Generation

BACKGROUND: Primary spinal cord tumors, especially primary spinal cord glioblastoma multiforme (PSC-GBM), are exceptionally rare, accounting for less than 1.5% of all spinal tumors. Their infrequency and aggressive yet atypical presentation make diagnosis challenging. In uncertain cases, a surgical approach for tissue diagnosis is often optimal. OBSERVATIONS: A 76-year-old male presented with a rapidly progressing clinical history marked by worsening extremity weakness, urinary retention, and periodic fecal incontinence alongside diffuse changes on neuraxis imaging...

Electromicrobial production (EMP), where electrochemically generated substrates (e.g., H2 ) are used as energy sources for microbial processes, has garnered significant interest as a method of producing fuels and other value-added chemicals from CO2 . Combining these processes with direct air capture (DAC) has the potential to enable a truly circular carbon economy. Here, we analyze the economics of a hypothetical system that combines adsorbent-based DAC with EMP to produce n -butanol, a potential replacement for fossil fuels...

Silicon is drawing attention as an emerging anode material for the next generation of lithium-ion batteries due to its higher capacity compared with commercial graphite. However, silicon anions formed during lithiation are highly reactive with binder and electrolyte components, creating an unstable SEI layer and limiting the calendar life of silicon anodes. The reactivity of lithium silicide and the formation of an unstable SEI layer are mitigated by utilizing a mixture of Ca and Mg multivalent cations as an electrolyte additive for Si anodes to improve their calendar life...

Activating mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) represent the most common cause of monogenic Parkinson's disease. LRRK2 is a large multidomain protein kinase that phosphorylates a specific subset of the ∼65 human Rab GTPases, which are master regulators of the secretory and endocytic pathways. After phosphorylation by LRRK2, Rabs lose the capacity to bind cognate effector proteins and guanine nucleotide exchange factors. Moreover, the phosphorylated Rabs cannot interact with their cognate prenyl-binding retrieval proteins (also known as guanine nucleotide dissociation inhibitors) and, thus, they become trapped on membrane surfaces...

Plastic wastes accumulate in the environment, impacting wildlife and human health and representing a significant pool of inexpensive waste carbon that could form feedstock for the sustainable production of commodity chemicals, monomers, and specialty chemicals. Current mechanical recycling technologies are not economically attractive due to the lower-quality plastics that are produced in each iteration. Thus, the development of a plastics economy requires a solution that can deconstruct plastics and generate value from the deconstruction products...

Invited for the cover of this issue are Harmeet Bhoday, Nathan Knotts, and Rainer Glaser at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Joe Miner, the university mascot, is a silent and honorary co-author and personifies the spirit of the old west and the determination to succeed (our emphasis). The image depicts one (MeO-Ph, Y)-azine molecule and a model of a perfectly polar stacked bilayer. The floodlight illumination presents a graphic metaphor of second-harmonic generation (frequency doubling) by the crystalline ferroelectric materials...

Tjp1a and other tight junction and adherens proteins play important roles in cell-cell adhesion, scaffolding, and forming seals between cells in epithelial and endothelial tissues. In this study, we labeled Tjp1a of zebrafish with the monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted integration of biotin-labeled polymerase chain reaction (PCR) generated templates. Labeling Tjp1a with RFP allowed us to follow membrane and junctional dynamics of epithelial and endothelial cells throughout zebrafish embryo development...

The goal of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee WInSTEP SEPA program is to provide valuable and relevant research experiences to students and instructors in diverse secondary educational settings. Introducing an online experience allows the expansion of a proven instructional research program to a national scale and removes many common barriers. These can include lack of access to zebrafish embryos, laboratory equipment, and modern classroom facilities, which often deny disadvantaged and underrepresented students from urban and rural school districts valuable inquiry-based learning opportunities...

Recently, the combination of the piezoelectric effect in the photocatalytic process, referred to as piezo-photocatalysis, has gained considerable attention as a promising approach for enhancing the degradation of organic pollutants. In this investigation, we studied the piezo-photocatalysis by fabricating arrays of barium strontium titanate (Ba0.7 Sr0.3 TiO3 ) nanorods (BST NRs) on a glass substrate as recoverable catalysts. We found that the degradation rate constant k of the rhodamine B solution achieved 0...

Leveraging the extensive surface area of the lungs for gene therapy, the inhalation route offers distinct advantages for delivery. Clinical nebulizers that employ vibrating mesh technology are the standard choice for converting liquid medicines into aerosols. However, they have limitations when it comes to delivering mRNA through inhalation, including severe damage to nanoparticles due to shearing forces. Here, we introduce a microfluidic aerosolization platform (MAP) that preserves the structural and physicochemical integrity of lipid nanoparticles, enabling safe and efficient delivery of mRNA to the respiratory system...

