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Most people relate cholesterol to heart health, but it is also a critical component in the growth and spread of brain cancer. VCU Massey Cancer Center researcher Suyun Huang, Ph.D., recently discovered how cholesterol becomes dysregulated in brain cancer cells and showed that the gene responsible for it could be a target for future drugs.

The mean survival of patients with the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is 14 months. The need to find new, effective treatments is urgent and has driven Huang, a member of the Cancer Biology research program at Massey, to detail the workings of numerous genes, proteins, enzymes and other cellular components that contribute to brain cancer growth. Her studies are revealing a biological "roadmap" showing previously unknown functions of genes.

Huang's most recent study, published in the journal Nature Communications, pinpoints a gene called YTHDF2 as a crucial link in a chain leading to the development and growth of GBM. It works through a process set in motion by another gene with a well-established reputation for driving cancer progression, EGFR.

"These findings are exciting because we can potentially target YTHDF2 expression by using YTHDF2 small molecule inhibitors to control glioblastoma tumor growth and spread," says Huang, who is also a professor in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at VCU School of Medicine. "Our experiments also showed that we can stop the formation and growth of brain cancer cells by blocking YTHDF2 expression, so it could also be a powerful target for drug development."

EGFR is frequently overactivated in many aggressive cancers, including GBM. Huang's team found that EGFR drives the overexpression of TYHDF2, which then sustains increased cholesterol levels for the invasive growth and development of GBM cells through a process that degrades the LXRα and HIVEP2 genes. LXRα is known to regulate cholesterol levels within cells and HIVEP2 is involved in the development of brain tissue.

Huang's study is the first to describe this cell signaling cascade, and it helps fill in important parts of the "roadmap" leading to GBM. It is also the first study to show that N6-methyladenosine (m6A), a DNA modification found in nearly all cell-based life forms, plays a role in brain tumor growth and cholesterol metabolism. Huang's team found that the increase in YTHDF2 expression caused m6A modifications in the mRNA of LXRα and HIVEP2, which inhibited their functions.

Next, Huang and her collaborators plan to evaluate different YTHDF2 inhibitors and establish their effects in lab and animal models.

"EGFR inhibition and cholesterol regulation are both promising strategies for GBM treatment," says Huang. "Our study offers an exciting new approach that could potentially work hand-in-hand with these strategies to regulate and treat GBM."

Some 40% of critically ill patients who undergo tracheal intubation to support their breathing suffer a life-threatening complication, research from National University of Ireland Galway has revealed.

The study, published today in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, involved 2,964 critically ill men and women. It was carried out across 29 countries from 1 October 2018 to 31 July 2019 to determine the risk of adverse events arising from the invasive procedure.

John Laffey, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at NUI Galway and Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at University Hospital Galway, was co-author of the study.

"Placing a critically-ill patient on a ventilator is one of the most common forms of life support we can offer someone in intensive care," Professor Laffey said.

"But in order to provide this treatment clinicians have to perform tracheal intubation - an invasive procedure where a tube is inserted via the mouth into the windpipe.

"A better knowledge and understanding of the complications associated with this procedure is of particular importance as we respond to the impact of Covid-19. The pandemic is forcing us medics to do far more of these procedures than usual and understanding the associated complications is the first step to finding ways to avoid them in future, and hopefully reduce the risk to our patients."

Findings from the INTUBE research study have been presented by Professor Laffey at the Society of Critical Care Conference.

Key findings included:

45.2% of patients experienced at least one life-threatening complication followed intubation.

Some 42.6% of patients suffered severe cardiovascular instability.

272 patients, 9.3% of those in the study, suffered severe hypoxemia or very low oxygen levels.

93 patients, 3.1% of those in the study, suffered cardiac arrest.

Patients who were at highest risk of life-threatening complications had hemodynamic instability prior to intubation.

Successful tracheal intubation on the first attempt at the procedure was associated with a lower risk of complications compared to repeated intubation attempts.

Professor Laffey added: "As clinicians we have relatively limited information on complications associated with tracheal intubation, how they affect our patients and how we can minimise the risk.

"Our research shows a surprisingly high incidence of life-threatening complications associated with the procedure - with almost half of patients affected in this way. More importantly it shows that some of these complications might be potentially preventable with different approaches and that we can improve outcomes for patients undergoing these high-risk procedures.

"A particular concern is that our research showed that patients who suffered an adverse event related to intubation were more likely to die either in the intensive care unit or within 28 days of the adverse event."

Professor Tim O'Brien, Dean of the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at NUI Galway, and Consultant Physician with Saolta University Healthcare Group, said: "Clinical research in intensive care units is challenging but it is critically important to guide clinical practice and is essential to improve survival rates. Studies like this have a major impact on clinical practice and of course the relevance of this study is accentuated as a result of Covid."

Kevin Clarkson, Clinical Director of Critical and Perioperative Care at the Saolta Hospital Group/University Hospital Galway, said: "This international observational study, in which NUI Galway and Saolta Hospital Group investigators played a lead role, emphasises the ongoing need to invest in postgraduate training, equipping and simulation in this hazardous environment.

"The study sheds light in areas of practice that need improvement and will likely lead to better patient outcomes. Specifically, instruments to facilitate tracheal intubation and use of equipment to detect carbon dioxide in a correctly placed breathing tube are clear opportunities to reduce risk. Training opportunities at local University Hospital level, regional groups and national training body programmes are vital along with participation in research such as this to highlight the needs of critically ill patients from the outset of their acute illness."

Root-knot nematodes (RKNs, Meloidogyne spp.) infect a broad range of plants, including several agriculturally important species such as cotton, soybean and corn, as well as various vegetables and ornamentals. These parasites cause roots to develop galls that result in severe plant damage and, ultimately, important crop losses. Growers currently use synthetic nematicides to manage RKNs; however, these compounds are detrimental to the microbial diversity of soil and harmful for the environment. Thus, it is necessary to develop alternative sustainable control methods.

"We have been seeking natural compounds that activate plant defense systems and do not have direct nematicidal activity using the combination of RKNs and their host plants," explained Shigemi Seo, researcher at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences of Japan. "We were most excited to discover that phytol, a chlorophyll constituent, has an inhibitory effect on the root invasion by a certain harmful plant nematode without killing it. We did not expect this molecule to be involved in RKN resistance."

