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Multi-biosensing hairband for emergency health assessment
Abstract Blood analysis is regarded as the gold standard for monitoring analytes in clinical diagnostics. However, the time-consuming and site-limited nature often delays medical interventions that are crucial for patients in emergency scenarios. Herein, a weavable multi-biosensor array is developed through coaxial wet spinning for real-time multiplex detection of sweat biomarkers (pH, Na+, K+, and Ca2+) and body temperature. The engineered microstructure of the multi-biosensor array exhibits a surface area that is around 200 times larger than that of conventional coated yarns, thereby facilitating directional sweat transport. The sensitivities of the pH, Na+, K+, Ca2+and temperature sensors have been determined to be 39.52 ± 0.5 mV pH−1 (3-7), 56.33 ± 1 mV dec−1 (10-160 mM), 34.13 ± 0.6 mV dec−1 (2-32 mM), 30.61 ± 0.8 mV dec−1 (0.5-2.53 mM), and 1.2 Ω ± 0.02 °C−1 (25-45 °C), respectively. It is noteworthy that the multi-biosensors exhibit consistent operational stability over 24 hours with minimal signal drift (pH: 0.13 ± 0.01 mV h−1, Na+: 0.17 ± 0.02 mV h−1, K+:0.1 ± 0.008 mV h−1, Ca2+: 0.19 ± 0.01 mV h−1, temperature: 0.05 ± 0.004 Ω h−1). By integrating the multi-biosensors and a circuit patch into the textile substrate, a wireless hairband system is constructed for tracking human physiological dynamics. Such significant technological advancement offers an innovative strategy for constructing real-time biosensing systems, which have the potential to revolutionize personalized healthcare and enable early diagnosis in emergency situations.
The association of caffeine consumption with positive affect but not with negative affect changes across the day
Abstract Caffeine is well known for its stimulant effects on the central nervous system, leading to enhanced cognitive performance and changes in affective states. While these effects have been extensively studied in controlled laboratory settings, caffeine’s influence on affect in everyday life remains comparatively underexplored. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining the associations between momentary caffeine consumption and affective states in naturalistic settings, while also accounting for potential moderators such as time of the day, individual differences, and contextual factors. Employing an experience sampling methodology (ESM), we analyzed data from 115 participants aged 18–25 in Study 1 and 121 participants aged 18–29 in Study 2. Study 1 lasted 14 days yielding 8335 completed surveys and Study 2 lasted 28 days yielding 19,960 completed surveys. Our findings indicate that caffeine intake was associated with subsequent increases in positive affect, while associations with decreases in negative affect were less consistent. The association between caffeine consumption and positive affect was strongest within the first 2.5 h after awakening (i.e., in the morning). Tiredness and social context moderated this association. Overall, the findings of this ESM study suggest that caffeine may play an important role in modulating affective states in everyday life.
Substrate accessibility regulation of human TopIIa decatenation by cohesin
Abstract Human topoisomerase II alpha (TOP2α) resolves DNA intertwines between sister chromatids during mitosis. How cohesin, an SMC complex that holds sister chromatids, affects TOP2α decatenation is unclear. To addres this, we developed a quadruple-trap optical tweezers assay to create DNA braids and study TOP2α decatenation at the single-molecule level in real-time. We show that TOP2α resolves both single and multiple braids but becomes inefficient at forces exceeding 28 pN. TOP2α is sensitive to DNA geometry, exhibiting a chiral preference for right-handed braid crossings, and requires loading directly at DNA crossovers to act. Pre-loading TOP2α onto individual DNA strands before braid formation, in the presence of ATP, prevents decatenation. Finally, we show that human cohesin, but not condensin I, binds stably to DNA braids and blocks TOP2α activity. Our study provides novel insights into the role of substrate accessibility in regulating TOP2α‘s activity and highlights cohesin as a barrier to decatenation.
Cross-cultural analysis of eye-movement patterns in visual scene perception: a comparison of seven cultural samples
Arp2/3 and type-I myosins control chromosome mobility and end-resection at double-strand breaks in S. cerevisiae
Abstract Using budding yeast, we show that Arp2/3 actin branching complex has an evolutionarily conserved role in promoting chromosome mobility of double-strand breaks (DSBs). The radius of confinement of a broken chromosome is reduced by inhibiting Arp2/3 or by auxin-induced degron depletion of the nucleation promoting factor Las17WASP or type-1 myosins. Arp2/3 and Las17 are required both to initiate and maintain 5’to 3’ resection of DSB ends, whereas depleting Myo3 or Myo5 impairs broken chromosome motion without affecting resection. Conversely, inhibiting Exo1- and Dna2-dependent long-range resection reduces DSB mobility. Inactivating Arp2/3 before DSB induction leads to shortened checkpoint arrest, activating the Tel1ATM/Mre11 (TM) checkpoint. Shortened checkpoint arrest, but not reduced broken chromosome mobility per se, results in reduced interchromosomal homologous recombination. These results suggest that regulating the Arp2/3 complex plays a key role in the processing of DSB ends that is correlated with an increase in DSB mobility and DSB repair.