Breast cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers worldwide. Precise diagnosis and subtyping have important significance for targeted therapy and prognosis prediction of breast cancer. Herein, we design a proximity-guaranteed DNA machine for accurate identification of breast cancer extracellular vesicles (EVs), which is beneficial to explore the subtype features of breast cancer. In our design, two proximity probes are located close on the same EV through specific recognition of coexisting surface biomarkers, thus being ligated with the help of click chemistry...

In the past three decades, there has been a rise in young academy movements in the Global North and South. Such movements, in at least Germany and the Netherlands, have been shown to be quite effective in connecting scientific work with society. Likewise, these movements share a common goal of developing interdisciplinary collaboration among young scientists, which contributes to the growth of a nation's-but also global-scientific endeavors. This paper focuses on the young academy movement in the fourth-largest country hosting the biggest Muslim population in the world, which is also the third-most populous democracy: Indonesia...

Efforts to genetically reverse C9orf72 pathology have been hampered by our incomplete understanding of the regulation of this complex locus. We generated five different genomic excisions at the C9orf72 locus in a patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line and a non-diseased wild-type (WT) line (11 total isogenic lines), and examined gene expression and pathological hallmarks of C9 frontotemporal dementia/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in motor neurons differentiated from these lines. Comparing the excisions in these isogenic series removed the confounding effects of different genomic backgrounds and allowed us to probe the effects of specific genomic changes...

Superhydrophobic surfaces are often seen as frictionless materials, on which water is highly mobile. Understanding the nature of friction for such water-repellent systems is central to further minimize resistance to motion and energy loss in applications. For slowly moving drops, contact-line friction has been generally considered dominant on slippery superhydrophobic surfaces. Here, we show that this general rule applies only at very low speed. Using a micropipette force sensor in an oscillating mode, we measure the friction of water drops approaching or even equaling zero contact-line friction...

The main sources of redox gradients supporting high-productivity life in the Europan and other icy ocean world oceans were proposed to be photolytically derived oxidants, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) from the icy shell, and reductants (Fe(II), S(-II), CH4 , H2 ) from bottom waters reacting with a (ultra)mafic seafloor. Important roadblocks to maintaining life, however, are that the degree of ocean mixing to combine redox species is unknown, and ROS damage biomolecules. Here, we envisage a unique solution using an acid mine drainage (AMD)-filled pit lakes analog system for the Europan ocean, which previous models predicted to be acidic...

We developed an electrochemical approach for benzylic C(sp3 )-H imidation by virtue of the in situ generated oxygen-centered radicals (OCRs). The electrochemical imidation provides a complementary approach to giving distinct imide products compared with previous acyloxylation products. This protocol exhibits good site selectivity and broad substrate generality. Moreover, the utility of the OCR-mediated protocol was extended to the electrochemical oxidation of silane, and its robustness was also highlighted by the imidation of complex substrates, which would otherwise be inaccessible for previous approaches...

A femtosecond all-PM-fiber Mamyshev oscillator (MO) at 920 nm is presented. It is based on a neodymium-doped fiber with a W-type index profile that effectively suppresses the emission around 1064 nm. The linear cavity is bounded by two near-zero dispersion fiber Bragg gratings with Gaussian reflectivity profiles. The laser is self-starting and generates up to 10-nJ pulses at a repetition rate of 41 MHz. The pulses can be compressed to 53 fs with a grating-pair compressor. To our knowledge, this is the first Mamyshev oscillator and also the highest energy femtosecond fiber oscillator demonstrated in this spectral region...

Photonic-assisted signal processing of high-bandwidth signals emerges as a solution for challenges encountered in electronic-based processing. Here we present a concept for a compact, photonic-assisted digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and optical IQ-modulator in one single integrated device based on two innovative concepts: a segmented Mach-Zehnder modulator and orthogonal sampling. For electrically driving the modulator, only a single radio frequency oscillator and no pulse source or electrical DAC are required...

We experimentally generate nondiffracting speckles that carry non-Markovian properties by encoding the wavefront of a monochromatic laser beam with ring-shaped non-Markovian phases. The resulting non-Markovian nondiffracting fields present a ring-shaped pattern and central dark notches, which are analyzed with an expression of the orbital angular momentum spectra of the wavefront possessing ring-shaped non-Markovian phases. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the intensity profiles of these non-Markovian nondiffracting fields exhibit stability over multiple Rayleigh ranges, and their statistical properties could be controlled with the non-Markovianity of the input phase masks...

Hybrid fs/ps coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) thermometry often utilizes ps probe pulses derived from pulse shaping or spectrally filtering the primary laser source or by synchronization with a low repetition rate external laser. This results in limited energy, spectral resolution, and/or repetition rate of the ps probe. In this work, a master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) laser was synchronized to the oscillator of a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier to achieve high-energy (600 µJ), narrowband (58 ps) probe pulses at kHz repetition rates...