"We noticed that plant leaves discolored yellow or pale green when their roots were parasitized by RKNs and confirmed a decrease in chlorophyll content in such leaves. We hypothesized that chloroplast-related compounds would accumulate in RKN-parasitized roots and induce the host defense against RKNs. We analyzed root metabolites and found accumulation of phytol, a constituent of chlorophyll. When phytol was applied to plant roots, RKN invasion of the roots was inhibited. This inhibition was not due to the direct nematicidal activity of phytol, since this compound did not kill RKNs," added Seo.

Even though phytol has been known for several years as a constituent of chlorophyll and is a ubiquitous compound present in almost all photosynthetic organisms, its role as a plant defense-signaling molecule remained unexplored. "Phytol may be a promising material for eco-friendly agrochemicals for the control of RKNs. We are currently investigating its effects on not only other plant parasitic nematodes but also other pathogenic microorganisms."
For more information about this study, read "Phytol, a Constituent of Chlorophyll, Induces Root-Knot Nematode Resistance in Arabidopsis via the Ethylene Signaling Pathway" in the MPMI journal.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Scientists peering into the beating heart have solved a decades-old, fundamental mystery about how the heart works. The revelation could herald the development of new treatments for heart diseases -- the leading cause of death worldwide.

Researchers from Eastern Virginia Medical School, Florida State University and the University of Virginia have observed a tiny muscle filament during a crucial stage in a beating heart for the first time. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The heart is a unique muscle which contracts and relaxes about once every second in most people. Each heartbeat relies on cyclical interactions between thick and thin filaments in the heart muscle -- a process orchestrated by rising and falling levels of calcium, said Vitold Galkin, associate professor of physiological sciences at Eastern Virginia Medical School and an author of the study.

During the "systolic" phase, calcium binds to thin filaments and allows interactions with thick filaments to produce the force required for heart muscle to contract.

"For decades the structure of the thin filament at this important point was unknown," Galkin said. "This dramatically limited our understanding of the thin filament regulation by calcium."

Researchers worked for two years to tackle the technical challenges presented by the complex structure of the thin filament and the difficulty in preparing the specimen for examination.

With those challenges overcome, the team used cryo-electron microscopy to directly observe the thin filament structure as the heart contracts and beats, findings that open up a new avenue for heart disease research.

"We can now fully understand how inherited diseases of the heart affect its capability to work," said Jose R. Pinto, associate professor of biomedical sciences at Florida State University. "Basically, we created a new structural model for the cardiac thin filament, and based on that, we can now address several existing questions about the functioning of the heart in health and disease."

The research team's data reveal how parts of the thin filament cooperate to transition from the diastole phase of the heartbeat -- when the heart muscle is relaxed -- to systole, when the heart muscle contracts and pumps blood.

"The advance in our fundamental knowledge of cardiac muscle regulation paves the way to the rational design of tailored therapeutic interventions that could potentially improve cardiac muscle function in diseased hearts," Galkin said.

The research was groundbreaking for several reasons, said co-investigator P. Bryant Chase, a professor of biological science at Florida State University. That includes the identification of individual structures along thin filaments at three concentrations of calcium -- including a previously unknown structure at systolic calcium -- and the use of thin filaments from a pig heart, which is very similar in size and heart rate to a human heart.

"Our results provide a new, fundamental basis for understanding and modeling the thin filament in health and disease because a number of genetic heart diseases affect proteins of the thin filament," he said.

Metal-insulator transition (MIT) driven by many-body interactions is an important phenomenon in condensed matter physics. Exotic phases always emerge around the metal-insulator transition points where quantum fluctuations arise from a competition among spin, charge, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. Two-dimensional (2D) materials are a large class of materials. Their simple structure, low dimensionality, and highly tunable carrier density make them an ideal platform for exploring exotic phases. However, the many-body interactions are normally weak in most 2D materials, hence, the correlation-related phenomena attract little attention in the studies of 2D materials for a long period. Recently, people found that the many-body interactions can be enhanced in 2D hetrostructures or artificially-creased 2D structures. Correlation-related phenomena were found in many interesting systems, such as LaAlO3/SrTiO3, twisted bilayer graphene, etc.

Zhang Yan's group in International Center for Quantum Materials (ICQM) at Peking University reports the discovery of an exotic metal-insulator transition in a surface-doped transition metal dichalcogenide 2H-MoTe2 utilizing the high-resolution angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) and in-situ surface alkali-metal deposition. They found that the metal-insulator transition could be explained by a location of polarons due to the strong electron-phonon coupling that is enhanced at the sample surface. This work entitled "Metal-Insulator Transition and Emergent Gapped Phase in the Surface-Doped 2D Semiconductor 2H-MoTe2" was published in Physical Review Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 106602 (2021)] on March 12, 2021. Zhang Yan is the corresponding author and Han Tingting, a doctoral student in ICQM is the first author.

The experiments were conducted in a self-constructed ARPES system in Peking University and Beamline BL03U in Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). By using the surface deposition technique, Zhang Yan's group created a 2D metal-semiconductor interface between the surface and bulk layers in 2H-MoTe2 [Fig. 1(a)]. Generally, when carriers are filled into the conduction bands of a semiconductor, the chemical potential raises and the conducting bands shift rigidly towards higher binding energy. However, at the surface of 2H-MoTe2, the researchers found that the conduction bands undergo multiple transitions with the carrier doping across the metallic state, gapped phase, insulator state, and bad-metallic state [Fig. 1(b)]. Such evolution of electronic structure cannot be explained by the change of chemical potential or surface degradation, suggesting the existence of an exotic metal-insulator transition at the surface of 2H-MoTe2.

Further study found that the surface of 2H-MoTe2 exhibits a complicated phase diagram [Fig. 2(a)], which resembles the phase diagrams of a quantum phase transition driven by many-body interactions. Meanwhile, the detailed spectrum analysis resolves the existence of replica bands [Fig. 2(b)] which is normally viewed as a fingerprint of strong electron-phonon coupling. Combined with the observed energy renormalization of spectra and the evolution of band dispersion, the researchers conclude that the electron-phonon coupling is strongly enhanced on the surface of 2H-MoTe2. Electrons are dressed by lattice excitations, forming polarons. The polarons then localize due to impurity or disorder scattering, which drives the observed metal-insulator transition.

