Calcium-oxygen (Ca-O2) batteries can theoretically afford high capacity by the reduction of O2 to calcium oxide compounds (CaOx) at low cost1-5. Yet, a rechargeable Ca-O2 battery that operates at room temperature has not been achieved because the CaOx/O2 chemistry typically involves inert discharge products and few electrolytes can accommodate both a highly reductive Ca metal anode and O2. Here we report a Ca-O2 battery that is rechargeable for 700 cycles at room temperature. Our battery relies on a highly reversible two-electron redox to form chemically reactive calcium peroxide (CaO2) as the discharge product. Using a durable ionic liquid-based electrolyte, this two-electron reaction is enabled by the facilitated Ca plating-stripping in the Ca metal anode at room temperature and improved CaO2/O2 redox in the air cathode. We show the proposed Ca-O2 battery is stable in air and can be made into flexible fibres that are weaved into textile batteries for next-generation wearable systems.
Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide. The risk of DR progression is highly variable among different individuals, making it difficult to predict risk and personalize screening intervals. We developed and validated a deep learning system (DeepDR Plus) to predict time to DR progression within 5 years solely from fundus images. First, we used 717,308 fundus images from 179,327 participants with diabetes to pretrain the system. Subsequently, we trained and validated the system with a multiethnic dataset comprising 118,868 images from 29,868 participants with diabetes. For predicting time to DR progression, the system achieved concordance indexes of 0.754-0.846 and integrated Brier scores of 0.153-0.241 for all times up to 5 years. Furthermore, we validated the system in real-world cohorts of participants with diabetes. The integration with clinical workflow could potentially extend the mean screening interval from 12 months to 31.97 months, and the percentage of participants recommended to be screened at 1-5 years was 30.62%, 20.00%, 19.63%, 11.85% and 17.89%, respectively, while delayed detection of progression to vision-threatening DR was 0.18%. Altogether, the DeepDR Plus system could predict individualized risk and time to DR progression over 5 years, potentially allowing personalized screening intervals.
Ribozymes are catalytic RNAs with diverse functions including self-splicing and polymerization. This work aims to discover natural ribozymes that behave as hydrolytic and sequence-specific DNA endonucleases, which could be repurposed as DNA manipulation tools. Focused on bacterial group II-C introns, we found that many systems without intron-encoded protein propagate multiple copies in their resident genomes. These introns, named HYdrolytic Endonucleolytic Ribozymes (HYERs), cleaved RNA, single-stranded DNA, bubbled double-stranded DNA (dsDNA), and plasmids in vitro. HYER1 generated dsDNA breaks in the mammalian genome. Cryo–electron microscopy analysis revealed a homodimer structure for HYER1, where each monomer contains a Mg 2+ -dependent hydrolysis pocket and captures DNA complementary to the target recognition site (TRS). Rational designs including TRS extension, recruiting sequence insertion, and heterodimerization yielded engineered HYERs showing improved specificity and flexibility for DNA manipulation.
Connecting different electronic devices is usually straightforward because they have paired, standardized interfaces, in which the shapes and sizes match each other perfectly. Tissue–electronics interfaces, however, cannot be standardized, because tissues are soft 1 – 3 and have arbitrary shapes and sizes 4 – 6 . Shape-adaptive wrapping and covering around irregularly sized and shaped objects have been achieved using heat-shrink films because they can contract largely and rapidly when heated 7 . However, these materials are unsuitable for biological applications because they are usually much harder than tissues and contract at temperatures higher than 90 °C (refs. 8 , 9 ). Therefore, it is challenging to prepare stimuli-responsive films with large and rapid contractions for which the stimuli and mechanical properties are compatible with vulnerable tissues and electronic integration processes. Here, inspired by spider silk 10 – 12 , we designed water-responsive supercontractile polymer films composed of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(ethylene glycol)-α-cyclodextrin inclusion complex, which are initially dry, flexible and stable under ambient conditions, contract by more than 50% of their original length within seconds (about 30% per second) after wetting and become soft (about 100 kPa) and stretchable (around 600%) hydrogel thin films thereafter. This supercontraction is attributed to the aligned microporous hierarchical structures of the films, which also facilitate electronic integration. We used this film to fabricate shape-adaptive electrode arrays that simplify the implantation procedure through supercontraction and conformally wrap around nerves, muscles and hearts of different sizes when wetted for in vivo nerve stimulation and electrophysiological signal recording. This study demonstrates that this water-responsive material can play an important part in shaping the next-generation tissue–electronics interfaces as well as broadening the biomedical application of shape-adaptive materials.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder. Its symptoms are typically treated with levodopa or dopamine receptor agonists, but its action lacks specificity due to the wide distribution of dopamine receptors in the central nervous system and periphery. Here, we report the development of a gene therapy strategy to selectively manipulate PD-affected circuitry. Targeting striatal D1 medium spiny neurons (MSNs), whose activity is chronically suppressed in PD, we engineered a therapeutic strategy comprised of a highly efficient retrograde adeno-associated virus (AAV), promoter elements with strong D1-MSN activity, and a chemogenetic effector to enable precise D1-MSN activation after systemic ligand administration. Application of this therapeutic approach rescues locomotion, tremor, and motor skill defects in both mouse and primate models of PD, supporting the feasibility of targeted circuit modulation tools for the treatment of PD in humans.
