In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team led by Academician Fahu Chen from Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, reconstructed Holocene precipitation changes across the East Asian monsoon region of eastern China. The study shows that precipitation varied between northern and southern China in an alternating pattern, which may have supported the parallel development of early agricultural societies and later contributed to the rise of the Central Plains and the formation of the pluralistic and integrated Chinese civilization.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a research team conducted a comprehensive analysis of mineralogical and geochemical records, along with carbon consumption fluxes, from sediments at Site CSDP-1 in the South Yellow Sea obtained by the Chinese Continental Shelf Drilling Program. They quantitatively reconstructed the 600,000 year evolutionary history of silicate weathering and its carbon consumption rates in the Yellow River basin-shelf system. The study proposes that the mid-latitude shelf region was an underestimated active silicate weathering carbon sink during glacial periods. It thus provides a novel perspective for understanding the mechanisms of glacial-interglacial climate evolution on Earth.

A paper published in National Science Review brings together evidence on how plastics are produced, released, transported and transformed, and how they affect ecosystems, human health and Earth-system processes. It argues that lasting solutions must address the full plastics life cycle, with upstream prevention and safer design supported by reuse, recycling, pollution control, monitoring, and coordinated global governance.

Animals may have evolved up to 200 million years earlier than their first appearance in the fossil record. This is according to new research that challenges key assumptions scientists have used to date the origins of animal life.