This work demonstrates how a complicated metal-insulator transition could occur on the surface of a simple two-dimensional semiconductor. On the one hand, the results highlight the surface-doped 2H-MoTe2 as a strong candidate material for realizing polaronic insulator, polaronic extended state, and high-Tc superconductivity. On the other hand, the experiments show that the surface alkali-metal deposition can enhance the many-body interactions in two-dimensional semiconductors, which opens a new way for exploring the correlation-related phenomena in two-dimensional materials. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key Research and Development Program of China.

Stuttgart - A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Germany, from Seoul National University in Korea and from the Harvard University in the US, successfully developed a predictive model and closed-loop controller of a soft robotic fish, designed to actively adjust its undulation amplitude to changing flow conditions and other external disturbances. Their work "Modeling and Control of a Soft Robotic Fish with Integrated Soft Sensing" was published in Wiley's Advanced Intelligent Systems journal, in a special issue on "Energy Storage and Delivery in Robotic Systems".

Each side of the robotic fish is lined with soft artificial muscles made of rubber-like small silicone chambers. Through these pockets, the researchers pumped air alternately on each side. While the air pockets on one side expand, they create a curvature, contracting the air pockets on the other side. This causes the robotic fish to bend right and left, swinging its tail, resembling the wave-like movement pattern seen by real fish.

To measure the bending, the scientists embedded state of the art soft strain sensors, consisting of a thin layer of windy microchannels filled with liquid metal and encapsulated in silicone. What was now like a wire, could stretch like a phone cord to a length of 900%. The more the air pressurized each silicone chamber of the actuator, the more the sensor placed atop the bends, and its liquid metal 'wire' was elongated. The scientists then connected the sensor to an Ohmmeter to measure the electrical resistance. The greater the stretching elongation, the higher the electrical resistance within the 'wire'. This number provided the scientists with data of how the curvature of their robotic fish changed given a certain change of air pressure.

The scientists then put this robotic fish platform under water in a flow tank. In several experiments they tested how the air pressure controller took the reading from the sensor to measure the swimming performance of the robot - an information loop that was feeding a self-learning algorithm inside the controller to push just the right amount of air through the pneumatic pockets so the swimming perfectly matched the different water flow velocities.

"We developed a hydrodynamic model that can predict how our soft robotic fish will behave. This builds upon previous findings where we measured peak thrust during swimming with co-contraction and body stiffening, and tested soft sensors in feedforward undulatory motion. Closing the loop with proprioceptive soft sensory feedback allows the robot to respond to different flow conditions,", Ardian Jusufi explains. He is the corresponding author of the publication and specializes on soft active materials, biomimetics, and robotics. Jusufi is the head of the Max Planck Cyber Valley research group for "Locomotion in Biorobotic and Somatic Systems" at the MPI-IS. "Our project builds upon several previous collaborative papers on soft robots and biorobotic modeling of swimming robots. To advance modeling and closed-loop control, our team has combined soft robotics expertise from three continents."

"In this work, we have used a simple approach to build a data-driven model of a soft robotic fish, and extended it with the controller design. This model could also be easily extended without the need of completely rebuilding it, for example to study the scaling effects of robots or testing different types of sensing techniques.", describes Yu-Hsiang Lin of the Locomotion in Biorobotic and Somatic Systems" group at the MPI-IS, and first author.

In their publication, the scientists describe the sensors as a completely new design technique, labelling them "hyper-elastic liquid metal strain sensors." Developed by Prof. Yong-Lae Park and his team at Seoul National University, and Daniel Vogt from Harvard University, they are a true innovation. "In biology as well as in soft robotics, with an entirely soft robot, we have infinite degrees of freedom. That means any part of the body can deform. It is hard to estimate how the fish's shape changes, because we cannot put an indefinite number of sensors onto its body, as it would be possible with rigid robots with a limited number of joints," Park says.

"This robot will allow us to test and refine hypotheses regarding the neuromechanics of swimming animals as well as help us improve future underwater robots," Jusufi continues. "In addition to characterizing the soft strain sensor under submerged dynamic conditions for the first time, we also developed a simple and flexible data-driven modelling approach in order to design our swimming feedback controller. The model will be of interest to the scientific community and will help accelerate future work in design and operation of soft robots. In forthcoming research, we will also utilize soft strain sensors in terrestrial robots that climb and can overcome complex obstacles."

Understanding the underlying mechanisms how soft animals like fish swim helps in designing artificial soft structures and make it possible to use them to build robots. Such animal-inspired robots could one day be used to explore the depths of the sea and provide valuable data of marine life, avoiding noise and reducing the risk of entanglement that rigid, conventionally propelled submarines face. Swimming robots could also become a more energy-efficient option, which is why more and more scientists have shown a great deal of effort in developing soft actuators and sensors that constantly improve the capabilities of swimming robots by replicating the locomotion of aquatic vertebrates.

What could one-day serve as a more advanced under water vehicle also serves another purpose: the fish replica with sensory feedback offers important insights into fish neuromechanics and their morphological intelligence, advancing the field of biology.

THz waves have a plethora of applications ranging from biomedical and medical examinations, imaging, environment monitoring, to wireless communications, because of the abundant spectral information, low photon energy, strong penetrability, and shorter wavelength. THz waves with technological advances not only determined by the high-efficiency sources and detectors but also decided by a variety of the high-quality THz components/functional devices. However, traditional THz devices should be thick enough to realize the desired wave-manipulating functions, hindering the development of THz integrated systems and applications. Although metamaterials have been shown groundbreaking discoveries due to the tunable electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of a meta-atom, they are limited to technical challenges of fabrication and high loss of the metal-based unit cell.

In a new paper published in Light: Advanced Manufacturing, a team of scientists, led by Professor Songlin Zhuang from Terahertz Technology Innovation Research Institute, University of shanghai for Science and Technology, and co-workers have summarized the recent advancements of metasurfaces for the manipulation of THz waves. These ultra-compact devices with unusual functionalities render metasurface devices very attractive for applications such as imaging, encryption, information modulation and THz communications.

