Scientists from northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are working to help African countries transform the sandy regions into greener, arable land with more trees and productive agricultural practices. As June 17 marks the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, these efforts are gaining increased attention and are expected to yield fruitful outcomes.

Scientists from the Global Ant Genomics Alliance (GAGA) on Monday published groundbreaking research in the international academic journal Cell, revealing the genetic foundations underlying major adaptive changes in ant evolution and their co-evolving social traits. By analyzing the whole-genome data of 163 ant genomes collected worldwide, the research team reconstructed the evolutionary tree of the Formicidae family, encompassing 12 of its 16 extant subfamilies.

Chinese scientists are in "a race against time" to mitigate glacier melting by employing innovative technologies such as artificial snow enhancement, nanomaterial coverage and other scientific explorations. A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) collaborated with the provincial meteorological bureau of Gansu, northwest China, to implement these operations, aiming to reduce glacier retreat and increase snow and ice accumulation.

For years, scientists from China and Uzbekistan have collaborated to tackle the Aral Sea crisis, with endeavors ranging from joint research expeditions to soil remediation and water-efficient agricultural practices.

The Yangtze sturgeon, a nationally protected first-class animal, was once a vital part of the river's ecosystem. However, by the early 2000s, water pollution, overfishing and other factors had pushed it to the edge. In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the species extinct in the wild. The last known natural reproduction occurred in 2000. Yet, scientists refused to give up. They spent years developing techniques to restore the sturgeon's spawning grounds. Their efforts paid this year in the Chishui River, one of the tributaries of the upper Yangtze.

Researchers from the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have recently unveiled the Chinese Seed Trait Database, a comprehensive repository covering seed traits across all of China's climates and biomes. The findings, published in the latest issue of the journal New Phytologist, address critical gaps in global seed trait data, which have historically been skewed toward regions like Western Europe and Brazil.

Chinese researchers have achieved a major breakthrough in extending the lifespan of perovskite light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to the University of Science and Technology of China. A team from the university, led by Professor Xiao Zhengguo, has developed a novel approach to fabricating all-inorganic perovskite films featuring larger crystal grains and enhanced heat resistance. This successfully increased the LED brightness to over 1.16 million nits and extended the operational lifespan beyond 180,000 hours.

A Chinese man who lost all four limbs in a high-voltage electrical accident 13 years ago can now play chess and racing games using only his mind, after a revolutionary procedure in Shanghai in which a brain-computer interface (BCI) device was implanted in his brain. The trial is a collaboration between research teams from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University. Their work makes China the second country, after the United States, to advance invasive BCI technology to the clinical trial stage.

The international scientific community has launched a program that will utilize diverse observation methods and a global network to drive groundbreaking theoretical innovations and technological advancements in space weather research, aiming to enhance global capabilities in alleviating space weather hazards.

An international paleontological team led by Chinese scientists has discovered two new species of parasitic fungus, preserved in approximately 100-million-year-old Kachin amber from Myanmar, according to the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS).

Chinese researchers have developed a highly efficient, flexible thin-film material for power generation, representing a major breakthrough in flexible power technology for smart wearables. The research team from the Institute of Electrical Engineering under the Chinese Academy of Sciences employed a chemical solution method to synthesize fine silver selenide (Ag₂Se) nanowires. These were combined with graphene and applied to a porous nylon substrate.

A group of Chinese scientists confirmed that multimodal large language models (LLMs) can spontaneously develop human-like object concept representations, providing a new path for the cognitive science of artificial intelligence (AI) and a theoretical framework for building AI systems with human-like cognitive structures.

A research team led by Zhang Qiang with the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully developed a fully integrated wearable sweat sensing patch for online analysis of multiple Parkinson's disease-related biomarkers. The research was published on Tuesday (Beijing time) in the international journal "Advanced Materials."

Mauritanian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Messouda Baham Mohamed Laghdaf has said that the China-Africa Green Technology Park is not just a bilateral project, calling it "a green revolution in the making." The project provides a replicable and scalable model for combating desertification and advancing green development in sub-Saharan Africa, she told Xinhua in a recent interview.

China is building a giant radio telescope in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The main tower of the telescope was capped on Sunday, ushering in the official start of its interior decoration. Located in a valley basin of Qitai County, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, the telescope has an aperture of 110 meters and is expected to be completed and put into use in 2028.

Chinese scientists have made progress in power generation and storage on Mars in terms of how to effectively use resources there to ensure the energy supply for conducting long-term research and stationing researchers on the planet in the future. Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) have proposed a new idea of using the Martian atmosphere as a medium for power generation.

A pioneering international initiative for hadal zone exploration, led by Chinese scientists, has received official approval from the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). The Global Hadal Exploration Programme (GHEP), spearheaded by Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering (IDSSE) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), aims to transform fragmented hadal research into a coordinated global mission to explore, understand and protect the planet's most inaccessible marine ecosystems.

Over 50 experts from China and Southeast Asian countries have gathered in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, to discuss strategies for protecting endangered freshwater dolphins. The week-long workshop has brought together representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China to share insights on habitat protection, ex-situ conservation strategies, and artificial breeding programs, with a focus on applying China's successful Yangtze finless porpoise conservation model in safeguarding critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins.