Metallic zinc (Zn) has been regarded as an ideal anode material for aqueous batteries because of its high theoretical capacity (820 mA h g), low potential (-0.762 V versus the standard hydrogen electrode), high abundance, low toxicity and intrinsic safety. However, aqueous Zn chemistry persistently suffers from irreversibility issues, as exemplified by its low coulombic efficiency (CE) and dendrite growth during plating/ stripping, and sustained water consumption. In this work, we demonstrate that an aqueous electrolyte based on Zn and lithium salts at high concentrations is a very effective way to address these issues. This unique electrolyte not only enables dendrite-free Zn plating/stripping at nearly 100% CE, but also retains water in the open atmosphere, which makes hermetic cell configurations optional. These merits bring unprecedented flexibility and reversibility to Zn batteries using either LiMnO or O cathodes-the former deliver 180 W h kg while retaining 80% capacity for >4,000 cycles, and the latter deliver 300 W h kg (1,000 W h kg based on the cathode) for >200 cycles.

In a recently developed human breast cancer model, treatment of tumor cells in a 3-dimensional culture with inhibitory β1-integrin antibody or its Fab fragments led to a striking morphological and functional reversion to a normal phenotype. A stimulatory β1-integrin antibody proved to be ineffective. The newly formed reverted acini re-assembled a basement membrane and re-established E-cadherin–catenin complexes, and re-organized their cytoskeletons. At the same time they downregulated cyclin D1, upregulated p21cip,waf-1, and stopped growing. Tumor cells treated with the same antibody and injected into nude mice had significantly reduced number and size of tumors in nude mice. The tissue distribution of other integrins was also normalized, suggesting the existence of intimate interactions between the different integrin pathways as well as adherens junctions. On the other hand, nonmalignant cells when treated with either α6 or β4 function altering antibodies continued to grow, and had disorganized colony morphologies resembling the untreated tumor colonies. This shows a significant role of the α6/β4 heterodimer in directing polarity and tissue structure. The observed phenotypes were reversible when the cells were disassociated and the antibodies removed. Our results illustrate that the extracellular matrix and its receptors dictate the phenotype of mammary epithelial cells, and thus in this model system the tissue phenotype is dominant over the cellular genotype.

Fiber-based structures are highly desirable for wearable electronics that are expected to be light-weight, long-lasting, flexible, and conformable. Many fibrous structures have been manufactured by well-established lost-effective textile processing technologies, normally at ambient conditions. The advancement of nanotechnology has made it feasible to build electronic devices directly on the surface or inside of single fibers, which have typical thickness of several to tens microns. However, imparting electronic functions to porous, highly deformable and three-dimensional fiber assemblies and maintaining them during wear represent great challenges from both views of fundamental understanding and practical implementation. This article attempts to critically review the current state-of-arts with respect to materials, fabrication techniques, and structural design of devices as well as applications of the fiber-based wearable electronic products. In addition, this review elaborates the performance requirements of the fiber-based wearable electronic products, especially regarding the correlation among materials, fiber/textile structures and electronic as well as mechanical functionalities of fiber-based electronic devices. Finally, discussions will be presented regarding to limitations of current materials, fabrication techniques, devices concerning manufacturability and performance as well as scientific understanding that must be improved prior to their wide adoption.

Rechargeable aqueous Zn/MnO battery chemistry in a neutral or mildly acidic electrolyte has attracted extensive attention recently because all the components (anode, cathode, and electrolyte) in a Zn/MnO battery are safe, abundant, and sustainable. However, the reaction mechanism of the MnO cathode remains a topic of discussion. Herein, we design a highly reversible aqueous Zn/MnO battery where the binder-free MnO cathode was fabricated by in situ electrodeposition of MnO on carbon fiber paper in mild acidic ZnSO+MnSO electrolyte. Electrochemical and structural analysis identify that the MnO cathode experience a consequent H and Zn insertion/extraction process with high reversibility and cycling stability. To our best knowledge, it is the first report on rechargeable aqueous batteries with a consequent ion-insertion reaction mechanism.

Gaining knowledge and actionable insights from complex, high-dimensional and heterogeneous biomedical data remains a key challenge in transforming health care. Various types of data have been emerging in modern biomedical research, including electronic health records, imaging, -omics, sensor data and text, which are complex, heterogeneous, poorly annotated and generally unstructured. Traditional data mining and statistical learning approaches typically need to first perform feature engineering to obtain effective and more robust features from those data, and then build prediction or clustering models on top of them. There are lots of challenges on both steps in a scenario of complicated data and lacking of sufficient domain knowledge. The latest advances in deep learning technologies provide new effective paradigms to obtain end-to-end learning models from complex data. In this article, we review the recent literature on applying deep learning technologies to advance the health care domain. Based on the analyzed work, we suggest that deep learning approaches could be the vehicle for translating big biomedical data into improved human health. However, we also note limitations and needs for improved methods development and applications, especially in terms of ease-of-understanding for domain experts and citizen scientists. We discuss such challenges and suggest developing holistic and meaningful interpretable architectures to bridge deep learning models and human interpretability.

Wound healing is essential for maintaining the integrity of multicellular organisms. In every species studied, disruption of an epithelial layer instantaneously generates endogenous electric fields, which have been proposed to be important in wound healing. The identity of signalling pathways that guide both cell migration to electric cues and electric-field-induced wound healing have not been elucidated at a genetic level. Here we show that electric fields, of a strength equal to those detected endogenously, direct cell migration during wound healing as a prime directional cue. Manipulation of endogenous wound electric fields affects wound healing in vivo. Electric stimulation triggers activation of Src and inositol-phospholipid signalling, which polarizes in the direction of cell migration. Notably, genetic disruption of phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase-gamma (PI(3)Kgamma) decreases electric-field-induced signalling and abolishes directed movements of healing epithelium in response to electric signals. Deletion of the tumour suppressor phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) enhances signalling and electrotactic responses. These data identify genes essential for electrical-signal-induced wound healing and show that PI(3)Kgamma and PTEN control electrotaxis.

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Like neutrophilic leukocytes, differentiated HL-60 cells respond to chemoattractant by adopting a polarized morphology, with F-actin in a protruding pseudopod at the leading edge and contractile actin-myosin complexes at the back and sides. Experiments with pharmacological inhibitors, toxins, and mutant proteins show that this polarity depends on divergent, opposing "frontness" and "backness" signals generated by different receptor-activated trimeric G proteins. Frontness depends upon Gi-mediated production of 3'-phosphoinositol lipids (PI3Ps), the activated form of Rac, a small GTPase, and F-actin. G12 and G13 trigger backness signals, including activation of a second GTPase (Rho), a Rho-dependent kinase, and myosin II. Functional incompatibility causes the two resulting actin assemblies to aggregate into separate domains, making the leading edge more sensitive to attractant than the back. The latter effect explains both the neutrophil's ability to polarize in uniform concentrations of chemoattractant and its response to reversal of an attractant gradient by performing a U-turn.