For decades, scientists have relied on airplanes to count birds — a method that’s loud, costly and sometimes dangerous. Accuracy depends on the human eye, and even trained observers can sometimes miss details when birds scatter or blend into their surroundings. Now, scientists at Mizzou’s College of Engineering, led by Professor Yi Shang, are taking that process to new heights. By pairing drones with artificial intelligence, the team developed a smarter, safer and faster way to track the migration patterns of these birds — including mallards and pintails, two species of wild duck common to Missouri. Their efforts could transform how this conservation work is carried out across the state and beyond.

This protocol provides a detailed guide for single-molecule tracking (sptPALM) in living microbial cells, specifically focusing on E. coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It outlines the steps for sample preparation, data acquisition, and data processing, enabling researchers to visualize and quantify the dynamics of individual molecules within living cells.

The research team led by Liang'an Chen from Nanjing Normal University and Liangliang Song from Nanjing Forestry University has made a new breakthrough in the field of conjugated diene chemistry. Based on the neutral reaction mechanism of oxidative addition-reductive elimination and utilizing a ligand angle control strategy, they achieved palladium-catalyzed regio-, chemo-, and stereoselective coupling of propargyl alcohol esters with a variety of nucleophiles (including fluorides, phenols, alcohols, carboxylic acids, and amides), constructing a series of high-value-added multi-substituted conjugated dienes. The practicality of this method has been demonstrated through the application and transformation of these functionalized 1,3-dienes in cycloaddition and coupling reactions, as well as the subsequent modification of natural products and bioactive molecules. The article was published as an open access research article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.