Actually, metasurfaces typically consist of planar antennas that enable predesigned EM responses. The antennas are made by metals or traditional high-refractive index dielectrics that can be easily fabricated based on the standard fabrication process. In addition, metasurfaces with the functionality in manipulating EM waves are dependent on the abrupt phase changes at planar antenna interfaces, and thus the thickness of metasurfaces is much thinner than the incident wavelength. Metasurfaces can locally control the wavefront of EM waves at subwavelength resolution, leading to various practical applications such as metalens, waveplates, vortex beam generators, beam steering and holograms. The ultrathin nature of metasurfaces, the ease of fabrication, and the subwavelength resolution in manipulating of EM waves make metasurfaces ideal candidates for THz device miniaturization (ultra-compact THz devices) and system integration.

The metasurface-based approach for manipulatig THz waves enables remarkable contributions in designing ultra-thin/ultra-compact and tunable THz components. The main advantages/contributions of THz metasurfaces can be concluded as follows: (1) THz components with reduced size: The functionalities of focusing, OAM, and polarization conversion realized by metasurfaces can be traditionally obtained by using a THz lens, helical phase plate, and half-wave (or quarter-wave) plate, respectively; (2) THz components with multiple functions: The traditional THz devices, e.g. THz lenses, waveplates, etc..., are always show a single function. Metasurfaces not only provide a flexible platform to realize ultra-thin/ultra-compact THz devices with single function, but also enable the unprecedented capability in designing multifunctional THz devices. (3) THz components with tunable function: Metasurfaces combined with VO2, graphene, etc, open a new avenue for designing THz components with active functions.

In conclusion, metasurfaces with planar structures can locally modify the wavefront of THz waves at subwavelength resolution. Metasurfaces not only provide an ultra-compact platform for manipulating the wavefront of THz waves, but also generate a plethora of applications that are difficult to achieve with conventional functional devices. As an overview, the recent developments of metasurfaces for manipulating THz waves were presented in this paper, and this progress report may open a new avenue to design ultra-thin or ultra-compact THz functional devices and systems.

Distributed optical fiber sensing (DOFS) is currently a mature technology that allows "transforming" a conventional fiber optic into a continuous array of individual sensors, which are distributed along its length. Between the panoply of techniques developed in the field of DOFS, those based on phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (ΦOTDR) have gained a great deal of attention, mainly due to their ability to measure strain and temperature perturbations in real time. These unique features, along with other advantages of distributed sensors (reduced weight, electromagnetic immunity and small size) make ΦOTDR sensors an excellent solution for monitoring large infrastructures (like bridges and pipelines), especially when considering that their cost scales inversely to the number of sensing points, and its resolution can achieve a few meters.

In a new paper published in Light Science & Applications, a team of scientists from the University of Alcalá, University Jaume I and the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) presents a novel fiber optic interrogator to conduct ΦOTDR. It is based on a well-known interferometric technique that employs two mutually coherent optical frequency combs. This new interrogator allows strain and/or temperature sensing with resolutions on the cm scale over up to 1 km range (i.e., it provides >104 sensing points distributed along the optical fiber). In view of the reported results, this approach opens up the door for cost-effective DOFS in short range and high-resolution applications, such as structure health monitoring of aerospace components and wellbore production surveillance, which to date have a prohibitive cost.

The technique presented in the paper, called time-extended ΦOTDR (TE-?OTDR), relies on the use of a smartly engineered ultra-dense optical frequency comb to probe a sensing fiber. A weak return signal is then originated by the elastic scattering experienced by the light. This signal is detected by making it interfere with a second comb, which has a bandwidth and spectral phase coding similar to that of the probe, but a different tooth spacing. The result is a multi-heterodyne interference that produces a "time extension" of the detected signals (see Figure). In the frequency domain, this process can be understood as a frequency "down-conversion" (an optical-to-electrical mapping). In the dual-comb scheme developed for DOFS, both combs are generated from the same continuous wave laser, thanks to a couple of electro-optical modulators driven by a single arbitrary waveform generator. Some remarkable features of this scheme are: (i) the flexibility in the design of the combs, which allows the user to achieve the targeted performance for the sensor; (ii) the reduced detection bandwidth (in the sub-megahertz regime for centimeter resolution over 200 meters), which is a consequence of the time-extension experienced by the detected signals; and (iii) the capability of maximizing the power injected into the sensing fiber. This last feature is fundamental to carry out real distributed sensing, given the extreme weakness of the elastic scattering phenomenon. By introducing a controlled random phase profile in the generated combs, the peak power of the optical signals can be minimized, while preserving a high average power to improve the sensor's signal to noise ratio. In addition, the encoded phase is automatically demodulated upon detection, requiring no further post-processing.

"The sensing scheme based on a conventional dual-comb scheme allows us to reach cm-scale resolutions over sensing ranges of a few hundreds of meters, while keeping a measurement rate of tens of hertz. In the paper, we also introduce a strategy to significantly extend the sensing range without reducing the acoustic sampling rate. The basic idea is to employ two frequency combs with very dissimilar tooth spacing, so the generated time signals have quasi-integer-ratio periods. This scheme, previously applied to the field of spectroscopy, makes it possible to measure fibers up to 1 km length with a spatial resolution of 4 cm. This means 25,000 individual sensing points along the fiber. This performance improvement is at the cost of increasing to some extent the detection bandwidth (up to a few megahertz), as well as the complexity of the processing algorithm, although still retaining the fundamental advantages of the method."

"The presented techniques expose a completely new operation arena for dynamic ΦOTDR-based sensors, which was limited to fields requiring sensing along tens of kilometers and meter-scale resolutions to arise as a worthwhile solution. The results demonstrated in the paper are a promising step to design distributed sensor providing fast acquisition speed, small detection bandwidth and sharp spatial resolution", they added.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are changing the lighting and display industry and have obtained significant advances than traditional lighting sources. The traditional materials LEDs, e.g., III-V semiconductor LEDs, organic LEDs (OLEDs) and quantum-dot LEDs (QLEDs), have achieved great success and gradually realized commercialization, but still face some challenges. The OLEDs have the low carrier transport capability and exciton recombination, which would hinder the improvement of brightness. Besides, QLEDs show challenges for the tedious manufacturing process and the reliance on hydrophobic insulating long ligands also hinders their stability and electrical conductivity.

