Synergistic Adhesion and Shape Deformation in Nanowire-Structured Liquid Crystal Elastomers.

Nature provides many examples of the benefits of nanoscopic surface structures in areas of adhesion and antifouling. Herein, the design, fabrication, and characterization of liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) films are presented with nanowire surface structures that exhibit tunable stimuli-responsive deformations and enhanced adhesion properties. The LCE films are shown to curl toward the side with the nanowires when stimulated by heat or organic solvent vapors.

Functional nanoporous graphene superlattice.

Two-dimensional (2D) superlattices, formed by stacking sublattices of 2D materials, have emerged as a powerful platform for tailoring and enhancing material properties beyond their intrinsic characteristics. However, conventional synthesis methods are limited to pristine 2D material sublattices, posing a significant practical challenge when it comes to stacking chemically modified sublattices. Here we report a chemical synthesis method that overcomes this challenge by creating a unique 2D graphene superlattice, stacking graphene sublattices with monodisperse, nanometer-sized, square-shaped pores and strategically doped elements at the pore edges.

Single-molecule visualization determines conformational substate ensembles in β-sheet-rich peptide fibrils.

An understanding of protein conformational ensembles is essential for revealing the underlying mechanisms of interpeptide recognition and association. However, experimentally resolving multiple simultaneously existing conformational substates remains challenging. Here, we report the use of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to analyze the conformational substate ensembles of β sheet peptides with a submolecular resolution (in-plane <2.

Staggered circular nanoporous graphene converts electromagnetic waves into electricity.

Harvesting largely ignored and wasted electromagnetic (EM) energy released by electronic devices and converting it into direct current (DC) electricity is an attractive strategy not only to reduce EM pollution but also address the ever-increasing energy crisis. Here we report the synthesis of nanoparticle-templated graphene with monodisperse and staggered circular nanopores enabling an EM-heat-DC conversion pathway. We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate that this staggered nanoporous structure alters graphene's electronic and phononic properties by synergistically manipulating its intralayer nanostructures and interlayer interactions.

Design of a self-cleanable multilevel anticounterfeiting interface through covalent chemical modulation.

Counterfeit products have posed a significant threat to consumers safety and the global economy. To address this issue, extensive studies have been exploring the use of coatings with unclonable, microscale features for authentication purposes. However, the ease of readout, and the stability of these features against water, deposited dust, and wear, which are required for practical use, remain challenging.

Magnetocontrollable droplet mobility on liquid crystal-infused porous surfaces.

Unlabelled: Magnetocontrollable droplet mobility on surfaces of both solids and simple fluids have been widely used in a wide range of applications. However, little is understood about the effect of the magnetic field on the wettability and mobility of droplets on structured fluids. Here, we report the manipulation of the dynamic behaviors of water droplets on a film of thermotropic liquid crystals (LCs).

Modularizable Liquid-Crystal-Based Open Surfaces Enable Programmable Chemical Transport and Feeding using Liquid Droplets.

Droplet-based miniature reactors have attracted interest in both fundamental studies, for the unique reaction kinetics they enable, and applications in bio-diagnosis and material synthesis. However, the precise and automatic feeding of chemicals, important for the delicate reactions in these miniaturized chemical reactors, either requires complex, high-cost microfluidic devices or lacks the capability to maintain a pinning-free droplet movement. Here, the design and synthesis of a new class of liquid crystal (LC)-based open surfaces, which enable a controlled chemical release via a programmable LC phase transition without sacrificing the free transport of the droplets, are reported.

Stimuli-Responsive Liquid-Crystal-Infused Porous Surfaces for Manipulation of Underwater Gas Bubble Transport and Adhesion.

Biomimetic artificial surfaces that enable the manipulation of gas bubble mobility have been explored in a wide range of applications in nanomaterial synthesis, surface defouling, biomedical diagnostics, and therapeutics. Although many superhydrophobic surfaces and isotropic-lubricant-infused porous surfaces have been developed to manipulate gas bubbles, the simultaneous control over the adhesion and transport of gas bubbles underwater remains a challenge. Thermotropic liquid crystals (LCs), a class of structured fluids, provide an opportunity to tune the behavior of gas bubbles through LC mesophase transitions using a variety of external stimuli.

Essential components of physician health program monitoring for substance use disorder: A survey of participants 5 years post successful program completion.

Background And Objectives: Physician health programs (PHPs) have demonstrated efficacy, but their mechanism of influence is unclear. This study sought to identify essential components of PHP care management for substance use disorder (SUD), and to assess whether positive outcomes are sustained over time.

Methods: Physicians with DSM-IV diagnoses of Substance Dependence and/or Substance Abuse who had successfully completed a PHP monitoring agreement at least 5 years before the study (N = 343) were identified as eligible.

Dually reactive multilayer coatings enable orthogonal manipulation of underwater superoleophobicity and oil adhesion post-functionalization.