The modeling of the interaction of pulsed 5G/6G signals and the fine structure of human skin
Two successive oligomeric Munc13 assemblies scaffold vesicle docking and SNARE assembly to support neurotransmitter release
Successes and failures of using the intestine as a pedicled oesophageal substitute of corrosive burns
Characterization of ferric hydroxysulfate on Mars and implications of the geochemical environment supporting its formation
STRESS, an automated geometrical characterization of deformable particles for in vivo measurements of cell and tissue mechanical stresses
Abstract From cellular mechanotransduction to the formation of embryonic tissues and organs, mechanics has been shown to play an important role in the control of cell behavior and embryonic development. Most of our existing knowledge of how mechanics affects cell behavior comes from in vitro studies, mainly because measuring cell and tissue mechanics in 3D multicellular systems, and especially in vivo, remains challenging. Oil microdroplet sensors, and more recently gel microbeads, use surface deformations to directly quantify mechanical stresses within developing tissues, in vivo and in situ, as well as in 3D in vitro systems like organoids or multicellular spheroids. However, an automated analysis software able to quantify the spatiotemporal evolution of stresses and their characteristics from particle deformations is lacking. Here we develop STRESS (Surface Topography Reconstruction for Evaluation of Spatiotemporal Stresses), an analysis software to quantify the geometry of deformable particles of spherical topology, such as microdroplets or gel microbeads, that enables the automatic quantification of the temporal evolution of stresses in the system and the spatiotemporal features of stress inhomogeneities in the tissue. As a test case, we apply these new code to measure the temporal evolution of mechanical stresses using oil microdroplets in developing zebrafish tissues. Starting from a 3D timelapse of a droplet, the software automatically calculates the statistics of local anisotropic stresses, decouples the deformation modes associated with tissue- and cell-scale stresses, obtains their spatial features on the droplet surface and analyzes their spatiotemporal variations using spatial and temporal stress autocorrelations. We provide fully automated software in Matlab/Python and also in Napari (napari-STRESS), which allows the visualization of mechanical stresses on the droplet surface together with the microscopy images of the biological systems. The automated nature of the analysis will help users obtain quantitative information about mechanical stresses in a wide range of 3D multicellular systems, from developing embryos or tissue explants to organoids.
Universal quantum computation using Ising anyons from a non-semisimple topological quantum field theory
Smaller plants in warmer water could have implications for future Kelp forests
Abstract Global warming is driving contraction of species’ ranges through migration and mortality at their warm edge. However, for most species more subtle, sub-lethal changes in performance will be a more ubiquitous response to the Anthropocene. It has been suggested that reduction in body size will be a universal response to warming for cold-water species. Here we tested this hypothesis for two dominant kelp species in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. We tested if populations from cool and warm environments would be morphologically distinct, with warm-water populations displaying structural features indicative of sub-optimal conditions (smaller sizes). We found empirical evidence consistent with size reduction of kelp stipes, blades, and biomass of associated epiphytes from cool to warm water in both hemispheres. These changes are ecologically significant because they affect how kelps engineer their local environment, the three-dimensional habitat they create, and the associated communities they support. Reduced size of cold-water habitat forming species such as kelps may be a sublethal effect of warming that could have widespread but previously overlooked effects on the structure of ecosystems and the services that they provide.
The hidden risks of CRISPR/Cas: structural variations and genome integrity
Abstract CRISPR/Cas technology has revolutionized genome engineering, unlocking unprecedented therapeutic potential. However, beyond well-documented concerns of off-target (OT) mutagenesis, recent studies reveal a more pressing challenge: large structural variations (SVs), including chromosomal translocations and megabase-scale deletions, particularly in cells treated with DNA-PKcs inhibitors. These undervalued genomic alterations raise substantial safety concerns for clinical translation. As more CRISPR-based therapies progress toward the clinic, understanding and mitigating these risks is paramount. Here, we review emerging evidence on on-target aberrations and chromosomal translocations, identify key gaps in our understanding of the DNA repair pathways underlying these adverse effects, and discuss strategies to improve the safety of genome editing.
Study on optimization of surrounding rock support in the predriven roadway during final mining of an extra thick coal seam
Observation of a bilayer superfluid with interlayer coherence
Abstract Controlling the coupling between different degrees of freedom in many-body systems is a powerful technique for engineering novel phases of matter. We create a bilayer system of two-dimensional (2D) ultracold Bose gases and demonstrate the controlled generation of bulk coherence through tunable interlayer Josephson coupling. We probe the resulting correlation properties of both phase modes of the bilayer system: the symmetric phase mode is studied via a noise-correlation method, while the antisymmetric phase fluctuations are directly captured by matter-wave interferometry. The measured correlation functions for both of these modes exhibit a crossover from short-range to quasi-long-range order above a coupling-dependent critical point, thus providing direct evidence of bilayer superfluidity mediated by interlayer coupling. We map out the phase diagram and interpret it with renormalization-group theory and Monte Carlo simulations. Additionally, we elucidate the underlying mechanism through the observation of suppressed vortex excitations in the antisymmetric mode.
Predicting potato plant vigor from the seed tuber properties
Two-step detection of Lewy body pathology via smell-function testing and CSF α-synuclein seed amplification
Abstract Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) α-synuclein (α-syn) seed amplification assays (SAAs) can detect Lewy body pathology (LBP) with high accuracy but are invasive and costly. To address these challenges, this study evaluated a two-step workflow combining prescreening via smell-function testing with confirmatory CSF α-syn SAA testing only in individuals with reduced smell, for predicting postmortem LBP status. Among 358 autopsied participants, the two-step workflow predicted brain LBP with high accuracy overall (94%), and within clinical subgroups (clinical parkinsonism=95%; clinical Alzheimer’s disease [AD]=94%; clinically unimpaired [CU]=93%). It reduced the need for confirmatory CSF testing by 43% overall (23% clinical parkinsonism; 35% clinical AD; 80% CU). In an independent in vivo cohort (N=1209), the workflow predicted CSF α-syn SAA status with 79% accuracy and reduced CSF testing by 26%. This approach may reduce invasive CSF testing, alleviating patient burden and lowering healthcare costs.