Compared with these traditional materials, quasi-2D perovskites represent an important category of perovskites, which possess the self-assembled multi-quantum-well structures, have gained great success in light emission applications thanks to their outstanding optoelectrical properties. However, the performance and stability of quasi-2D PeLEDs still can't meet the requirement for commercialization at the moment. More efforts need to be devoted further to explore the optical and electrical properties of these materials. Besides, the investigation of the correlation between device performance and underlying photophysics of the materials appears to be particularly important.

In a new review article published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Mingjian Yuan from Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center (RECAST), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, China, and co-workers have presented an overview of the inherent properties of quasi-2D perovskite materials, the corresponding energy transfer and spectral tunability methodologies in thin films, as well as their application in high performing LEDs. They then summarized the challenges and potential research direction towards developing high-performance and stable quasi-2D PeLEDs.

Quasi-2D perovskites possess the natural quantum-well structures, which can induce both dielectric- and quantum- confinements. These strong confinements thus afford large exciton binding energy (Eb). The robustness of the excitonic states at room temperature is the most prominent optical feature for quasi-2D perovskites, which originates from their large Eb. Fortunately, Eb can be regulated through composition and structure engineering. The large Eb and thus prominent excitonic luminescence are unique features of quasi-2D perovskites application for LEDs.

In addition, quasi-2D perovskite films feature with a mixed-phase rather than a single-phase because the formation energies for different quasi-2D phases are quite similar. During the photo-excitation, the photo-carriers transfer from higher bandgap species to lower bandgap species rapidly and efficiently, leading to the accumulated carriers in the recombination center. The resulting high carrier density thus partially photo-passivates the shallower trap states, herein significantly avoids trap-mediated nonradiative recombination to take place. Therefore, the energy transfer facilitates the radiative recombination, resulting in high PLQYs for quasi-2D perovskite films even at low pumping density.

Quasi-2D perovskite can achieve the emission from violet to NIR spectral region by adjusting the chemical composition and dimensionality engineering. However, the realization of high-performance pure red and blue quasi-2D PeLEDs, which can conform to the most advanced Recommendation BT 2020 (Rec. 2020) standard demands the monochromatic RGB primaries, still encounters many obstacles. They summarized three promising strategies, including: (1) Anion engineering; (2) Cation engineering; (3) Dimensionality engineering, to achieve highly performed pure red and blue quasi-2D PeLEDs.

Highly emissive perovskite layers are not sufficient to obtain high-performance quasi-2D PeLEDs, due to the photoluminescence-electroluminescence gap. They summarized three aspects to improve the electric properties in quasi-2D PeLEDs, including function layers modulation, interfacial engineering, and light out-coupling technologies. In addition, operational stability is another critical parameter of quasi-2D PeLEDs and we then overview several possible reasons for the degradation.

Finally, they discussed the perspectives for future development of novel quasi-2D perovskite materials/structures, white-light-emitting quasi-2D devices and the potential applications of quasi-2D perovskite emitters in large-area, printable, and flexible electronics as well as quasi-2D perovskite lasers, aiming to shed light on these promising future perspectives.

Wikipedia page views could be used to monitor global awareness of biodiversity, proposes a research team from UCL, ZSL, and the RSPB.

Using their new metric, the research team found that awareness of biodiversity is marginally increasing, but the rate of change varies greatly between different groups of animals, as they report in a paper included in an upcoming special section of Conversation Biology.

Lead author, PhD student Joe Millard (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences and Institute of Zoology, ZSL) said: "As extinctions and biodiversity losses ramp up worldwide, largely due to climate change and other human actions, it's vital that the global community works together to protect biodiversity. But to do that effectively, we need buy-in from the public.

"To track our progress, we need to understand the extent to which people recognise the value of biodiversity, which can help to determine what might drive changes in awareness and behaviour."

In 2010, countries across the globe agreed on the Aichi Targets set out by the UN-led Convention of Biological Diversity, one of which was public awareness of the value of biodiversity. But not all of the targets could easily be measured, which may have hampered progress on meeting the targets - none of which were fully met by 2020.

The research team sought to fill a gap in the measurement of public awareness of biodiversity's value, drawing inspiration from the Living Planet Index (LPI), an aggregation of change in many vertebrate populations, which is managed by colleagues at the Institute of Zoology, ZSL. Previously awareness was primarily measured by surveys, which did not have an adequately global, comprehensive scope, and can be subjective.

The team developed a new metric derived from the rate of change of page views for Wikipedia entries for individual animal species. They pulled together a dataset of more than 2 billion views of the pages for 41,197 animal species, from the 10 most widely-used languages on the site, and tracked how page view patterns changed from 2015 to 2020. The researchers adjusted for background popularity of Wikipedia, to see how traffic to each page changed relative to the overall Wikipedia traffic in each language.

Their new metric, called the Species Awareness Index, showed a marginal increase in biodiversity awareness over the five-year period. Awareness increased fastest for reptiles, while it declined for amphibians. The species that have seen the fastest increase in global interest are the long-tailed tit, the critically endangered Asian forest tortoise, and the Indian flying lizard. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the world's rarest sea turtle, also saw a large increase in page views.

Overall, increases in views did not appear to be related to either the trade of species or their contribution to the pollination of plants, which the authors say suggests that their metric has detected an increasing awareness of biodiversity generally, but perhaps not yet a growing awareness of its value.

Millard said: "We hope that our metric could form the basis of a new global indicator of biodiversity awareness that would be useful to policy makers, perhaps supported by other measures, and it could also be used to track the impact of specific initiatives."

Senior author Dr Robin Freeman (Institute of Zoology, ZSL) said: "Understanding the importance of species to people is critical for estimating their cultural value - an aspect of biodiversity that is poorly measured. Our Species Awareness Index is the first attempt to track this over such a large number of species and different languages. We're really excited to see how this index changes with different conservation interventions and media campaigns."