Fish scale-inspired underwater superoleophobic coatings with low oil adhesion can be achieved through the creation of hierarchical surface topography on water-compatible materials (including polymeric hydrogels, metal oxides, and electrostatic multilayers). While promising, these method do not allow for the underwater superoleophobicity and oil adhesion to be independently tuned, limiting their potential applications. Here we report the design of a conceptually novel class of coatings, dually reactive multilayer coatings, whose underwater superoleophobicity and oil adhesion can be independently tuned through the orthogonal functionalization of two types of reactive moieties at ambient conditions.

Conservation and Identity Selection of Cationic Residues Flanking the Hydrophobic Regions in Intermediate Filament Superfamily.

The interplay between the hydrophobic interactions generated by the nonpolar region and the proximal functional groups within nanometers of the nonpolar region offers a promising strategy to manipulate the intermolecular hydrophobic attractions in an artificial molecule system, but the outcomes of such modulations in the building of a native protein architecture remain unclear. Here we focus on the intermediate filament (IF) coiled-coil superfamily to assess the conservation of positively charged residue identity via a biostatistical approach. By screening the disease-correlated mutations throughout the IF superfamily, 10 distinct hotspots where a cation-to-cation substitution is associated with a pathogenic syndrome have been identified.

Ultrasensitive and Selective Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Using Thermotropic Liquid Crystals and Image-Based Machine Learning.

Rapid, robust virus-detection techniques with ultrahigh sensitivity and selectivity are required for the outbreak of the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we report that the femtomolar concentrations of single-stranded ribonucleic acid (ssRNA) of SARS-CoV-2 trigger ordering transitions in liquid crystal (LC) films decorated with cationic surfactant and complementary 15-mer single-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (ssDNA) probe. More importantly, the sensitivity of the LC to the SARS ssRNA, with a 3-bp mismatch compared to the SARS-CoV-2 ssRNA, is measured to decrease by seven orders of magnitude, suggesting that the LC ordering transitions depend strongly on the targeted oligonucleotide sequence.

Polysubstance use in the U.S. opioid crisis.

Interventions to address the U.S. opioid crisis primarily target opioid use, misuse, and addiction, but because the opioid crisis includes multiple substances, the opioid specificity of interventions may limit their ability to address the broader problem of polysubstance use.

Molecular recognition of human islet amyloid polypeptide assembly by selective oligomerization of thioflavin T.

Selective oligomerization is a common phenomenon existing widely in the formation of intricate biological structures in nature. The precise design of drug molecules with an oligomerization state that specifically recognizes its receptor, however, remains substantially challenging. Here, we used scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to identify the oligomerization states of an amyloid probe thioflavin T (ThT) on hIAPP assembly to be exclusively even numbers.

Trends in Abstaining From Substance Use in Adolescents: 1975-2014.

Unlabelled: : media-1vid110.1542/5789654654001PEDS-VA_2017-3498 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Adolescent substance use is a prevalent modifiable health behavior; understanding long-term trends is essential to inform prevention efforts and public health policy. We investigated changes in the proportion of substance nonuse among adolescents over a 40-year period and associations between abstinence and individual risk and protective factors.

Drug use among youth: National survey data support a common liability of all drug use.

The prevalence of substance use disorders in adults is higher if substance use is initiated during adolescence, underscoring the importance of youth substance use prevention. We examined whether the use of one substance by adolescents is associated with increased risk for using any other substance, regardless of use sequences. In 2017 we examined data from 17,000 youth aged 12-17 who participated in the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a sample of nationally representative data on substance use among the U.

National Trends in Substance Use and Use Disorders Among Youth.

Objective: To examine trends in the 12-month prevalence of patterns of substance use and substance use disorders (SUDs) among US youth during 2002 through 2014.

Method: Data were from 288,300 persons 12 to 17 years old who participated in the 2002 to 2014 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Descriptive analyses and bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were applied.

The opioid epidemic is an historic opportunity to improve both prevention and treatment.

The current narrative describing the national opioid epidemic as the result of overprescribing opioid pain medicines fails to capture the full dimensions of the problem and leads to inadequate and even confounding solutions. Overlooked is the fact that polysubstance use is nearly ubiquitous among overdose deaths, demonstrating that the opioid overdose death problem is bigger than opioids. The foundation of the nation's opioid overdose crisis - and the totality of the nation's drug epidemic - is widespread recreational pharmacology, the use of drugs for fun or "self-medication.

"Should Patients With Substance Use Disorders Be Prescribed Benzodiazepines?" No.

Patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) should not use benzodiazepines to treat anxiety, insomnia, or anything else, for the same reasons that they should not drink any alcohol or use other drugs, regardless of their primary drug used. Once the addiction "switch" is thrown on, it never again goes off. This question has additional relevance today because in 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration put black box warnings on all benzodiazepines and opioid analgesics about the serious risks associated with their concomitant use.