Browse Articles

A robust deep learning approach for rock discontinuity identification from large scale 3D point clouds

Galectin-related protein, a key contributor, drives diabetes-associated neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain associated with central sensitization is common in diabetic patients, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, a proteomics screen identified a previously uncharacterized protein, galectin-related protein (LGALSL), which was significantly upregulated in cerebrospinal fluid and extracellular fluid of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in diabetes-related neuropathic pain (DNP) model rats. Exogenous LGALSL administration reduced mechanical nociceptive thresholds by activating glutamatergic neurons in the ACC (ACC Glu ). Chemogenetic manipulations and functional assays revealed that neuron-derived LGALSL directly binds to vimentin on ACC astrocytes, activating those astrocytes. These activated astrocytes subsequently maintain ACC Glu hypersensitivity, driving mechanical hypersensitivity in diabetic rats. Blocking LGALSL–vimentin interactions with a synthetic peptide alleviated LGALSL-induced mechanical hypersensitivity. This study establishes LGALSL-dependent astrocyte-mediated hyperactivation of ACC Glu neurons as a new pathological mechanism of neuropathic pain in diabetes.

Clean energy, environmental policy and energy justice as drivers of sustainable development in OECD countries

The subcellular architecture of <i>Paratrypanosoma confusum</i> revealed by CryoET: A window into early trypanosome evolution

The trypanosomatid Paratrypanosoma confusum represents a key evolutionary link between free-living bodonids and parasitic trypanosomes, yet its cellular architecture remains poorly characterized. Here, we used cryofocused ion beam scanning electron microscopy to prepare lamellae for cryoelectron tomography, enabling nanometer-scale imaging of its ultrastructure in near-native conditions. Our analysis revealed structures never before described in trypanosomatids, including an elaborate cytoskeletal network surrounding the flagellar pocket (FP), desmosome-like connections linking the FP membrane to the flagellum, and a cytopharyngeal-like invagination arising from the pocket. Luminal particles inside the FP were reconstructed in 3D, providing insight into their organization and potential role. The contractile vacuole complex was characterized by two bladders with distinct surface protein coats. Organelles of the biosynthetic and secretory pathways were also resolved, including the Golgi complex, ER exit sites, multivesicular bodies, and a novel multivesicular tubule. We also identified large, autophagosome-like organelles containing intraluminal vesicles and hemifused vesicles, structurally resembling hemifusomes recently described in mammalian cells. These structures, along with periodic striations observed in lipid-rich compartments, suggest conserved mechanisms of vesicle biogenesis. Finally, we describe the nuclear architecture, including well-preserved nuclear pores with defined subcomplexes, chromatin fibers resembling nucleosome arrays, and putative nuclear envelope–chromatin linkages. Together, these findings highlight the cellular complexity of P. confusum , providing insights into the evolution of cellular architecture within trypanosomatids and underscoring the potential of this organism as a model for high-resolution structural studies.

RF model and SNA analysis for optimization of regional financial supervision system

Microbial driver of 2006–2023 CH ₄ growth indicated by trends in atmospheric δD–CH ₄ and δ ¹³ C–CH ₄

Methane (CH 4 ) is the second most important greenhouse gas and has been rising following a brief period of stabilization from 1999 to 2006. Determining the cause of this rise is critical for reducing emissions and predicting future climate sensitivity. The carbon and hydrogen stable isotopic composition of atmospheric CH 4 is controlled by variability in isotopically distinguishable emission categories and fractionating sink processes. While most studies using atmospheric δ 13 C–CH 4 data suggest a dominantly microbial source for recent CH 4 growth, this understanding is not uniform, and uncertainties remain [S. Schwietzke et al. , Nature 538 , 88–91 (2016), S. Basu et al. , Atmos. Chem. Phys. 22 , 15351–15377 (2022), J. Thanwerdas, M. Saunois, A. Berchet, I. Pison, P. Bousquet, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 24 , 2129–2167 (2024)]. Here, we present a harmonized global measurement record of atmospheric δD–CH 4 and estimate emissions from 1999 to 2022 with global isotope mass balance calculations using both carbon and hydrogen isotopic ratios. We conduct thorough uncertainty analyses to separate absolute magnitude and emission trend uncertainties and find with high confidence that trends in δ 13 C–CH 4 and δD–CH 4 observations are both consistent with an entirely microbial emission driver of the post-2006 CH 4 rise, while fossil fuel emissions have remained relatively stable.

