoise species in China's longest river, has risen to 1,426 in 2025, indicating that the fishing ban and other conservation efforts are reviving the ecosystem of the Yangtze River.

A team of Chinese and Bangladeshi scientists made use of a China-made real-time acoustic monitoring system — dubbed "tech ears" — to detect 146 Ganges River dolphins. When the survey concluded on Jan 9, the team had identified multiple key dolphin habitats, including high-density activity zones near downstream sandbars.

China has achieved a major breakthrough in compressed air energy storage (CAES) technology after an engineering team developed the world's most powerful CAES compressor, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said on Thursday. The compressor was developed by the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics under the CAS and Zhong Chu Guo Neng (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.

In a major step for Chinese scientific engineering, the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry has unveiled the country's first domestically developed system for analyzing the structures of micronanocrystals. Known as RaSAS, the rapid analysis system marks a definitive shift for China, moving the nation from a long-term reliance on expensive imported technology to achieving independent control over high-end scientific instrumentation. With this breakthrough, China joins Japan and Switzerland as the only countries in the world to be able to develop such a precision analytical instrument.