Microplastics are tiny plastic particles, typically smaller than 5 mm in diameter, that result from the degradation of larger plastic products. Minuscule pollutants are increasingly being found in ...our food supply, especially in beverages, raising substantial health concerns. Ingested microplastics can release hazardous chemicals and act as carriers of pathogens, leading to adverse health effects upon chronic exposure. Despite the numerous studies on microplastic contamination, few have assessed the influence of geographic location and container type on the presence of microplastics in beverages. Our comprehensive study bridges this research gap by collecting a particular soda beverage from Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. and examining three different types of beverage containers: aluminum, glass, and plastic. Using direct laser infrared spectroscopy, we identified the types and quantified the numbers of microplastics. Our statistical analysis, which incorporated principal component analysis, investigated the distribution of microplastics in beverage samples, focusing on the impacts of geographic location and container material. Notably, our analysis revealed that the microplastic profiles were distinguishable in some cities, although not all. Conversely, no distinguishability was revealed between the different container types. This study sheds light on the complex patterns of microplastic contamination according to geographical location and packaging. Our findings contribute to a broader effort to understand and address the widespread challenges of microplastics, with implications for public health and ecosystem preservation.
Recent years have witnessed significant progress in quantum communication and quantum internet with the emerging quantum photonic chips, whose characteristics of scalability, stability, and low cost, ...flourish and open up new possibilities in miniaturized footprints. Here, we provide an overview of the advances in quantum photonic chips for quantum communication, beginning with a summary of the prevalent photonic integrated fabrication platforms and key components for integrated quantum communication systems. We then discuss a range of quantum communication applications, such as quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation. Finally, the review culminates with a perspective on challenges towards high-performance chip-based quantum communication, as well as a glimpse into future opportunities for integrated quantum networks.
Quantum key distribution is a matured quantum science and technology. Over the last 20 years, there has been substantial research and development in this area. Recently, silicon technology has ...offered tremendous promise in the field for improved miniaturization of quantum key distribution through integrated photonic chips. We expect further progress in this area both in terms of protocols, photon sources, and photon detectors. This review captures some of the recent advances in this area.
SUMMARY
Ripening of tomato fruit is a complex tightly orchestrated developmental process that involves multiple physiological and metabolic changes that render fruit attractive, palatable and ...nutritious. Ripening requires initiation, activation and coordination of key pathways at the transcriptional and post‐transcriptional levels that lead to ethylene synthesis and downstream ripening events determining quality. We studied wild‐type, Gr and r mutant fruits at the coding and non‐coding transcriptomic, metabolomic and genome methylation levels. Numerous differentially expressed non‐coding RNAs were identified and quantified and potential competing endogenous RNA regulation models were constructed. Multiple changes in gene methylation were linked to the ethylene pathway and ripening processes. A combined analysis of changes in genome methylation, long non‐coding RNAs, circular RNAs, micro‐RNAs and fruit metabolites revealed many differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with differentially methylated regions encoding transcription factors and key enzymes related to ethylene or carotenoid pathways potentially targeted by differentially expressed non‐coding RNAs. These included ACO2 (targeted by MSTRG.59396.1 and miR396b), CTR1 (targeted by MSTRG.43594.1 and miR171b), ERF2 (targeted by MSTRG.183681.1), ERF5 (targeted by miR9470‐3p), PSY1 (targeted by MSTRG.95226.7), ZISO (targeted by 12:66127788|66128276) and NCED (targeted by MSTRG.181568.2). Understanding the functioning of this intricate genetic regulatory network provides new insights into the underlying integration and relationships between the multiple events that collectively determine the ripe phenotype.
Significance Statement
Understanding the functioning of the intricate genetic regulatory network behind tomato fruit ripening provides new insights into the underlying integration and relationships between the multiple events that collectively determine the ripe phenotype.
Fruit softening that occurs during fruit ripening and postharvest storage determines the fruit quality, shelf life and commercial value and makes fruits more attractive for seed dispersal. In ...addition, over-softening results in fruit eventual decay, render fruit susceptible to invasion by opportunistic pathogens. Many studies have been conducted to reveal how fruit softens and how to control softening. However, softening is a complex and delicate life process, including physiological, biochemical and metabolic changes, which are closely related to each other and are affected by environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity and light. In this review, the current knowledge regarding fruit softening mechanisms is summarized from cell wall metabolism (cell wall structure changes and cell-wall-degrading enzymes), plant hormones (ETH, ABA, IAA and BR et al.), transcription factors (MADS-Box, AP2/ERF, NAC, MYB and BZR) and epigenetics (DNA methylation, histone demethylation and histone acetylation) and a diagram of the regulatory relationship between these factors is provided. It will provide reference for the cultivation of anti-softening fruits.
