Xenobiotics such as the neonicotinoid pesticide, imidacloprid, are used globally, but their effects on native bee species are poorly understood. We studied the effects of sublethal doses of imidacloprid on olfactory learning in the native honey bee species, Apis cerana, an important pollinator of agricultural and native plants throughout Asia. We provide the first evidence that imidacloprid can impair learning in A. cerana workers exposed as adults or as larvae. Adults that ingested a single imidacloprid dose as low as 0.1 ng/bee had significantly reduced olfactory learning acquisition, which was 1.6-fold higher in control bees. Longer-term learning (1-17 h after the last learning trial) was also impaired. Bees exposed as larvae to a total dose of 0.24 ng/bee did not have reduced survival to adulthood. However, these larval-treated bees had significantly impaired olfactory learning when tested as adults: control bees exhibited up to 4.8-fold better short-term learning acquisition, though longer-term learning was not affected. Thus, sublethal cognitive deficits elicited by neonicotinoids on a broad range of native bee species deserve further study.

In 1963, Moll and Tarui [1] suggested that the field-effect conductance of a semiconductor could be controlled by the remanent polarization of a ferroelectric (FE) material to create a ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FE-FET). However, subsequent efforts to produce a practical, compact FE-FET have been plagued by low retention and incompatibility with Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process integration. These difficulties led to the development of trappedcharge based memory devices (also called floating gate or flash memory), and these are now the mainstream non-volatile memory (NVM) technology [2]. Over the past two decades, advances in oxide FE materials have rejuvenated the field of ferroelectrics and made FE random access memories (FE-RAM) a commercial reality [3][4][5]. Despite these advances, commercial FE-RAM based on lead zirconium titanate (PZT) has stalled at the 130 nm due to process challenges [6].The recent discovery of scandium doped aluminum nitride (AlScN) as a CMOS compatible ferroelectric [7] presents new opportunities for direct memory integration with logic transistors due to the low temperature of AlScN deposition (approx. 350 °C). This temperature is compatible with CMOS back end of line processes. Here, we present a FE-FET device composed of an AlScN FE dielectric layer integrated with a channel layer of a van der Waals two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor, MoS2. Our devices show an ON/OFF ratio ~ 10 6 , concurrent with a normalized memory window of 0.3 V/nm. The devices also demonstrate stable, two-state memory retention for up to 10 4 seconds. Our simulations and experimental results suggest that the combination of AlScN and 2D semiconductors is nearly ideal for low power FE-FET memory. Furthermore, the low processing temperatures required for device fabrication allow extreme scaling because the devices are compatible with back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) Si CMOS. These results demonstrate a new approach in embedded memory and in-memory computing, and could even lead to effective neuromorphic computing architectures.

Alarm communication is a key adaptation that helps social groups resist predation and rally defenses. In Asia, the world’s largest hornet, Vespa mandarinia, and the smaller hornet, Vespa velutina, prey upon foragers and nests of the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. We attacked foragers and colony nest entrances with these predators and provide the first evidence, in social insects, of an alarm signal that encodes graded danger and attack context. We show that, like Apis mellifera, A. cerana possesses a vibrational “stop signal,” which can be triggered by predator attacks upon foragers and inhibits waggle dancing. Large hornet attacks were more dangerous and resulted in higher bee mortality. Per attack at the colony level, large hornets elicited more stop signals than small hornets. Unexpectedly, stop signals elicited by large hornets (SS large hornet) had a significantly higher vibrational fundamental frequency than those elicited by small hornets (SS small hornet) and were more effective at inhibiting waggle dancing. Stop signals resulting from attacks upon the nest entrance (SS nest) were produced by foragers and guards and were significantly longer in pulse duration than stop signals elicited by attacks upon foragers (SS forager). Unlike SS forager, SS nest were targeted at dancing and non-dancing foragers and had the common effect, tuned to hornet threat level, of inhibiting bee departures from the safe interior of the nest. Meanwhile, nest defenders were triggered by the bee alarm pheromone and live hornet presence to heat-ball the hornet. In A. cerana, sophisticated recruitment communication that encodes food location, the waggle dance, is therefore matched with an inhibitory/alarm signal that encodes information about the context of danger and its threat level.

Van der Waals (vdW) semiconductors are attractive for highly scaled devices and heterogeneous integration since they can be isolated into self-passivated, two-dimensional (2D) layers that enable superior electrostatic control. These attributes have led to numerous demonstrations of field-effect devices ranging from transistors to triodes. By exploiting the controlled, substitutional doping schemes in covalently-bonded, three-dimensional (3D) semiconductors and the passivated surfaces of 2D semiconductors, one can construct devices that can exceed performance metrics of "all-2D" vdW heterojunctions. Here, we demonstrate, 2D/3D semiconductor heterojunctions using MoS 2 as the prototypical 2D semiconductor laid upon Si and GaN as the 3D semiconductor layers. By tuning the Fermi levels in MoS 2 , we demonstrate devices that concurrently exhibit over seven orders of magnitude modulation in rectification ratios and conductance. Our results further suggest that the interface quality does not necessarily affect Fermi-level tuning at the junction opening up possibilities for novel 2D/3D heterojunction device architectures.

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In this Letter, we report a back-end-of-line (BEOL), complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible Al0.64Sc0.36N-based ferroelectric diode that shows polarization-dependent hysteresis in its leakage currents. Our device comprises a metal/insulator/ferroelectric/metal structure (Pt/native oxide/Al0.64Sc0.36N/Pt) that is compatible with BEOL temperatures (≤ 350 °C) grown on top of a 4-in. silicon wafer. The device shows self-selective behavior as a diode with > 105 rectification ratio (for 5 V). It can suppress sneak currents without the need for additional access transistors or selectors. Furthermore, given the polarization-dependent leakage, the diode current–voltage sweeps are analogous to that of a memristor with an on/off ratio of ∼ 50 000 between low and high resistance states. Our devices also exhibit stable programed resistance states during DC cycling and a retention time longer than 1000 s at 300 K. These results demonstrate that this system has significant potential as a future high-performance post-CMOS compatible nonvolatile memory technology.