Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are often linked with oxidative damage. However, they are essential for cell signalling. A new study highlights their crucial role in plant development and morphogenesis. Using the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, researchers found that disrupting the two genes responsible for producing ROS molecules led to disrupted plant growth and formation of disordered cellular masses. The study reveals a fundamental mechanism connecting cell division, tissue structure, and plant development.

The academic significance of this study has been highly recognized internationally, as evidenced by the simultaneous publication of a highlighted Dispatch article in the same journal by Professor Christine Foyer (University of Edinburgh, UK), a world-leading authority in plant reactive oxygen research.

Plant development: RBOH genes

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982226004641

Nanomedicines often acquire a protein corona in the bloodstream before reaching the brain. A new Perspective in Science Bulletin argues that this evolving layer should be engineered as a programmable interface that can guide recognition, transcytosis and release across the blood-brain barrier.

A research group at the UCO has developed two methods for applying graphene to metal surfaces using plasma at atmospheric pressure

Objective: This commentary outlines how single-cell and multi-omic approaches can advance biomarker discovery and translational validation in exercise medicine.

Methods: The article synthesizes emerging evidence from human and animal exercise studies using single-cell RNA sequencing, single-nucleus RNA sequencing, single-cell ATAC sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and related multi-omic technologies. It focuses on skeletal muscle, immune regulation, ageing-related cellular states, chronic disease contexts and translational validation strategies.

Results: Single-cell approaches can resolve exercise-responsive cell types, cellular states, regulatory programmes and cell-cell communication that are masked by tissue-level or bulk measurements. The article highlights applications in muscle repair and fibre-type adaptation, immune redistribution and inflammatory regulation, vascular and metabolic adaptation, biological ageing and responder profiling. It proposes a pipeline that links discovery of cell-derived signatures to validation through accessible assays, including flow cytometry, targeted RNA panels, proteomics, methylation assays, immunoassays and routine clinical chemistry platforms.

Conclusions: Single-cell sequencing is best viewed as a discovery engine for precision exercise biomarkers rather than a near-term routine clinical test. Future work should combine well-defined exercise protocols, longitudinal sampling, spatial and tissue-specific profiling, physiological outcomes, human-animal comparisons and rigorous independent validation.

Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of East Anglia have shown that carefully shaped light can reveal important chiral effects in free space, without the complex materials or extreme focusing conditions that scientists once thought were necessary. The finding could help improve optical sensing, imaging, communication and future quantum technologies. 

Accounting for atmospheric degradation of levoglucosan is essential for accurate identification of biomass burning sources in tropical regions, but as much as 88% of levoglucosan may be lost before measurement. After correcting for this atmospheric loss, the researchers identified urban domestic use of fuels, rather than agricultural burning, as the dominant source of PM_2.5 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

Achromatic metalenses face stringent aperture-NA constraints, a key bottleneck in metasurface imaging. We first propose a novel achromatic imaging method using Bessel spots’ wideband consistency with non-blind restoration, design eccentric-phase off-axis meta-axicons, and develop a 9-meta-axicon integrated meta-camera. It achieves 10° FOV achromatic near-diffraction-limit imaging, circumvents aperture limits via natural dispersion, and provides a valuable solution for large-aperture wide-FOV meta-cameras.

Sodium-ion batteries are gaining attention as a lower-cost and more resource-abundant alternative to lithium-ion systems, but their practical performance is often weakened before they truly begin working. A major obstacle is the loss of active sodium ions during the first charge-discharge cycle, especially when hard carbon anodes are used. A new study reports a residue-free electrolyte additive, sodium trifluoromethanesulfinate (NaSO₂CF₃), designed to release sodium ions at the right stage of battery formation while avoiding harmful solid leftovers. By combining molecular design, electrochemical testing, and pouch-cell validation, the work offers a practical route to improving initial efficiency, cycle life, and manufacturability in sodium-ion batteries.