Outcomes of septic shock from urinary and non-urinary sources in nonagenarians and centenarians admitted to intensive care units

The olfactory bulb endocast as a proxy for mammalian olfaction

Olfaction is a critical sense for tetrapods, playing a key role in survival and reproduction by aiding in food detection, predator avoidance, and social interactions. Olfactory performance has been experimentally tested in only a few taxa, so comparative analyses rely on anatomical and genomic proxies. Among anatomical proxies, the olfactory bulb endocast is widely used, particularly in extinct species, where it is often the only preserved proxy and can be reconstructed even in million-year-old fossils. While the functional significance of chemoreceptor genes has received attention, the extent to which the olfactory bulb endocast correlates with genomic proxies remains unclear. Using brain endocasts across all mammalian orders, we investigated the relationship between the absolute (absOB) and relative (relatOB) volumes of the olfactory bulb endocast and the number of intact chemoreceptor genes. While no clear correlations were found between absOB and the genomic proxies tested, we identified a significant correlation between relatOB and the total number of combined intact chemoreceptor genes (CombChemo), primarily driven by olfactory receptor genes (OR). Leveraging this correlation, and aiming to infer olfactory capabilities in taxa for which only the skull is available, we estimated OR numbers for three mammalian orders lacking genomic data, as well as for five extinct mammals. Building on studies that have established a link between intact OR and olfactory sensitivity and discrimination, we conclude that relatOB enables inference of olfactory capabilities in mammals. This provides a basis to investigate sensory evolution and opens perspectives for interpreting paleoecology and behavior of extinct mammals.

An innovative determination approach for the support strength of stope roof: a case study

The littler things that run the little things that run the world

Enhanced adsorption of ranitidine onto activated carbon‑modified zeolite composite and investigation of the removal mechanism

Chatbot Voting Advice Applications inform but seldom sway young unaligned voters

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are interactive tools that communicate information about elections, yet their effectiveness in enhancing political knowledge and participation remains understudied. Moreover, traditional VAAs may disproportionately attract politically engaged users with already well-formed ideological views, limiting their potential to inform a broader and less engaged electorate. This paper introduces a “VAA Bot” that employs large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation to deliver balanced, personalized information drawn from official party platforms and public documents. We evaluate the VAA Bot’s impact across three experimental studies aimed at young politically unaffiliated adults. The findings provide evidence that the VAA Bot improves knowledge of party stances on issues of great importance to each user. However, the VAA Bot produces weak effects on downstream outcomes such as vote preferences and party evaluations among respondents whose primary issue position aligns closely with one of the parties. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about the role of political information in shaping behavior and clarify both the promise and the limitations of LLM-based tools for civic learning.

Comparing psychedelic and meditation experience reports with natural language processing

Evolved birth physiology meets modern birth practice: Sustained effects of planned cesarean delivery on child hair cortisol in Brazil

Cesarean section (CS) is the most common major surgery worldwide and, by enabling birth outside physiologic labor, is an evolutionary novelty. Labor-related mechanical and hormonal stimuli, shaped by natural selection, facilitate neonatal adaptation to extrauterine life. While prior work has emphasized the biological impacts of altered microbial exposure following CS, the developmental implications of missing labor are less explored. We evaluated whether birth without labor was associated with differences in child hair cortisol, an integrated measure of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal activity that influences growth, metabolism, immunity, and behavior. Using longitudinal data from singleton births in the 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort in Brazil ( N = 6 , 136 observations from 3,537 participants), we found that 4 to 7 y old children born through planned CS before labor had 6.6% lower hair cortisol than children born vaginally ( P = 0.002 ) and 4.4% lower cortisol than children born from unplanned CS after labor ( P = 0.017 ). There were no significant differences in hair cortisol levels between children born vaginally and through CS after labor, suggesting that labor exposure, rather than CS delivery, is associated with the observed differences. A significant interaction between labor experience and gestational age indicated that differences were most pronounced among children born without labor at earlier gestational ages; adjusted differences between planned CS and vaginal delivery were significant before 39.5 wk gestation. These findings support the hypothesis that labor is an evolved developmental exposure and that bypassing it may have unintended biological consequences.

Hybrid GNN–LSTM defense with differential privacy and secure multi-party computation for edge-optimized neuromorphic autonomous systems

Abstract Neuromorphic computing, which is based on spiking neural networks (SNNs) and event cameras, can provide energy-efficient autonomous vehicle (AV) perception, yet is exceedingly susceptible to adversarial perturbations, fault injections, and data poisoning. Conventional defences may prove inadequate on the spot scenarios with a small amount of edge resources. The systemic security solution proposed in the paper consists of a Hybrid Graph Neural Network-Long Short-Term Memory (GNN-LSTM) attack detection model with a Differential Privacy (DP) and Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) solution to privacy and threat-reduction respectively. Quantization and pruning are also used to optimise the framework to support edge deployment. KITTI multimodal experiment results indicate 94.3 percent accuracy and lower the attack success rate by 30 percent. The neuromorphic N-Caltech101 experiments reach an accuracy of 92.4 percent with a drop of 27 percent. These results confirm that the proposed solution can offer substantial, privacy-conscious and resource-efficient security of next-generation neuromorphic autonomous systems against trained adversarial attacks.

