Shufeng Jiedu Capsules (SFJD), a traditional Chinese medicine preparation, are widely used in the clinical treatment of influenza, yet their mechanism of action remains unclear. This study aimed to systematically explore the molecular mechanism of SFJD in the treatment of influenza using network pharmacology and bioinformatics techniques.

Research published in Physics of Fluids shows that not all standing positions in airport smoking lounges are created equal. Scientists from the University of Hormozgan in Iran found that the thermal environment and positioning of smokers influences how particles settle in the room. Additionally, smokers seated farther from ventilation inlets experience the lowest levels of pollution in the room. The researchers created a smoking room using computational models and placed heated and unheated manikins in the room to simulate smokers. They also modeled the ventilation system with three exhaust air diffusers.

A study by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), an agency dependent on the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain, concludes that the most intense Saharan dust events, ever recorded in the air quality monitoring networks of Spain and Portugal, occurred between 2020 and 2022. This research, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, confirms the historical record-breaking nature of the dust storms occurred on February 2020 in the Canary Islands and March 2022 in the mainland Spain and continental Portugal, associated with so high dust concentrations that turned the skies orange.

In the fight against antibiotic resistance, a new technology developed at Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, can be of great importance when, for example, hip and knee implants are surgically inserted. By heating up small nanorods of gold with near-infrared light (NIR), the bacteria are killed, and the surface of the implant becomes sterile. The researchers are now presenting a new study that increases the understanding of how the gold rods are affected by light and how the temperature in them can be measured.

Using state-of-the-art microscopy and simulation techniques, an international research team systematically observed how iron atoms alter the structure of grain boundaries in titanium. They were in for a surprise: “Iron atoms not only segregate to the interface, but they form entirely unexpected cage-like structures,” explains Prof. Dr. Christian Liebscher from the Research Center Future Energy Materials and Systems of the University Alliance Ruhr. The researchers did not expect such a behavior. Their findings have been published in the journal Science on October 25, 2024.