The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed healthcare systems and supply lines, forcing medical doctors to risk infection by decontaminating and reusing single-use personal protective equipment. The uncertain future of the pandemic is compounded by limited data on the ability of the responsible virus, SARS-CoV-2, to survive across various climates, preventing epidemiologists from accurately modeling its spread. However, a detailed thermodynamic analysis of experimental data on the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 and related coronaviruses can enable a fundamental understanding of their thermal degradation that will help model the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate future outbreaks. This work introduces a thermodynamic model that synthesizes existing data into an analytical framework built on first principles, including the rate law for a first-order reaction and the Arrhenius equation, to accurately predict the temperature-dependent inactivation of coronaviruses. The model provides much-needed thermal decontamination guidelines for personal protective equipment, including masks. For example, at 70 °C, a 3-log (99.9%) reduction in virus concentration can be achieved, on average, in 3 min (under the same conditions, a more conservative decontamination time of 39 min represents the upper limit of a 95% interval) and can be performed in most home ovens without reducing the efficacy of typical N95 masks as shown in recent experimental reports. This model will also allow for epidemiologists to incorporate the lifetime of SARS-CoV-2 as a continuous function of environmental temperature into models forecasting the spread of the pandemic across different climates and seasons.

Textiles hold great promise as a soft yet durable material for building comfortable robotic wearables and assistive devices at low cost. Nevertheless, the development of smart wearables composed entirely of textiles has been hindered by the lack of a viable sheet-based logic architecture that can be implemented using conventional fabric materials and textile manufacturing processes. Here, we develop a fully textile platform for embedding pneumatic digital logic in wearable devices. Our logic-enabled textiles support combinational and sequential logic functions, onboard memory storage, user interaction, and direct interfacing with pneumatic actuators. In addition, they are designed to be lightweight, easily integrable into regular clothing, made using scalable fabrication techniques, and durable enough to withstand everyday use. We demonstrate a textile computer capable of input-driven digital logic for controlling untethered wearable robots that assist users with functional limitations. Our logic platform will facilitate the emergence of future wearables powered by embedded fluidic logic that fully leverage the innate advantages of their textile construction.

Wearable assistive, rehabilitative, and augmentative devices currently require bulky power supplies, often making these tools more of a burden than an asset. This work introduces a soft, low-profile, textile-based pneumatic energy harvesting system that extracts power directly from the foot strike of a user during walking. Energy is harvested with a textile pump integrated into the insole of the user’s shoe and stored in a wearable textile bladder to operate pneumatic actuators on demand, with system performance optimized based on a mechano-fluidic model. The system recovered a maximum average power of nearly 3 W with over 20% conversion efficiency—outperforming electromagnetic, piezoelectric, and triboelectric alternatives—and was used to power a wearable arm-lift device that assists shoulder motion and a supernumerary robotic arm, demonstrating its capability as a lightweight, low-cost, and comfortable solution to support adults with upper body functional limitations in activities of daily living.

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Background: Previous studies have investigated heavy metal exposure could increase the occurrence of congenital heart defects (CHDs). However, there are limited data regarding the relationship between exposure to nickel and CHDs occurrence in offspring. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between nickel exposure in mothers and the risk of CHDs in offspring. Materials and methods: To explore the association of nickel exposure and occurrence of CHD, a case-control study with 490 controls and 399 cases with CHDs in China were developed. The concentrations of nickel in hair of pregnant woman and fetal placental tissue were measured and used a logistic regression analysis to explore the relationship between nickel exposure and risk of CHD. Results: The median concentrations of nickel were 0.629 ng/mg, P < .05 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.326; 95% CI, 1.003–1.757) and 0.178 ng/mg, P < .05 (aOR, 2.204; 95% CI, 0.783–6.206), in maternal hair and in fetal placental tissue in the CHD group, respectively. Significant differences in the level of nickel in hair were also found in the different CHD subtypes including septal defects ( P < .05), conotruncal defects ( P < .05), right ventricular outflow tract obstruction ( P < .01), and left ventricular outflow tract obstruction ( P < .05). Dramatically different nickel concentrations in fetal placenta tissue were found in cases with other heart defects ( P < .05). Conclusions: The finding suggested that the occurrence of CHDs may be associated with nickel exposure.

Designs perfected through evolution have informed bioinspired animal‐like robots that mimic the locomotion of cheetahs and the compliance of jellyfish; biohybrid robots go a step further by incorporating living materials directly into engineered systems. Bioinspiration and biohybridization have led to new, exciting research, but humans have relied on biotic materials—non‐living materials derived from living organisms—since their early ancestors wore animal hides as clothing and used bones for tools. In this work, an inanimate spider is repurposed as a ready‐to‐use actuator requiring only a single facile fabrication step, initiating the area of “necrobotics” in which biotic materials are used as robotic components. The unique walking mechanism of spiders—relying on hydraulic pressure rather than antagonistic muscle pairs to extend their legs—results in a necrobotic gripper that naturally resides in its closed state and can be opened by applying pressure. The necrobotic gripper is capable of grasping objects with irregular geometries and up to 130% of its own mass. Furthermore, the gripper can serve as a handheld device and innately camouflages in outdoor environments. Necrobotics can be further extended to incorporate biotic materials derived from other creatures with similar hydraulic mechanisms for locomotion and articulation.

During pool boiling, a significantly high heat flux leads to the transition from nucleate boiling to film boiling, where a vapor film forms over the boiling surface, drastically increasing thermal resistance. This transition at the critical heat flux (CHF) results in an abrupt increase in surface temperature and can lead to catastrophic failure of the boiler. However, reported CHF values vary greatly, even for smooth surfaces of the same material; for example, the CHF values on flat silicon and silicon dioxide surfaces vary across studies by up to 49% and 84%, respectively. Here, we address this discrepancy by accounting for hydrocarbon adsorption on boiling surface. Hydrocarbon adsorption on smooth boiling surfaces decreases surface wettability, hindering the ability to maintain liquid contact with the surface and, thus, lowering the pool boiling CHF. To investigate hydrocarbon adsorption kinetics under ambient conditions and the subsequent effect on CHF, we cleaned flat silicon dioxide samples with argon plasma to remove hydrocarbon contaminants and then exposed them to laboratory air for different periods of time before conducting pool boiling experiments. Pool boiling results along with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data showed that the amount of adsorbed hydrocarbon increased with exposure time in air, which resulted in a decrease in wettability and, accordingly, a decrease in CHF. This work has important implications for understanding the spread in CHF values reported in the literature and may serve as a guideline for the preparation of boiling surfaces to achieve consistent experimental results.