Due to inherently poor healable and stretchable features, the most explored polyvinyl alcohol-based gel electrolytes cannot well meet the requirements of stretchable, healable and multifunctional supercapacitors. Here, we report a hydrogel of a copolymer cross-linked by double linkers of Laponite (synthetic hectorite-type clay) and graphene oxide. The resultant hydrogel shows high mechanical stretchability, excellent ionic conductivity, and superior healable performance. Along with designing wrinkled-structure electrodes, supercapacitors fabricated by using this hydrogel as a gel electrolyte not only exhibit ultrahigh mechanical stretchability of 1000%, but also achieve repeated healable performance under treatments of both infrared light irradiation and heating. More significantly, a broken/healed supercapacitor also possesses an ultrahigh stretchability up to 900% with slight performance decay. This hydrogel electrolyte could be easily functionalized by introducing other functional components, and extended for use in other portable and wearable energy related devices with multifunction.

Rechargeable aqueous Zn metal batteries hold exciting promise for next-generation grid-scale energy storage owing to their virtues of low cost, high safety, and eco-benignity. However, the detrimental corrosion and dendrite...

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We have developed an ingenious method, termed Cas9 nickase-based amplification reaction (Cas9nAR), to amplify at arget fragment from genomic DNAa taconstant temperature of 37 8 8C. Cas9nAR employs as gRNA:Cas9n complex with as ingle-strand nicking property,astranddisplacing DNAp olymerase,a nd two primers bearing the cleavage sequence of Cas9n, to promote cycles of DNA replication through priming,e xtension, nicking,a nd displacement reaction steps.C as9nAR exhibits az eptomolar limit of detection (2 copies in 20 mLofreaction system) within 60 min and asingle-base discrimination capability.More importantly, the underlying principle of Cas9nAR offers simplicity in primer design and universality in application. Considering the superior sensitivity and specificity,a sw ell as the simple-toimplement, rapid, and isothermal features,C as9nAR holds great potential to become ar outine assayf or the quantitative detection of nucleic acids in basic and applied studies.

Edge-oriented SnS2 nanosheet arrays are vertically grown on a freestanding carbon paper for high-performance Li/Na-ion batteries.

Edge-oriented and interlayer-expanded MoS2 nanosheets/N-doped carbon nanowires are prepared and exhibit ultrafast and durable Li+ storage performance.

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have great therapeutic potential in repairing defective lung alveoli. However, genetic abnormalities caused by vector-integrations and low efficiency in generating hiPSCs, as well as difficulty in obtaining transplantable hiPSC-derived cell types, are still major obstacles. Here we report a novel strategy using a single non-viral site-specific-targeting vector with a combination of Tet-On inducible gene expression system, Cre/lox P switching gene expression system, and alveolar epithelial type II cell (ATIIC)-specific NeomycinR trangene expression system. With this strategy, a single copy of all of the required transgenes can be specifically knocked into a site immediately downstream of beta-2-microglobulin (B2M) gene locus at a high frequency, without causing B2M dysfunction. Thus, the expression of reprogramming factors, Oct4, Sox2, cMyc and Klf4, can be precisely regulated for efficient reprogramming of somatic cells into random-integration-free or genetic mutation-free hiPSCs. The exogenous reprogramming factor transgenes can be subsequently removed after reprogramming by transient expression of Cre recombinase, and the resulting random-integration-free and exogenous reprogramming-factor-free hiPSCs can be selectively differentiated into a homogenous population of ATIICs. In addition, we show that these hiPSC-derived ATIICs exhibit ultra-structural characteristics and biological functions of normal ATIICs. When transplanted into bleomycin-challenged mice lungs, hiPSC-derived ATIICs efficiently remain and re-epithelialize injured alveoli to restore pulmonary function, preventing lung fibrosis and increasing survival without tumorigenic side effect. This strategy allows for the first time efficient generation of patient-specific ATIICs for possible future clinical applications.