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Plants you can wear: Hydrogel material weaves seeds into textiles

Humans’ relationships with plants is largely utilitarian, serving our needs. We generally either eat them or make things out of them.

Researchers in the College of Human Ecology (CHE) have developed a design and fabrication approach that treats these living things as companions to humans, with seeds woven into hydrogel material for hairbands, wristbands, hats and sandals, among other applications. The seeds grow into sprouts if taken care of properly.

“For most of human history, we have lived alongside plants, and they’ve been leveraged by humans to be used as food or spun into yarns for fabric,” said Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, associate professor of human centered design (CHE).

Ancient Andes society used hallucinogens to strengthen social order, snuff tubes suggest

Two thousand years before the Inca empire dominated the Andes, a lesser-known society known as the Chavín Phenomenon shared common art, architecture, and materials throughout modern-day Peru. Through agricultural innovations, craft production, and trade, Chavín shaped a growing social order and laid the foundations for a hierarchical society among the high peaks.

But one of their most powerful tools wasn’t farming. It was access to altered states of consciousness.

That’s according to a new study that uncovered the earliest-known direct evidence of the use of psychoactive plants in the Peruvian Andes. A team of archaeologists from the University of Florida, Stanford University and South American institutions discovered ancient snuff tubes carved from hollow bones at the heart of monumental stone structures at Chavín de Huántar, a prehistoric ceremonial site in the mountains of Peru.

Supervised and unsupervised learning reveal heroin-induced impairments in astrocyte structural plasticity

The strong links between changes in astrocyte structure and function in the context of neurodevelopment and disease have been supported by studies examining astrocyte cytoskeletal markers such as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in disease models and postmortem human brain tissue, where increases or decreases in its expression in various brain nuclei are often linked with neurocognitive and psychiatric disorders. Hence, changes in GFAP expression are often the first-line test for astrocyte involvement in disease and support a role for astrocyte dysfunction in major depression, schizophrenia, alcohol and substance use disorders, anorexia nervosa, and bipolar disorder (719), where changes in astrocyte structure, density, complexity, and/or blood vessel association are linked with disrupted astrocyte function. Although reactive astrogliosis remains the single most studied astrocytic response involving morphological adaptations and changes in GFAP expression (20, 21), in recent years, astrocyte morphological plasticity has been shown to be more nuanced. GFAP expression is dynamic across the circadian cycle (2224) and increases with physical exercise and environmental enrichment (25, 26). Moreover, in aging, astrocytes increase or decrease their GFAP expression in different brain regions (27, 28), suggesting heterogeneity in astrocyte form and function.

We previously found a notable relationship between astrocyte structure and vulnerability to substance use disorders, with astrocytes in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) altering their association with different neural subcircuits to drive or suppress drug-seeking behavior depending on heroin availability (2931). The NAc is critical for regulating behavioral outputs in response to rewards, including substances of abuse and natural reinforcers, such as food or sucrose. The NAc is composed of core and shell subregions that are themselves heterogeneous structures with regard to synaptic input and output connectivity and function (3236). Heterogeneity has been observed in astrocyte morphology within the NAc core (3, 30, 37), but studies have not yet examined how astrocyte structure and function differ across NAc subregions at baseline or in response to operant conditioning with natural or pathological reinforcers.

To address this gap, we developed an automated pipeline for single-cell morphological analysis of astrocytes that integrates state-of-the-art deep learning models for astrocyte detection and segmentation, together with highly sensitive geometrical tools for precise quantitation of single-cell morphological characteristics. We introduce the rigorous notion of morphological distance (MD) to measure alterations in astrocyte morphology and compare astrocyte subpopulations according to their structural characteristics. By applying this pipeline in combination with supervised machine learning, we found that single-astrocyte morphological characteristics were predictive not only of anatomical location within the NAc at baseline but also of the availability of heroin or sucrose at the moment of image capture. This geometrically sensitive approach yields substantially more detailed information about astrocyte structure than previously applied manual or semiautomated approaches and serves as a rigorous quantitative assay for identifying brain nuclei where astrocytes undergo plasticity in the context of disease. We found that astrocyte structural plasticity across the NAc was disrupted in animals that had been exposed to heroin but not sucrose, consistent with a largely protective role for NAc astrocytes in maintaining synaptic homeostasis and behavioral flexibility. We also found that astrocyte structural plasticity in the dorsomedial portion of the NAc shell was uniquely engaged during the initiation of opioid but not sucrose seeking, suggesting the involvement of this structure in drug relapse.

Autonomous tractor navigates olive groves with optimized steering modes

A team from the University of Córdoba is developing an autonomous tractor with three different steering modes, allowing it to drive in straight lines, make turns efficiently, and shift modes in response to its trajectories.

One of the possible meanings of the name Sergius is “one who serves,” hence the name of the robotic tractor that can autonomously perform agricultural tasks in fields of woody crops. This one-of-a-kind vehicle, designed by the University of Córdoba, is part of an Agriculture 4.0 context in which agricultural tasks are being automated.