Aerogels have been considered as an ideal material for thermal insulation. Unfortunately, their application in textiles is greatly limited by their fragility and poor processability. We overcame these issues by encapsulating the aerogel fiber with a stretchable layer, mimicking the core-shell structure of polar bear hair. Despite its high internal porosity over 90%, our fiber is stretchable up to 1000% strain, which is greatly improved compared with that of traditional aerogel fibers (~2% strain). In addition to its washability and dyeability, our fiber is mechanically robust, retaining its stable thermal insulation property after 10,000 stretching cycles (100% strain). A sweater knitted with our fiber was only one-fifth as thick as down, with similar performance. Our strategy for this fiber provides rich possibilities for developing multifunctional aerogel fibers and textiles.
Although haemoglobin is a known carrier of oxygen in erythrocytes that functions to transport oxygen over a long range, its physiological roles outside erythrocytes are largely elusive 1 , 2 . Here we found that chondrocytes produced massive amounts of haemoglobin to form eosin-positive bodies in their cytoplasm. The haemoglobin body (Hedy) is a membraneless condensate characterized by phase separation. Production of haemoglobin in chondrocytes is controlled by hypoxia and is dependent on KLF1 rather than the HIF1/2α pathway. Deletion of haemoglobin in chondrocytes leads to Hedy loss along with severe hypoxia, enhanced glycolysis and extensive cell death in the centre of cartilaginous tissue, which is attributed to the loss of the Hedy-controlled oxygen supply under hypoxic conditions. These results demonstrate an extra-erythrocyte role of haemoglobin in chondrocytes, and uncover a heretofore unrecognized mechanism in which chondrocytes survive a hypoxic environment through Hedy.
Backscattered lightwaves from an optical fibre are used to realise distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) systems for measuring various parameters. Rayleigh, Brillouin, and Raman backscattering provide different sensitivities to different measurands and have garnered the attention of researchers. A system combining the three principles above can effectively separate the measured strain and temperature completely as well as provide measurements of both dynamic and static parameters. However, the combined system is extremely complicated if the three systems are independent of each other. Hence, we propose a single-end hybrid DFOS system that uses two successive pulses to realise the Brillouin amplification of Rayleigh backscattering lightwaves for combining Rayleigh and Brillouin systems. A 3-bit pulse-coding method is employed to demodulate the Raman scattering of the two pulses to integrate Raman optical time-domain reflectometry into the hybrid system. Using this hybrid scheme, a simultaneous measurement of multiple parameters is realised, and a favourable measurement accuracy is achieved.
基因治疗是指将正常或者有治疗作用的基因片段递送到靶细胞中,替代或修复靶细胞中有缺陷的基因,从而达到治疗疾病目的的一种新型的治疗方式.这种通过遗传物质来干预疾病发生或者发展进程的方法,是区别于现有常规疗法的一种新的药物开发思路,也因此在一些常规疗法不能解决的疾病领域体现出独特的优势.
合成生物学是一门汇集了生物学、基因组学、工程学和信息学等多种学科的交叉学科,是以"建构"为核心的新型技术,提供了可定量、可计算、可预测的全新方法论,正在发展成为一个基础性和工具性的学科.目前,合成生物学已经广泛应用于化工、能源、医疗、食品、农业、材料等领域,展现出了强大的产业应用潜力.
2023 年诺贝尔化学奖的颁布将"量子点"这一概念带到人们眼前,什么是量子点?量子点会给我们的生活带来什么变化呢? 北京时间 10 月 4 日 17 时许,瑞典皇家科学院公布了 2023 年诺贝尔化学奖的得主,他们分别是来自美国麻省理工学院的芒吉·G.巴文迪(Moungi G.Bawendi)、美国哥伦比亚大学的路易斯·E.布鲁斯(Louis E.Brus)以及美国纳米晶体科技公司的阿列克谢·I.伊基莫夫(Alexei I.Ekimov)(见图 1).这一荣誉由三人共享,以表彰他们在发现和合成量子点领域所作出的突破性贡献.