Co-author Professor Richard Gregory (RSPB and UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research) commented: "COVID lockdown has brought our conflicted relationship with nature into stark relief. Never have we been so aware of nature around us nor of the dangers of an increasing disconnect with nature for our lives and our livelihoods. Understanding and measuring biodiversity awareness and connection is a critical priority."

When power stations burn coal, a class of compounds called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, form part of the resulting air pollution. Researchers have found that PAHs toxins degrade in sunlight into 'children' compounds and by-products.

Some 'children' compounds can be more toxic than the 'parent' PAHs. Rivers and dams affected by PAHs are likely contaminated by a much larger number of toxins than are emitted by major polluters, researchers show in Chemosphere.

A coal-fired power station and a cigarette have more in common than one might think. So do the exhaust pipes from cars and burning crop residues. The same is true for an aeroplane passing high over a wildfire ravaging trees and grass.

All of these produce a class of 'signature' toxic chemicals, called PAHs, when fossil fuels or organic matter is not completely burnt up. These PAH signatures are distinct enough that scientists can tell what the likely sources of pollution are. They can do that by analyzing water and sediment samples from rivers and dams affected by the pollution.

PAHs are Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.

Some of the 'parent' PAH compounds from pollution sources break up into smaller 'children' compounds, and form additional by-products when exposed to sunlight, researchers show in a study published in Chemosphere.

Some 'children' compounds are more toxic than the original 'parent' PAHs, other studies have found.

It means that there are probably more toxic, carcinogenic PAH compounds present in dams and rivers - at the same time - than previously thought, says Dr Mathapelo Seopela, the lead author of the study.

Seopela is a researcher in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Johannesburg.

"Burning processes create PAHs that vary in size from two to six fused benzene rings. The hotter the burning process, the bigger the compound that is formed, and the more harmful it is," she says.

"As an example, when coal is burned in a coal-fired power station for electricity, five and six-ring PAHs are likely to form. This is because the burning process is at a very high temperature, over a 1000 degrees Celsius."

These large PAH compounds travel with the rest of the smoke from the power station's cooling towers. Winds can then blow the compounds quite far away, to rivers, dams, agricultural land, or the next city.

"When gasoline is burnt in a car engine, two to three-ring PAHs usually form. Similar PAHs are formed by aeroplanes, when farmers burn crop residues or grass, or with burning wood," she says.

"The PAHs end up in the atmosphere, in the air we breathe. Often, they can travel very long distances from the sources that produced them, such as power stations or wildfires."

Many PAH compounds are very harmful. They are formed from two or more fused benzene molecules, or rings, during the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels or organic matter. Benzene is a highly flammable, toxic liquid. It is partly responsible for the characteristic smell at a gasoline station.

The simplest PAH is naphtalene, which has two benzene rings. Some people use naphtalene mothballs to protect their clothes from moths. It is toxic to people.

The next bigger PAH is anthracene, a component of coal tar, which has three benzene rings. Anthracene is a hazardous substance in the workplace. It is very toxic in water environments, and is considered a persistent and bioaccumulative pollutant.

A number of PAHs have been listed by organisations such as the EPA, WHO and European Commission as cancer-causing, or carcinogenic. This means people may get a form of cancer if they're exposed to those PAHs for a long time.

Some PAHs can cause permanent changes in the genes of animals, which can cause developmental delays or malformations in fish embryos. Such PAHs compounds are classified as mutagenic also.

When raindrops pull PAHs compounds down into rivers and dams, huge environmental challenges can be created. The rain delivers the toxins into drinking water, water used to irrigate food crops, and water for cattle. Fish accumulate the PAHs in their flesh.

"In our study, we looked at PAHs with two to six fused benzene rings. These represented pollution from wood fires and cars through to coal power stations.

"We knew that in general, PAHs compounds will start changing, or degrading, when the sun shines on them. But we wanted to find out what specific PAHs become when they degrade, and how fast it happens," says Seopela.

In previous research, she analysed water and sediments from a contaminated dam in South Africa for PAHs. Loskop Dam is fed by the Olifants River, in a major industrial, coal-mining and coal power station region in Mpumalanga.

Mass fish and crocodile deaths have been recorded in the river, and organic pollutants including PAHs were identified as contributing factors.

In other studies, researchers have found that PAHs break down in sunlight, but that the smaller 'children' compounds that are formed (photoproducts), can be more toxic than the bigger 'parent' compounds.

Seopela and the researchers from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science built a closed-circuit recirculation system for the study in their laboratory.

They tested five PAHs listed by the USA EPA as priority pollutants. These were naphtalene, anthracene, benzo(a)anthracene, benzo(a)pyrene and benzo(ghi)perylene.

For each PAH, they tested pure samples of it in pure water as a control. Then they tested each pure PAH in pure water with a specific amount of natural organic matter (NOM) added to simulate river and dam conditions. They tested each PAH on its own, and then mixed all of them together to see what happens.

"We found that, when sunlight falls on a parent PAH, it breaks down to smaller 'children' PAHs, which we call degradation products. But at the same time, completely different by-products are also formed," says Prof Michael Gonsior from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland.

"This is very concerning. The parent PAH compounds, the degraded children PAHs and the by-products, or photoproducts, are probably all present at the same time in rivers and dams affected by PAHs," he continues.

"We also found that generally the 5 to 6 ring PAHs break down much faster than two-ring PAHs in pure water, says Dr Leanne Powers, assistant research chemist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.

"But the degradation slows down when there is more natural organic matter in the water. We expect that PAHs in the water or sediment of a murky river will take a long time to break down. A lot longer than the three hours and a bit the PAHs took to degrade in the pure water in our lab.

"The procedure used in this study can be used to understand how other PAHs degrade, and what they will become in freshwater environments", says Powers.

Says Seopela: "This means that people, animals and plants that depend on that water are likely exposed to a far greater number of toxins at the same time, than was emitted from the sources, such as power stations".