The researchers, with the Rural Mechanization and Technology Group at the University of Córdoba, Sergio Bayano and Rubén Sola, designed the vehicle from the ground up, in collaboration with two companies charged with its mechanical manufacturing and programming. The paper is published in the journal Computers and Electronics in Agriculture.

Researchers use laser-induced graphene to develop next-gen AI-powered electronic nose

Researchers at Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have developed a porous laser-induced graphene (LIG) sensor array that functions as a “next-generation AI electronic nose” capable of distinguishing scents like the human olfactory system does and analyzing them using artificial intelligence.

This technology converts scent molecules into electrical signals and trains AI models on their unique patterns. It holds great promise for applications in personalized health care, the cosmetics industry, and environmental monitoring.

While conventional electronic noses (e-noses) have already been developed and used in areas such as food safety and gas detection in industrial settings, they struggle to distinguish subtle differences between similar smells or analyze complex scent compositions. For instance, distinguishing among floral perfumes with similar notes or detecting the faint odor of fruit approaching spoilage remains challenging for current systems. This gap has driven demand for next-generation e-nose technologies with greater precision, sensitivity, and adaptability.

AI-powered electronic nose detects diverse scents for health care and environmental applications

A research team has developed a “next-generation AI electronic nose” capable of distinguishing scents like the human olfactory system does and analyzing them using artificial intelligence. This technology converts scent molecules into electrical signals and trains AI models on their unique patterns. It holds great promise for applications in personalized health care, the cosmetics industry, and environmental monitoring.

The study is published in the journal ACS Nano. The team was led by Professor Hyuk-jun Kwon of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST, with integrated master’s and Ph.D. student Hyungtae Lim as first author.

While conventional electronic noses (e-noses) have already been deployed in areas such as and gas detection in industrial settings, they struggle to distinguish subtle differences between similar smells or analyze complex scent compositions. For instance, distinguishing among floral perfumes with similar notes or detecting the faint odor of fruit approaching spoilage remains challenging for current systems. This gap has driven demand for next-generation e-nose technologies with greater precision, sensitivity, and adaptability.

Electrosynthesis of urea from flue gas achieves high efficiency with no ammonia byproducts

Urea, with the formula CO(NH2)2, is a chemical compound that is widely used in a range of sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture and various industries. Conventionally, this compound is produced via a two-step process that entails the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen (N₂) and its subsequent reaction with carbon dioxide (CO₂).

This reaction occurs at and under , leading to the formation of a compound called ammonium carbamate. This compound is then decomposed at lower pressures, which ultimately produces and water.

Traditional processes for producing urea are very energy intensive, meaning that to produce desired amounts of urea they consume a lot of electrical power. Over the past few years, some engineers have thus been trying to devise more energy-efficient strategies to synthesize urea.

Fasting-Style Diet Seems to Result in Dynamic Changes in Human Brains

Scientists looking to tackle our ongoing obesity crisis have made an important discovery: Intermittent calorie restriction leads to significant changes both in the gut and the brain, which may open up new options for maintaining a healthy weight.

Researchers from China studied 25 volunteers classed as obese over a period of 62 days, during which they took part in an intermittent energy restriction (IER) program – a regime that involves careful control of calorie intake and relative fasting on some days.

Not only did the participants in the study lose weight – 7.6 kilograms (16.8 pounds) or 7.8 percent of their body weight on average – there was also evidence of shifts in the activity of obesity-related regions of the brain, and in the make-up of gut bacteria.

Flying squirrel-inspired drone with foldable wings demonstrates high maneuverability

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have already proved to be valuable tools for a wide range of applications, ranging from film and entertainment production to defense and security, agriculture, logistics, construction and environmental monitoring. While these technologies are already widely used in many countries worldwide, engineers have been trying to enhance their capabilities further so that they can be used to tackle even more complex problems.

Researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD)’s AI Autonomy Technology Center in South Korea recently developed a drone with foldable wings that could be more maneuverable than conventional . Their drone draws inspiration from the winged flying squirrel, a type of squirrel that uses loose flaps of skin attached from their wrists to their ankles to glide from tree to tree.

“The flying squirrel drone is inspired by the movements of flying squirrels, particularly their ability to rapidly decelerate by spreading their wings just before landing on trees,” Dohyeon Lee, Jun-Gill Kang and Soohee Han, co-authors of the paper, told Tech Xplore. “We initiated this research with the belief that, like flying squirrels, drones could expand their dynamic capabilities by utilizing .”

Prepare for pandemic NOW as new virus spreads to all 50 States

Leading health experts have warned that the US is staring down the barrel of another pandemic as bird flu spirals out of control on US farms.

So far, the H5N1 outbreak has affected nearly 1,000 dairy cow herds and resulted in more than 70 human cases, including the first confirmed death.

The US poultry industry is at significant risk, say experts from the Global Virus Network (GVN), particularly in areas with high-density farming and where personal protective practices may be lacking.