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Molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) has shown large promise in harvesting osmotic energy. However, the current investigations generally focus on proof-of-concept nanoscale singlepore devices with a semiconductor phase structure. Exploration of the application viability of MoS 2 in a more robust macroscopicscale two-dimensional (2D) nanofluidic membrane and acquisition of fundamentals of how the phase structure influences the power generation process are highly demanded. Here, we demonstrate that robust and stable composite membranes made up of 2D metallic MoS 2 can act as high-performance osmotic power generators. Both experiment and simulation reveal that the higher electron density of metallic MoS 2 increases the affinity of cations to the surface, which renders the system excellent ion selectivity and high ionic flux and greatly promotes transmembrane ion diffusion. When natural river water and seawater are mixed, the power density can achieve about 6.7 W m −2 . This work shows the great potential of metallic MoS 2 in nanofluidic energy devices.

A critical event during kidney organogenesis is the differentiation of podocytes, specialized epithelial cells that filter blood plasma to form urine. Podocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-podocytes) have recently been generated in nephron-like kidney organoids, but the developmental stage of these cells and their capacity to reveal disease mechanisms remains unclear. Here we show that hPSC-podocytes phenocopy mammalian podocytes at the capillary loop stage (CLS), recapitulating key features of ultrastructure, gene expression, and mutant phenotype. hPSC-podocytes in vitro progressively establish junction-rich basal membranes (nephrin+podocin+ZO-1+) and microvillus-rich apical membranes (podocalyxin+), similar to CLS podocytes in vivo. Ultrastructural, biophysical, and transcriptomic analysis of gene-edited hPSCs and derived podocytes, generated using CRISPR/Cas9, reveals that podocalyxin is essential for the assembly of microvilli and lateral spaces between developing podocytes. These defects are phenocopied in CLS glomeruli of podocalyxin-deficient mice, which cannot produce urine, thereby demonstrating that podocalyxin has a conserved and essential role in mammalian podocyte maturation. Defining the maturity of hPSC-podocytes and their capacity to reveal and recapitulate pathophysiological mechanisms establishes a powerful framework for studying human kidney disease and regeneration.

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Hardware Trojans (HTs) implemented by adversaries serve as backdoors to subvert or augment the normal operation of infected devices, which may lead to functionality changes, sensitive information leakages, or Denial of Service attacks. To tackle such threats, this paper proposes a novel verification technique for hardware trust, namely VeriTrust, which facilitates to detect HTs inserted at design stage. Based on the observation that HTs are usually activated by dedicated trigger inputs that are not sensitized with verification test cases, VeriTrust automatically identifies such potential HT trigger inputs by examining verification corners. The key difference between VeriTrust and existing HT detection techniques is that VeriTrust is insensitive to the implementation style of HTs. Experimental results show that VeriTrust is able to detect all HTs evaluated in this paper (constructed based on various HT design methodologies shown in the literature) at the cost of moderate extra verification time, which is not possible with existing solutions.

Vesicular photothermal therapy agents (PTAs) are highly desirable in photothermal therapy (PTT) for their excellent light-harvesting ability and versatile hollow compartments. However, up to now, the reported vesicular PTAs are generally self-assembled from small molecules like liposomes, and polymer vesicles have seldom been used as PTAs due to the unsatisfactory photothermal conversion efficiency resulting from the irregular packing of chromophores in the vesicle membranes. Here we report a nano-sized polymer vesicle from hyperbranched polyporphyrins with favorable photothermal stability and extraordinarily high photothermal efficiency (44.1%), showing great potential in imaging-guided PTT for tumors through in vitro and in vivo experiments. These excellent properties are attributed to the in situ supramolecular polymerization of porphyrin units inside the vesicle membrane into well-organized 1D monofilaments driven by π-π stacking. We believe the supramolecular polymerization-enhanced self-assembly process reported here will shed a new light on the design of supramolecular materials with new structures and functions.

Advanced supercapacitor electrodes require the development of materials with dense redox sites embedded into conductive and porous skeletons. Two-dimensional (2D) conjugated metal−organic frameworks (c-MOFs) are attractive supercapacitor electrode materials due to their high intrinsic electrical conductivities, large specific surface areas, and quasi-onedimensional aligned pore arrays. However, the reported 2D c-MOFs still suffer from unsatisfying specific capacitances and narrow potential windows because large and redox-inactive building blocks lead to low redox-site densities of 2D c-MOFs. Herein, we demonstrate the dual-redox-site 2D c-MOFs with copper phthalocyanine building blocks linked by metal-bis-(iminobenzosemiquinoid) (M 2 [CuPc(NH) 8 ], M = Ni or Cu), which depict both large specific capacitances and wide potential windows. Experimental results accompanied by theoretical calculations verify that phthalocyanine monomers and metalbis(iminobenzosemiquinoid) linkages serve as respective redox sites for pseudocapacitive cation (Na + ) and anion (SO 4 2− ) storage, enabling the continuous Faradaic reactions of M 2 [CuPc(NH) 8 ] occurring in a large potential window of −0.8 to 0.8 V vs Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl). The decent conductivity (0.8 S m −1 ) and high active-site density further endow the Ni 2 [CuPc(NH) 8 ] with a remarkable specific capacitance (400 F g −1 at 0.5 A g −1 ) and excellent rate capability (183 F g −1 at 20 A g −1 ). Quasi-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors are further assembled to demonstrate the practical application of Ni 2 [CuPc(NH) 8 ] electrode, which deliver a stateof-the-art energy density of 51.6 Wh kg −1 and a peak power density of 32.1 kW kg −1 .

Grain protein content (GPC) affects rice nutrition quality. Here, we identify two stable quantitative trait loci (QTLs), qGPC-1 and qGPC-10 , controlling GPC in a mapping population derived from indica and japonica cultivars crossing. Map-based cloning reveals that OsGluA2 , encoding a glutelin type-A2 precursor, is the candidate gene underlying qGPC-10 . It functions as a positive regulator of GPC and has a pleiotropic effect on rice grain quality. One SNP located in OsGluA2 promoter region is associated with its transcript expression level and GPC diversity. Polymorphisms of this nucleotide can divide all haplotypes into low ( OsGluA2 LET ) and high ( OsGluA2 HET ) expression types. Population genetic and evolutionary analyses reveal that OsGluA2 LET , mainly present in japonica accessions, originates from wild rice. However, OsGluA2 HET , the dominant type in indica , is acquired through mutation of OsGluA2 LET . Our results shed light on the understanding of natural variations of GPC between indica and japonica subspecies.