News from Science China Press

A recent review published in Science Bulletin outlines the evolving landscape of metabolic dysfunction‑associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), emphasizing a suite of non-invasive genetic, metabolic and microbial markers that improve disease detection and prognosis, and summarising the clinical significance of the recent FDA‑approved drugs, resmetirom and semaglutide, along with a robust pipeline of late‑stage therapeutics. Crucially, the review addresses the substantial hurdles to clinical translation in newly developed biomarkers, including validation, standardization, and cost, and proposes a roadmap for translating these scientific advances into effective, personalized patient care.

How cells precisely control the timing of mRNA activation during differentiation is a longstanding question in molecular biology. In this study, researchers uncovered the MX-H pathway and MXL vesicles as the machinery responsible for removing inhibitory RNA-binding proteins and unleashing stored mRNAs at the right moment for sperm maturation. Importantly, the team found that this germ cell-specific system is hijacked by gastric cancer to promote tumor growth. These findings not only illuminate a fundamental regulatory mechanism in development but also identify a promising new target for selective cancer therapy.

Regular physical activity is a cost-effective strategy for cardiovascular health. However, comprehensive evidence on the specific impact of different exercise types remains limited. Now, a team of researchers from Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences published a review in Medicine Plus. It elucidates the effects of aerobic, muscle-strengthening, and combined exercises on cardiovascular diseases, summarizes underlying mechanisms, and highlights the critical value of personalized exercise strategies in health promotion.

As researchers seek better batteries beyond today’s lithium-ion technology, black phosphorus is drawing growing attention as a high-capacity anode material for lithium-, sodium-, and potassium-ion storage. A new Science Bulletin review examines both the promise and the practical barriers of this material, from structural instability to interfacial degradation, and highlights emerging strategies to address them. The article provides a clear roadmap for developing more durable, scalable, and higher-energy battery anodes for future energy-storage systems.

A recent study published in National Science Review has revealed new insights into the global riverine carbon cycle. This study constructed global maps of riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration, along with its radiocarbon (Δ¹⁴C) and stable carbon isotope (δ¹³C) signatures, based on a comprehensive global database and machine learning approaches. It systematically elucidates the sources, spatial distribution, and age characteristics of riverine DOC, quantifies the contributions of different endmembers, and reveals how its age and origin are dynamically regulated by climate conditions, hydrological processes, and soil properties. The results show that soil carbon residence time plays a key role in determining the age of dissolved organic matter transported by global rivers. In particular, warming-induced permafrost thaw is accelerating the release of long-preserved “old carbon” into river systems. Once mobilized, this aged carbon can be transported downstream and participate in aquatic biogeochemical processes, potentially enhancing carbon cycle feedbacks to the climate system.

To address the long-standing challenges of difficult mass-production and low phase purity in high-entropy sodium vanadium fluorophosphates (HE-NVPF), this study developed a microfluidic system integrated with in-situ Raman spectroscopy. This setup allows for the high-throughput optimization of reaction conditions, achieving an iteration efficiency 400 times higher than traditional methods. Based on these insights, the author developed a microfluidic-assisted spray drying technique, enabling the kilogram-scale production of various HE-NVPF cathode materials . The resulting cathodes demonstrate record-breaking rate performance in sodium-ion batteries, proving the universal potential of this microfluidic synthesis platform.

Boundary states in topological states of matter are determined by bulk topological invariants. The conventional bulk–boundary correspondence typically maps a single invariant to a specific boundary mode, which complicates the description of systems hosting multiple coexisting topological phases. Now, writing in the journal National Science Review, researchers proposed a unified characterization of strong, weak, and higher-order topological boundary states in two-dimensional Floquet systems using three complementary one-dimensional winding numbers, offering new insights into the prediction and manipulation of complex topological phases.