Human actions are threatening the resilience and stability of Earth's biosphere - the wafer-thin veil around Earth where life thrives. This has profound implications for the development of civilizations, say an international group of researchers in a report published for the first Nobel Prize Summit, a digital gathering to be held in April to discuss the state of the planet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Humanity is now the dominant force of change on planet Earth," according to the analysis published in Ambio, a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

"The risks we are taking are astounding," says co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the analysis. "We are at the dawn of what must be a transformative decade. The Nobel Prize Summit is really the scientific community shouting "Wake Up!"

"In a single human lifetime, largely since the 1950s, we have grossly simplified the biosphere, a system that has evolved over 3.8 billion years. Now just a few plants and animals dominate the land and oceans," says lead author Carl Folke, director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and chair of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.

"Our actions are making the biosphere more fragile, less resilient and more prone to shocks than before. "

"Humanity must become effective planetary stewards. About 96% of all mammals by weight are us, H. Sapiens, and our livestock, or cattle, sheep and pigs. Just 4% are wild mammals like elephants, buffalo or dolphins," says Folke.

The report summarises recent research on the scale of human activity: "75% of Earth's ice-free land is directly altered as a result of human activity, with nearly 90% of terrestrial net primary production and 80% of global tree cover under direct human influence."

Rising greenhouse gas emissions means that "Within the coming 50 years one-to-three billion people are projected to experience living conditions that are outside of the climate conditions, which have served civilizations well over the past 6,000 years," depending on how population and climate scenarios play out, according to the report's summary.

Co-author Line Gordon, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre says, "This is a decisive decade for humanity. In this decade we must bend the curves of greenhouse gas emissions and shocking biodiversity loss. This means transforming what we eat and how we farm it, among many other transformations."

Instead of listing the well-known solutions such as wind power, solar or plant-based diets, the researchers tackle the barriers stopping progress. Two of the biggest barriers are unsustainable levels of inequality and technology that undermines societal goals. New narratives that reconnect development to the biosphere are in demand, say the authors.

The report concludes that inequality and environmental challenges are deeply linked. Reducing inequality will increase trust within societies. Trust is essential for governments to make long-term decisions, the report argues. Social media and access to reliable knowledge is also highlighted as a barrier to progress.

The risks of the next generation of technologies are brought into focus throughout the report.

Co-author Victor Galaz, the deputy director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, says: "As the pressure of human activities accelerates on Earth, so too does the hope that technologies such as artificial intelligence will be able to help us deal with dangerous climate and environmental change. That will only happen however, if we act forcefully in ways that redirects the direction of technological change towards planetary stewardship and responsible innovation."

The first Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future, a three-day digital event open to all, has been convened to provide a platform for scientists to discuss the state of the planet at a critical juncture for humanity. It will explore two urgent questions:

What can we learn from the global pandemic to reduce risk of future shocks?

And, what can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity?

"The global pandemic is an Anthropocene phenomena. It has been caused by our intertwined relationship with nature and our hyper-connectivity. But the pandemic crisis opens up the possibility to change the course of history. It is a moment to accelerate action to stabilize Earth for future generations," says Folke.

Nobel laureates will be joined by guests including Al Gore, the Dalai Lama, Anthony Fauci, Johan Rockström and youth activist Xiye Bastida.

The summit is based around three themes: the biosphere (climate and biodiversity loss), rising inequality and the technological revolution.

Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumor cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their collaborators have discovered that the immune system "sees" these bacteria and shown they can be harnessed to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor. The study may also help clarify the connection between immunotherapy and the gut microbiome, explaining the findings of previous research that the microbiome affects the success of immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy treatments of the past decade or so have dramatically improved recovery rates from certain cancers, particularly malignant melanoma; but in melanoma, they still work in only about 40% of the cases. Prof. Yardena Samuels of Weizmann's Molecular Cell Biology Department studies molecular "signposts" - protein fragments, or peptides, on the cell surface - that mark cancer cells as foreign and may therefore serve as potential added targets for immunotherapy. In the new study, she and colleagues extended their search for new cancer signposts to those bacteria known to colonize tumors.

Using methods developed by departmental colleague Dr. Ravid Straussman, who was one of the first to reveal the nature of the bacterial "guests" in cancer cells, Samuels and her team, led by Dr. Shelly Kalaora and Adi Nagler (joint co-first authors), analyzed tissue samples from 17 metastatic melanoma tumors derived from nine patients. They obtained bacterial genomic profiles of these tumors and then applied an approach known as HLA-peptidomics to identify tumor peptides that can be recognized by the immune system.

The research was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer A. Wargo of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas; Prof Scott N. Peterson of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, California; Prof Eytan Ruppin of the National Cancer Institute, USA; Prof Arie Admon of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and other scientists.

The HLA peptidomics analysis revealed nearly 300 peptides from 41 different bacteria on the surface of the melanoma cells. The crucial new finding was that the peptides were displayed on the cancer cell surfaces by HLA protein complexes - complexes that are present on the membranes of all cells in our body and play a role in regulating the immune response. One of the HLA's jobs is to sound an alarm about anything that's foreign by "presenting" foreign peptides to the immune system so that immune T cells can "see" them. "Using HLA peptidomics, we were able to reveal the HLA-presented peptides of the tumor in an unbiased manner," Kalaora says. "This method has already enabled us in the past to identify tumor antigens that have shown promising results in clinical trials."

It's unclear why cancer cells should perform a seemingly suicidal act of this sort: presenting bacterial peptides to the immune system, which can respond by destroying these cells. But whatever the reason, the fact that malignant cells do display these peptides in such a manner reveals an entirely new type of interaction between the immune system and the tumor.

This revelation supplies a potential explanation for how the gut microbiome affects immunotherapy. Some of the bacteria the team identified were known gut microbes. The presentation of the bacterial peptides on the surface of tumor cells is likely to play a role in the immune response, and future studies may establish which bacterial peptides enhance that immune response, enabling physicians to predict the success of immunotherapy and to tailor a personalized treatment accordingly.

Moreover, the fact that bacterial peptides on tumor cells are visible to the immune system can be exploited for enhancing immunotherapy. "Many of these peptides were shared by different metastases from the same patient or by tumors from different patients, which suggests that they have a therapeutic potential and a potent ability to produce immune activation," Nagler says.

