标签： Asia

Zhengzhou, China – A well-preserved, purpose-built water channel network dating back approximately 4,000 years has been excavated at the Wangchenggang archaeological site in Dengfeng, central China’s Henan province. The landmark find, announced Thursday by Chinese archaeological authorities, is providing groundbreaking new evidence that confirms the advanced state-level organizational capabilities and structured urban planning of China’s first recorded dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, which ruled from approximately 2070 BC to 1600 BC.

The discovery was publicly unveiled at a academic forum highlighting Henan province’s most recent archaeological breakthroughs. Lead on-site excavation director Ma Long, a veteran local archaeologist, reported that two large early Xia Dynasty artificial ditches have been fully mapped at the site. Each ditch measures roughly 3 meters wide, with a confirmed excavated length exceeding 120 meters. Aligned on a consistent north-south axis, the two main ditches connect to a larger moat spanning approximately 10 meters in width, creating a fully integrated system that delivered water, removed waste, and divided the ancient settlement into distinct functional zones.

According to Ma, the uniform construction and alignment of the two main ditches reflect a remarkably high level of pre-construction planning, sophisticated design, and advanced engineering execution for the era. Preliminary calculations estimate that workers moved thousands of cubic meters of earth to complete the project – a feat that would only have been possible with the coordination of large, well-organized labor forces under a centralized governing authority.

Beyond the large main ditches and perimeter moat, archaeologists also uncovered a network of smaller secondary channels, ranging from just 0.3 meters to 1 meter in width. These smaller branches extend directly to individual residential buildings and ancient kiln sites across the settlement, allowing for fast and efficient removal of rainwater and domestic wastewater to keep living and working spaces dry.

Yang Wensheng, deputy director of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, explained the broader significance of the find. The large, hierarchically organized artificial water network demonstrates that even in the early Xia Dynasty, the Wangchenggang site operated under a unified governing authority with the capacity to organize large public works projects and enforced standardized engineering practices. Yang emphasized that this system serves as critical tangible archaeological evidence confirming the maturity of early state formation in ancient China.

Additional excavation and academic analysis of the site and newly uncovered features is ongoing, with researchers expecting to reveal more details about urban life and governance during China’s earliest dynastic period in coming months.

Supervolcanoes stand as Earth’s most formidable volcanic forces, with a single catastrophic supereruption capable of expelling more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic debris – enough to smother a large, modern metropolis under tens of meters of ash and rock. Given their capacity to upend global ecosystems, alter long-term climate patterns, and threaten human civilization across continents, geoscientists have spent decades working to unravel the geophysical mechanisms that generate these extraordinary geological features.

A new collaborative study led by a joint team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics and the University of Illinois in the United States has delivered the first complete, evidence-based explanation for how Yellowstone’s underground magma system formed and has sustained its activity over millions of years. The peer-reviewed findings were published in the prominent academic journal *Science* on April 4, 2026. Researchers note the breakthrough will drastically improve future volcanic hazard forecasting and help communities mitigate potential disaster risks from supervolcanic activity around the globe.

Nestled within Yellowstone National Park in western North America, the Yellowstone caldera is one of the most studied and well-known active supervolcanoes on the planet. Over the last 2.1 million years, it has erupted two enormous events, releasing approximately 2,500 and 1,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic material respectively. Its wealth of publicly available geological and geophysical survey data has turned it into a natural, open-air laboratory for geoscientists researching supervolcanic formation.

For decades, the dominant scientific framework held that supervolcanoes were powered by large, continuous reservoirs of fully liquid magma trapped within the Earth’s crust. Under this long-held model, molten rock accumulated steadily underground, pressure built to critical levels until it fractured surrounding solid rock, and an eruption followed. Scientists previously believed the heat driving this activity originated from a vertical plume of hot rock rising from thousands of kilometers deep within the Earth’s lower mantle.

However, accumulated research over the past ten years has called this traditional model into question. Multiple independent studies have confirmed that instead of a large pool of entirely molten rock, supervolcano magma systems are mostly made up of a viscous “crystal mush” – a semi-solid mixture of molten rock and solid mineral crystals that can remain stable underground for millions of years. In addition, high-resolution geophysical data has confirmed that Yellowstone’s entire magma system is tilted at an angle, rather than being vertically aligned, extending progressively further toward the southwest as depth increases.

To resolve these contradictions and build a more accurate model of the supervolcano’s formation, the research team constructed a high-resolution three-dimensional geophysical model of the lithosphere and upper mantle beneath western North America. The model integrates decades of geological field data, geophysical survey readings, and geochemical analysis to simulate both the ancient evolution and current state of Yellowstone’s volcanic activity.

