Organic lithium salts are promising cathode candidates for sustainable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to their synthetic simplicity and environmental friendliness. However, their practical application is often thwarted by active material dissolution and sluggish redox kinetics, stemming from limited conjugation and deficient electronic conductivity. Herein, we report a naphthalenediimide-based lithium salt (NDI-OLi) designed with a robust π-conjugated structure and high aromaticity to enhance electronic transport. Experimental and theoretical studies reveal that the relatively high electronic conductivity, rapid reaction kinetics, and stable delocalized electronic geometry of the NDI-OLi cathode are key factors enabling sufficient coordination between carbonyl sites and lithium ions. As a result, the NDI-OLi electrode presents a high reversible capacity of 160 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.1 A g⁻¹, excellent rate performance (99.9 mAh g⁻¹ at 8 A g⁻¹), and exceptional cycling stability with 85% capacity retention after 5000 cycles at 1 A g⁻¹. This work opens up new avenues for developing highly conductive and stable organic salt cathodes toward high-performance and durable LIBs.

In a major legislative move, China has adopted its first comprehensive Ecological and Environmental Code (EEC), a unified legal framework designed to address the interconnected global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. A commentary in the journal Carbon Research analyzes the significance of this new code, which takes effect on August 15, 2026. Authored by Jin Ma, Xiaoli Zhao, and Fengchang Wu from the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, the piece outlines how the EEC provides a systematic legal solution for sustainable development and offers a new model for global environmental governance.

For decades, China’s environmental laws were fragmented across numerous statutes and regulations, a common challenge for many nations. The new EEC addresses this by systematically integrating more than 30 national laws and over 1,000 local regulatory documents into a single, coherent system. This “moderate codification” approach balances legal stability with the flexibility needed to address new environmental challenges, moving governance from passive, end-of-pipe remediation to proactive source prevention and control.

A new study outlines a comprehensive framework leveraging AI and big data to combat illegal plant trade, addressing global biodiversity threats with technological innovation.

Marine animals have spent hundreds of millions of years evolving short protein fragments that fight microbes, calm inflammation, and tame tumors. A new review in the Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines maps how researchers are finally catching up: extracting these peptides at scale, decoding their structures with high-resolution mass spectrometry, and using AI to predict which ones might become drugs. The global market for marine peptides already tops USD 310 million, and the authors argue the next wave of therapies for hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and drug-resistant infections may come from the bottom of the food chain.

A new study reveals that many oral cancers are no longer driven by traditional risk factors like smoking or Human papillomavirus infection. Instead, they arise from internal DNA damage and possible microbial influences. By analyzing tumor mutation patterns, researchers identified a distinct subtype of oral squamous cell carcinoma marked by immune evasion and antibacterial responses. These findings reshape our understanding of oral cancer and open the door to more precise, targeted treatments in the future.

Single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of equine skeletal muscle reveals donkey and horse distinct cell types, with species-specific age-related shifts in muscle fiber composition. The conserved upregulation pattern of LDHA reveals the critical role of propanoate metabolism in energy supply for equine locomotion. Cross-species transcriptomic comparison delineates a highly conserved atlas of skeletal muscle cell types.