Increasing evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), circular RNAs (circRNAs), and microRNAs (miRNAs) have roles during biotic and abiotic stress, though their exact contributions remain ...unclear. To explore their biological functions in response to chilling in bell pepper, we examined their accumulation profiles by deep sequencing and identified 380 lncRNAs, 36 circRNAs, 18 miRNAs, and 4128 differentially expressed mRNAs in the chilled versus the non-chilled fruit. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses revealed differentially expressed genes and putative ncRNA targets, including transcription factors of multiple classes, such as myeloblastosis (MYB), basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), and ethylene response factor (ERF) transcription factors (TFs), enzymes involved in bio-oxidation and oxidative phosphorylation (serine/threonine-protein kinase, polyphenol oxidase, catalase, peroxidase, lipoxygenase, and ATPase), and cell wall metabolism-related enzymes (beta-galactosidase, pectate lyase, pectinesterase, and polygalacturonase). On the basis of the accumulation profiles, a network of putatively interacting RNAs associated with bell pepper chilling was developed, which pointed to ncRNAs that could provide the foundation for further developing a more refined understanding of the molecular response to chilling injury.
Accurate measurement of individual short-lived radon progeny concentrations is very important for dose evaluation and related researches taking radon progeny as radioactive tracers. Different methods ...have been developed, but higher methodological sensitivity is needed for field measurement under the limitation of size, weight and power consumption of the instrument. For the purpose of developing new measurement method with higher sensitivity, an optimized method based on alpha spectrometry following the Wicke method (Wicke, 1979) is demonstrated, which shortens the measurement cycle to 60 min and make it more suitable for field measurement. For comparison, a series of verification experiments were carried out, and the methodological sensitivity and uncertainty were analyzed in detail in this paper. Results show that the optimized Wicke method can give accurate individual radon progeny concentrations and equilibrium equivalent concentration (EEC) in different environments. The deviation between EEC measured by the optimized Wicke method and the original Wicke method is less than ±2.9%, and the deviation between the optimized Wicke method and the Kerr method is less than ±3.9% in different environment. The methodological sensitivity of the optimized Wicke method is nearly the same as the original method with a much shorter measurement cycle, and 4.3 times higher than that of the Kerr method, which lowers the measurement uncertainty especially in the actual environment.
●An optimized method for hourly individual radon progeny measurement●High methodological sensitivity and low measurement uncertainty●Performance of comparison experiments in different radon progeny concentration levels
The emerging monkeypox virus (MPXV) has raised global health concern, thereby highlighting the need for rapid, sensitive, and easy-to-use diagnostics. Here, we develop a single-step CRISPR-based ...diagnostic platform, termed SCOPE (Streamlined CRISPR On Pod Evaluation platform), for field-deployable ultrasensitive detection of MPXV in resource-limited settings. The viral nucleic acids are rapidly released from the rash fluid swab, oral swab, saliva, and urine samples in 2 min via a streamlined viral lysis protocol, followed by a 10-min single-step recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-CRISPR/Cas13a reaction. A pod-shaped vest-pocket analysis device achieves the whole process for reaction execution, signal acquisition, and result interpretation. SCOPE can detect as low as 0.5 copies/µL (2.5 copies/reaction) of MPXV within 15 min from the sample input to the answer. We validate the developed assay on 102 clinical samples from male patients / volunteers, and the testing results are 100% concordant with the real-time PCR. SCOPE achieves a single-molecular level sensitivity in minutes with a simplified procedure performed on a miniaturized wireless device, which is expected to spur substantial progress to enable the practice application of CRISPR-based diagnostics techniques in a point-of-care setting.
Ascorbic acid (AsA) is an important nutrient for human health and disease cures, and it is also a crucial indicator for the quality of fruit and vegetables. As a reductant, AsA plays a pivotal role ...in maintaining the intracellular redox balance throughout all the stages of plant growth and development, fruit ripening, and abiotic stress responses. In recent years, the de novo synthesis and regulation at the transcriptional level and post-transcriptional level of AsA in plants have been studied relatively thoroughly. However, a comprehensive and systematic summary about AsA-involved biochemical pathways, as well as AsA's physiological functions in plants, is still lacking. In this review, we summarize and discuss the multiple physiological and biochemical functions of AsA in plants, including its involvement as a cofactor, substrate, antioxidant, and pro-oxidant. This review will help to facilitate a better understanding of the multiple functions of AsA in plant cells, as well as provide information on how to utilize AsA more efficiently by using modern molecular biology methods.
Nowadays, Spark Streaming, a computing framework based on Spark, is widely used to process streaming data such as social media data, IoT sensor data or web logs. Due to the extensive utilization of ...streaming media data analysis, performance optimization for Spark Streaming has gradually developed into a popular research topic. Several methods for enhancing Spark Streaming's performance include task scheduling, resource allocation and data skew optimization, which primarily focus on how to manually tune the parameter configuration. However, it is indeed very challenging and inefficient to adjust more than 200 parameters by means of continuous debugging. In this paper, we propose an improved dueling double deep Q-network (DQN) technique for parameter tuning, which can significantly improve the performance of Spark Streaming. This approach fuses reinforcement learning and Gaussian process regression to cut down on the number of iterations and speed convergence dramatically. The experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the dueling double DQN method with Gaussian process regression can be enhanced by up to 30.24%.
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