到 2030 年,5G 将难以满足各类新型应用场景和业务规模增长的需求,且 5G 显现出缺乏杀手级应用、未形成规模化产业应用等问题.6G 技术成为各方关注的焦点,各大通信技术强国和通信行业组织纷纷开展 6G技术研究.
合成生物学的兴起不仅在生物科学领域掀起了波澜,在艺术领域,艺术家也开始借助合成生物学的手段,探索艺术表达的更多可能. 合成生物学的艺术创作是一项基于实践的研究,主要聚焦生物或生命物质(通常由生物科学探索)在艺术的创作与生产中的应用与表现.这项研究采用了合成生物学中新的标准化过程来发展细菌的遗传特性,从而扩展对活性材料艺术创作的理解和创作方法.这种实践通过制作和展示艺术品来探索作为媒介的生物物质,探索生物过程如何可能被公开,积累以感官形式发展无形的生物过程的经验.在实践过程中,这项研究试图在艺术与科学之间架起桥梁,以便为研究领域开发混合方法.
DRG付费模式因其自身优势成为医保费用持续上涨的有效对策. 新医保支付方式下DRG付费的现状 随着医疗技术的不断发展和医疗费用的不断增长,各国纷纷探索医疗保险支付方式的改革,以提高医疗服务的质量和效率.其中,疾病诊断相关分组(Diagnosis Related Groups,DRG)付费模式被广泛引入,并在世界范围内得到应用.
科技与金融是两个有着紧密联系的领域,二者融合发展,对推动我国经济发展、加快经济增长速度有重要意义. 科技与金融融合发展是科技创新的核心推动力,是实现科技创新的活力因素之一,是赋能实体经济发展的着力点,是促进产业融合的重要举措.科技与金融融合发展能带动科技企业创新,营造良好的科技创新氛围,为科技企业发展提供全周期融资服务,激发其创新活力,提高区域创新水平.与此同时,科技与金融二者本身就有融合点,金融产业能为科技创新奠定经济基础,为科技创新发展提供资金支持,而科技创新能为金融产业发展提供有利环境.总之,科技与金融融合发展具有较高研究价值,以二者融合为切入点,可充分发挥产业、人才、金融业之间的协同效应,对落实我国现阶段发展战略、推动我国经济发展具有重要作用.
上海生物医药产业坚持将创新作为发展第一驱动力,将科技、临床、金融、人才、医保等资源要素集中赋能,推动研发、生产、应用全链条高效运转,不断加快建设具有国际影响力的生物医药产业创新高地.在 2023 年夏秋之交,众多创新成果集中涌现,推动产业高质量加速发展.
●创新点 亚纳米级孔道可以有效地过滤污染水体中纳米/亚纳米级小分子和离子物质,在废水处理、水软化和净化过程及生物制药领域展现出巨大的应用前景,而纳滤膜材料性质对纳滤水处理的性能尤为关键.传统纳滤膜一般为薄层复合聚酰胺结构,常通过在多孔基膜上发生有机胺和均苯三甲酰氯的界面聚合反应制备,由此得到的纳滤膜比表面积和孔道空腔含量较低,限制了纳滤膜的水渗透性.
山东省烟台市蓬莱区是国内葡萄种植和葡萄酒庄集聚度较高的区域之一.受新冠疫情、经济增速减缓等因素影响,蓬莱区酒庄业经营面临收入锐减、库存积压等窘境.如何转变发展战略、创新经营思路,构建人与自然和谐共生的新型"低碳"发展模式,力求品牌上"精而美"、产品上"特而强"、经营上"聚而合"、销售上"新而活"、文化上"闲而悦",步入高质量发展赛道,让酒庄业成为蓬莱区创新创业高地、葡萄酒产业投资洼地、酒文化旅游胜地.
科技创新在镇域财政领域的重要性日益凸显,它不仅可以增加财政收入,还有助于提高镇域经济的竞争力. 科技在现代社会中扮演着至关重要的角色,它不仅是经济增长的关键引擎,还是可持续发展的核心驱动力之一.科技的不断进步与创新不仅提高了生产力,还为社会带来了新的商机和就业机会.从可持续性的角度来看,科技进步有助于更加高效地利用资源、减少浪费、降低环境负担.因此,科技的发展与应用对实现经济的长期可持续发展至关重要.