Convection can enhance the capacitive charging of porous electrodes

Charge transport in porous electrodes is foundational for modern energy storage technologies like supercapacitors, fuel cells, and batteries. Supercapacitors in particular rely solely on storing energy in charged pores. Here, we simulate the charging of a single electrolyte-filled pore using the modified Poisson–Nernst–Planck and Navier–Stokes equations. We find that electroconvection can substantially speed up the charging dynamics. We uncover the fundamental mechanism of electroconvection during pore charging through an analytical model that predicts the induced flow field and the electric current arising due to convection. Our findings suggest that convection is especially important in the limit of slender pores with thin electric double layers, and becomes significant beyond a certain threshold voltage that is an inherent electrolyte property.

A quantitative characterization of antibiotic resistance and its influencing factors in hospital wastewaters across Lebanon

Neuromodulatory control of energy reserves in dopaminergic neurons

The brain is a metabolically vulnerable organ as neurons have both high resting metabolic rates and the need for local rapid conversion of carbon sources to ATP during activity. Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to be particularly vulnerable to metabolic perturbations, as a subset of these are the first to undergo degeneration in Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder long suspected to be in part driven by deficits in mid-brain bioenergetics. In skeletal muscle, energy homeostasis under varying demands is achieved in part by its ability to rely on glycogen as a fuel store, whose conversion to ATP is under hormonal regulatory control. In neurons, however, the absence of easily observable glycogen granules has cast doubt on whether this fuel store is operational, even though brain neurons express the key regulatory enzymes associated with building or burning glycogen. We show here that in primary mid-brain dopaminergic neurons, glycogen availability is under the control of dopamine autoreceptors, such that dopamine itself provides a signal to store glycogen. We find that when glycogen stores are present, they provide remarkable resilience to dopamine nerve terminal function under extreme hypometabolic conditions, but loss of this dopamine-derived signal, or impairment of access to glycogen, makes them hypersensitive to fuel deprivation. These data show that neurons can use an extracellular cue to regulate local metabolism and suggest that loss of dopamine secretion might make dopamine neurons particularly subject to neurodegeneration driven by metabolic stress.

Research on the impact of ecological additives on selected parameters and the microbiological distribution of marine engine oil

Abstract The article presents the impact of ecological additives on selected parameters and the microbiological distribution of marine engine oil (Marinol). With the development of industry and the automotive sector in general, it has become apparent that the problem of microbial contamination is still relevant and is becoming increasingly widespread. The author decided to investigate the impact of additives, namely silver and effective microorganisms with a 2% percentage share in marine engine oil (Marinol), on selected parameters and on slowing down the growth of bacteria and fungi. The article presents the impact of additives on selected engine oil parameters, including flash point, water content, acid and base numbers, density and kinematic viscosity. In addition, the oil was also tested for the effect of additives on the inhibition of microbial decomposition in the tested oil. It was found that the best additive with a positive effect on engine oil parameters and microbial decomposition was a silver solution and effective microorganisms in the form of ceramics. The addition of effective microorganisms in liquid form and silver solution to used oil resulted in an increase in temperature of approximately 1 °C compared to the ignition temperature of oil without additives. For the addition of colloidal nanosilver, a temperature of 225.22 °C was obtained. For used oil, the water content increased to 0.16% from 0.1% for new oil. The addition of liquid effective microorganisms caused the largest increase in water content to 0.58%, while EM in the form of ceramics did not contribute to the increase in water content due to its composition. The addition of silver solution contributed to an increase in water content to 0.47% and colloidal silver to 0.53%. The base number of used motor oil without additives decreased from 11.82 mgKOH/g for fresh oil to 11.52 mgKOH/g. After the application of ceramic effective microorganisms, a lower base number was obtained compared to oil without additives, which is 11.34 mgKOH/g, while liquid effective microorganisms reduced the base number the most, to 11.27 mgKOH/g. Each of the additives caused a decrease in bacteria and fungi compared to used oil without additives. The use of these additives is an original solution that has a positive effect on the microbial degradation process, while maintaining the original performance parameters of the engine oil. In the next stage, it would be desirable to confirm the results obtained under actual operating conditions.

Eliminating air pollution disparities requires more than emission reduction

In the United States, people of color are disproportionately and unjustly exposed to air pollution. Historically, environmental policy has emphasized aggregate emission reductions, yet major emission reduction scenarios do not sufficiently mitigate relative exposure disparities. Here, we show that without focusing on relative disparity (percent difference) in exposure, the only way to improve air quality and eliminate absolute exposure disparity is to eliminate all emissions (an unlikely outcome). We demonstrate that the relative disparity metric is ethically important and also a controllable societal feature that can reduce absolute disparity in exposure. We illustrate a range of approaches to air pollution policy that go beyond traditional emission reductions to meaningfully address exposure disparities. These strategies should be at the center of the future US environmental policy.