The study’s surprising results confirm that Yellowstone’s magma originates much deeper in the Earth than the scientific community previously assumed. The source of the molten rock lies near the base of the North American lithosphere, the rigid outer layer of the Earth that extends roughly 100 kilometers below the continental surface.

At this great depth, hot, partially molten rock moves slowly eastward through a narrow geologic channel beneath the Yellowstone region. As this buoyant hot material is dragged and stretched by mantle flow moving under the thicker section of the North American continental lithosphere, pressure on the material drops rapidly, triggering partial melting of the hot rock that generates the magma that feeds the supervolcano above.

At the same time, the North American tectonic plate is moving steadily westward, creating a counterforce that pushes against the deeper eastward flow of mantle rock. This interaction of opposing tectonic forces pulls apart the base of the continental lithosphere, creating a diagonal pathway that allows rising magma to move upward toward the crust. This geodynamic process directly explains the tilted, angled shape of the magma system observed in earlier seismic surveys of the region.

“Our study provides the first comprehensive explanation of how magmatic systems beneath supervolcanoes form and evolve over geologic time,” explained Liu Lijun, the study’s corresponding author and a senior researcher at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics.

Cao Zebin, the study’s first author and a postdoctoral researcher on the project, noted that the newly identified geodynamic mechanism is not unique to Yellowstone. It can likely be applied to other large supervolcanic systems across the globe, including Indonesia’s Toba volcano – site of one of the largest supereruptions in Earth’s history – and the Altiplano-Puna volcanic complex in the Andes Mountains of South America.

Looking ahead, Liu added that this new, accurate model could eventually be used to develop forecasting systems for volcanic activity that function similarly to modern weather prediction. These tools would allow government agencies and disaster management authorities to anticipate volcanic activity far in advance and implement mitigation measures that drastically reduce the risk to human life and infrastructure.

The global field of genetic medicine has reached a landmark milestone, as a team of Chinese scientists has announced the world’s first clinically proven successful application of base editing technology to treat a life-altering severe inherited blood disorder. The groundbreaking research results, which mark the first Chinese thalassemia study ever accepted for publication in the top-tier academic journal *Nature*, offer a potentially curative, safer alternative to existing treatments for thousands of patients living with the condition worldwide.

The clinical trial focused on five patients diagnosed with transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, a genetic condition that leaves patients unable to produce functional adult hemoglobin, requiring regular, lifelong monthly blood transfusions to manage symptoms. After receiving a single one-time infusion of the experimental base-edited therapy CS-101, all five participants were able to stop their regular transfusions entirely, a outcome that has redefined what is possible for the treatment of this disorder.

Traditional gene editing approaches for beta-thalassemia work by reactivating the gene that produces fetal hemoglobin, which can compensate for the faulty adult hemoglobin that causes the condition. However, older gene editing technologies rely on cutting the DNA double helix to make changes, introducing significant risks of unintended DNA damage, chromosomal abnormalities, and harmful off-target effects. The only curative option available to patients prior to this innovation has been matched bone marrow transplantation, a procedure that requires a genetically compatible donor (a match that is inaccessible to most patients) and carries the life-threatening risk of graft-versus-host disease, where transplanted donor cells attack the recipient’s body.

To address these long-standing gaps and risks, the research team — led by principal investigator Lai Yongrong, a professor in the Hematology Department at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, and carried out in collaboration with researchers from ShanghaiTech University, Fudan University, and biotech firm CorrectSequence Therapeutics — deployed a next-generation transformer base editor. Unlike older techniques, this technology can directly rewrite specific genetic bases in a patient’s own hematopoietic stem cells without cutting through the DNA double helix. By eliminating DNA breaks, the approach drastically cuts the risk of unintended collateral genetic damage while producing higher levels of active fetal hemoglobin with far lower systemic toxicity.

Clinical outcomes from the trial have exceeded initial expectations. On average, the edited stem cells began demonstrating healthy function in all five patients just 16 days after infusion. All participants achieved stable, near-normal hemoglobin levels and discontinued regular blood transfusions within one month of treatment. The trial’s first enrolled patient has remained transfusion-free for more than 28 months, and across a median follow-up period of nearly two years, no serious adverse side effects linked to the therapy have been recorded. Critically, because the therapy uses the patient’s own modified stem cells, it eliminates the need for a matched donor entirely, removing two of the largest barriers to curative treatment for beta-thalassemia.

Beta-thalassemia disproportionately impacts populations across South China and Southeast Asia, where carrier rates in high-prevalence regions such as Guangxi can exceed 20%, leaving thousands of patients in the region without access to curative care. The research team notes that this breakthrough not only demonstrates that China’s homegrown gene editing technology meets global top-tier standards, but also positions the innovation as a potential best-in-class curative treatment that could expand access to life-changing care for patients with beta-thalassemia around the world.