Fossil fungal ascospores assignable to the genus Potamomyces have been recovered from Early Pliocene deposits at the Gray Fossil Site, a Fossil-Lagerstätte in Tennessee, USA. Characterized by four prominent equatorial verrucae, these ascospores closely resemble the fossil-species Potamomyces invaginatus, P. batii, and P. pontidiensis, as well as the extant species P. armatisporus. Modern species of Potamomyces are primarily saprotrophic fungi that occur on decaying wood in freshwater and brackish environments, as well as in moist terrestrial habitats. During the Pliocene, Potamomyces formed part of the late Neogene wetland ecosystem associated with sinkhole ponds at the Gray Fossil Site, which developed under a warm temperate to subtropical humid climate. The remains described here represent the northernmost known occurrence of Potamomyces in North America, based on both fossil and extant records. These findings further suggest that Potamomyces appears to have considerable potential as a non-pollen palynomorph proxy for reconstructing past environments and climates.
Biodegradable zinc alloys have emerged as promising materials for orthopedics, owing to their favorable mechanical properties and controllable degradation rates. In this study, a series of novel Zn-2Cu-0.8Lix Mg ( x = 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8, in wt.%) alloys was developed to enhance both strength and biocompatibility. The effects of Mg addition on microstructure, mechanical properties, in vitro and in vivo degradation, and biocompatibility were systematically investigated. The microstructure of these as-extruded alloys consists of a matrix of beta-LiZn4 and the second phases of eta-Zn and Mg2 Zn11 . Compared to Zn-2Cu-0.8Li alloy, the addition of Mg improves the mechanical strength of Zn-2Cu-0.8Li- x Mg alloys. Notably, the as-extruded Zn-2Cu-0.8Li-0.4Mg alloy shows a well-balanced combination of mechanical properties, with an ultimate tensile strength of 556.5 f 1.6 MPa and a fracture elongation of 37.1% f 4.3%. Furthermore, the alloy exhibits a favorable degradation rate, with in vitro and in vivo rates of 201 f 6 }m/year and 86 f 6 }m/year, respectively. In vitro cell experiments demonstrated that this alloy extract possesses excellent biocompatibility, and a rat femoral shaft fracture model revealed that it has good bone repair capability. Therefore, these results indicate that Zn-2Cu-0.8Li-0.4Mg alloy is a highly promising candidate material for orthopedic applications. (c) 2026 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.
Machine-learning representations of gait waveforms are increasingly used in movement analysis, but their added value over conventional biomechanical descriptors remains uncertain, particularly in pediatric cohorts. We evaluated whether implicit neural representations (INRs) provide useful encodings of pediatric gait waveforms for reconstruction and developmental modeling. The full cohort comprised 78 healthy children and adolescents, of whom 73 had waveform files conforming to the predefined data structure required for the repeated cross-validation analyses. Selected waveforms were modeled using several INR architectures, and reconstruction quality was assessed using R2, RMSE, and MAE. For the INR feature-ablation analyses, one architecture was assigned to each waveform class based exclusively on reconstruction performance, independently of the age targets. Side-specific, bilateral-asymmetry, signal-specific, and descriptor-family feature sets were evaluated using ten repeats of five-fold cross-validation. A separate matched benchmark in the same 73 participants compared compact Fourier-MLP-derived features with conventional biomechanical descriptors and a fold-wise raw-waveform PCA baseline. In the INR ablation analyses, combining side-specific and bilateral-asymmetry features achieved R2=0.700±0.017 for chronological-age regression, and Energy/AUC descriptors were the strongest individual feature family (R2=0.696±0.031). For exploratory three-class age-group classification (4–7, 8–12, and 13–18 years), the combined INR representation reached a balanced accuracy of 0.749 ± 0.034. In the matched representation benchmark, configurations containing conventional biomechanical descriptors performed best. The biomechanics-only baseline achieved regression R2=0.837±0.070 and balanced accuracy =0.798±0.109, whereas biomechanics+PCA achieved the highest mean regression performance (R2=0.842±0.066); this difference was not statistically significant. Adding INR-derived features did not improve regression performance and significantly reduced the evaluated classification metrics. INRs should therefore be considered complementary continuous waveform representations rather than replacements for established biomechanical descriptors.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid bilayer-enclosed particles released by both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells and represent an evolutionarily conserved system of intercellular communication. By transporting bioactive cargo, including proteins, lipids, microRNAs, EVs enable the transfer of molecular signals between cells, thereby regulating immune homeostasis and inflammatory responses. In allergic diseases, EVs have emerged as key mediators linking epithelial barriers, immune cells, and the microbiome. EVs derived from epithelial, immune, and microbiota-associated cells may contribute to the initiation, amplification, and persistence of allergic inflammation by modulating barrier integrity, immune cell polarization, and cytokine signaling pathways. Disease-specific alterations in EV cargo reflect underlying pathogenic mechanisms, positioning EVs as promising non-invasive biomarkers for disease diagnosis, stratification, and monitoring. In parallel, accumulating experimental evidence highlights the therapeutic potential of EVs as cell-free immunomodulatory agents capable of suppressing allergic inflammation and promoting immune tolerance. This review synthesizes current knowledge on extracellular vesicles across three major allergic diseases: asthma, atopic dermatitis, and food allergy, integrating mechanistic insights with diagnostic and therapeutic advances. By incorporating highly recent literature and covering a broad spectrum of EV sources and engineered vesicle-based strategies, the review provides a comprehensive overview of how EV-mediated cellular communication translates into clinically relevant applications in allergy.
α-Gal syndrome (AGS) is a type of allergy to red meat and other mammalian products that develops after a tick bite. Symptoms may include urticaria, angioedema, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, and, most dangerously, anaphylactic shock. Among food allergies, it is considered unusual because: (i) the major allergen is not a protein, but a carbohydrate moiety Galα-1,3-Gal, which humans do not synthesize; (ii) it is caused by α-Gal-containing glycoconjugates injected during a tick bite; (iii) the hypersensitivity is effected by IgE antibodies which arise after a class switch from IgG and IgM-class antibodies; (iv) it seems to be triggered by α-Gal-containing glycolipids present in red meat, with delayed onset. Here, we evaluate glycans that may cause AGS, review the data about glycosyltransferases that synthesize α-Gal and related antigens and describe the immune mechanism behind AGS: sensitization and host response to ticks’ saliva. In addition, we consider future research avenues that may lead to a better understanding and management of AGS as a modern dietary affliction rooted in an old evolutionary trade-off.