In a series of continuing experiments, Samuels and colleagues incubated T cells from melanoma patients in a laboratory dish together with bacterial peptides derived from tumor cells of the same patient. The result: T cells were activated specifically toward the bacterial peptides.

"Our findings suggest that bacterial peptides presented on tumor cells can serve as potential targets for immunotherapy," Samuels said. "They may be exploited to help immune T cells recognize the tumor with greater precision, so that these cells can mount a better attack against the cancer. This approach can in the future be used in combination with existing immunotherapy drugs."

As World Water Day is observed around the globe, new research from UBC Okanagan suggests a systematic approach to forest and water supply research may yield an improved assessment and understanding of connections between the two.

Healthy forests play a vital role in providing a clean, stable water supply, says eco-hydrologist Dr. Adam Wei.

Acting as natural reservoirs, forests in watersheds release and purify water by slowing erosion and delaying its release into streams. But forests are changing--in part because of human activity--and that's having an impact on forests' interaction with hydrological processes.

Dr. Wei, Forest Renewal BC's chair of watershed research and management, is a professor of earth, environmental and geographic sciences in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, and study co-author.

He says activities like logging, deforestation, creating new forests on previously bare land, agriculture and urbanization are changing the landscape of forests worldwide.

"The notion that humans have left enormous, often negative, footprints on the natural world isn't new," he says. "It's why the term Anthropocene was created, to describe these phenomena. But now we need to acknowledge where we're at and figure out a way to fix what's broken."

While humans bear much of the blame, they aren't the only culprits.

Natural disturbances like insect infestations and wildfires are also contributing to the swift transformation of forests, leading Dr. Wei to examine current forest-water research and management practices. His goal is to identify the gaps and propose a new approach that reflects numerous variables and their interactions that may be at play at any given watershed.

He points to an example in the study to illustrate the need for a new perspective.

"We were looking at the impacts of deforestation on annual streamflow--and though we were able to draw the conclusion that deforestation increased it, the variations between studies were large, with increases between less than one per cent to nearly 600 per cent," he explains.

Dr. Wei saw similar variations when he researched the 'why.'

"We concluded this was due to when water in the soil and on plants evaporates due to a loss of forest cover," explains Wei. "But the amount lost ranged from less than two per cent to 100 per cent--that's a huge difference that can be attributed to scale, type and severity of forest disturbance, as well as climate and location of watershed properties. There are so many variables that need to be taken into account, and not doing so can result in contradictory research conclusions."

To limit disparities, Dr. Wei says future research and watershed management approaches need to be systematic, include key contributing factors and a broad spectrum of response variables related to hydrological services.

He also suggests new tools like machine learning and climatic eco-hydrological modelling should be utilized.

"Implementing a systematic approach to all forest-water research will reduce the likelihood of procuring misleading assessment, which in turn will give us a better chance to solve some of the problems we've created," says Dr. Wei.

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology have produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions. It contains carbon fibre that serves simultaneously as an electrode, conductor, and load-bearing material. Their latest research breakthrough paves the way for essentially 'massless' energy storage in vehicles and other technology.

The batteries in today's electric cars constitute a large part of the vehicles' weight, without fulfilling any load-bearing function. A structural battery, on the other hand, is one that works as both a power source and as part of the structure - for example, in a car body. This is termed 'massless' energy storage, because in essence the battery's weight vanishes when it becomes part of the load-bearing structure. Calculations show that this type of multifunctional battery could greatly reduce the weight of an electric vehicle.

The development of structural batteries at Chalmers University of Technology has proceeded through many years of research, including previous discoveries involving certain types of carbon fibre. In addition to being stiff and strong, they also have a good ability to store electrical energy chemically. This work was named by Physics World as one of 2018's ten biggest scientific breakthroughs.

The first attempt to make a structural battery was made as early as 2007, but it has so far proven difficult to manufacture batteries with both good electrical and mechanical properties. But now the development has taken a real step forward, with researchers from Chalmers, in collaboration with KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, presenting a structural battery with properties that far exceed anything yet seen, in terms of electrical energy storage, stiffness and strength. Its multifunctional performance is ten times higher than previous structural battery prototypes.

The battery has an energy density of 24 Wh/kg, meaning approximately 20 percent capacity compared to comparable lithium-ion batteries currently available. But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example, and lower energy density also results in increased safety. And with a stiffness of 25 GPa, the structural battery can really compete with many other commonly used construction materials.

"Previous attempts to make structural batteries have resulted in cells with either good mechanical properties, or good electrical properties. But here, using carbon fibre, we have succeeded in designing a structural battery with both competitive energy storage capacity and rigidity," explains Leif Asp, Professor at Chalmers and leader of the project.

Super light electric bikes and consumer electronics could soon be a reality

The new battery has a negative electrode made of carbon fibre, and a positive electrode made of a lithium iron phosphate-coated aluminium foil. They are separated by a fibreglass fabric, in an electrolyte matrix. Despite their success in creating a structural battery ten times better than all previous ones, the researchers did not choose the materials to try and break records - rather, they wanted to investigate and understand the effects of material architecture and separator thickness.

Now, a new project, financed by the Swedish National Space Agency, is underway, where the performance of the structural battery will be increased yet further. The aluminium foil will be replaced with carbon fibre as a load-bearing material in the positive electrode, providing both increased stiffness and energy density. The fibreglass separator will be replaced with an ultra-thin variant, which will give a much greater effect - as well as faster charging cycles. The new project is expected to be completed within two years.

Leif Asp, who is leading this project too, estimates that such a battery could reach an energy density of 75 Wh/kg and a stiffness of 75 GPa. This would make the battery about as strong as aluminium, but with a comparatively much lower weight.

"The next generation structural battery has fantastic potential. If you look at consumer technology, it could be quite possible within a few years to manufacture smartphones, laptops or electric bicycles that weigh half as much as today and are much more compact", says Leif Asp.

And in the longer term, it is absolutely conceivable that electric cars, electric planes and satellites will be designed with and powered by structural batteries.

"We are really only limited by our imaginations here. We have received a lot of attention from many different types of companies in connection with the publication of our scientific articles in the field. There is understandably a great amount of interest in these lightweight, multifunctional materials," says Leif Asp.