Biodegradable and Flexible Wood-Gelatin Composites for Soft Actuating Systems.

Compliant materials are indispensable for many emerging soft robotics applications. Hence, concerns regarding sustainability and end-of-life options for these materials are growing, given that they are predominantly petroleum-based and non-recyclable. Despite efforts to explore alternative bio-derived soft materials like gelatin, they frequently fall short in delivering the mechanical performance required for soft actuating systems.

Lightweight, Strong, and Transparent Wood Films Produced by Capillary Driven Self-Densification.

Wood delignification and densification enable the production of high strength and/or transparent wood materials with exceptional properties. However, processing needs to be more sustainable and besides the chemical delignification treatments, energy intense hot-pressing calls for alternative approaches. Here, this study shows that additional softening of delignified wood via a mild swelling process using an ionic liquid-water mixture enables the densification of tube-line wood cells into layer-by-layer sheet structures without hot-pressing.

Anisotropic wood-hydrogel composites: Extending mechanical properties of wood towards soft materials' applications.

Delignified wood (DW) offers a versatile platform for the manufacturing of composites, with material properties ranging from stiff to soft and flexible by preserving the preferential fiber directionality of natural wood through a structure-retaining production process. This study presents a facile method for fabricating anisotropic and mechanically tunable DW-hydrogel composites. These composites were produced by infiltrating delignified spruce wood with an aqueous gelatin solution followed by chemical crosslinking.

Intercellular Matrix Infiltration Improves the Wet Strength of Delignified Wood Composites.

Delignified wood (DW) represents a promising bio-based fibrous material as a reinforcing component in high-performance composites. These cellulose composites possess excellent strength and stiffness in the dry state, which are significantly higher than for natural wood. However, in the wet state, a penetrating water layer enters the intercellular regions and disrupts the stress transfer mechanisms between cell fibers in fully DW.

Seaweed Value Chain Stakeholder Perspectives for Food and Environmental Safety Hazards.

With a world population estimated at 10 billion people by 2050, the challenge to secure healthy and safe food is evident. Seaweed is a potential answer to this challenge. Expanding the use of seaweed in food systems requires an emphasis on safe practices to avoid adverse human health effects after consumption and irreversible damage to marine ecosystems.

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover.

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors.

Nano-CT imaging of larvae in the ant Pheidole hyatti reveals coordinated growth of a rudimentary organ necessary for soldier development.

The growth of imaginal discs in holometabolous insects is coordinated with larval growth to ensure the symmetrical and proportional development of the adult appendages. In ants, the differential growth of these discs generates distinct castes-the winged male and queen castes and the wingless worker caste. In the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole, the worker caste is composed of two morphologically distinct subcastes: small-headed minor workers and larger, big-headed, soldiers.

Social regulation of a rudimentary organ generates complex worker-caste systems in ants.

The origin of complex worker-caste systems in ants perplexed Darwin and has remained an enduring problem for evolutionary and developmental biology. Ants originated approximately 150 million years ago, and produce colonies with winged queen and male castes as well as a wingless worker caste. In the hyperdiverse genus Pheidole, the wingless worker caste has evolved into two morphologically distinct subcastes-small-headed minor workers and large-headed soldiers.

Morphogenetic defects underlie Superior Coloboma, a newly identified closure disorder of the dorsal eye.

The eye primordium arises as a lateral outgrowth of the forebrain, with a transient fissure on the inferior side of the optic cup providing an entry point for developing blood vessels. Incomplete closure of the inferior ocular fissure results in coloboma, a disease characterized by gaps in the inferior eye and recognized as a significant cause of pediatric blindness. Here, we identify eight patients with defects in tissues of the superior eye, a congenital disorder that we term superior coloboma.

Coordinate regulation of retinoic acid synthesis by pbx genes and fibroblast growth factor signaling by hoxb1b is required for hindbrain patterning and development.

The vertebrate hindbrain is composed of a series of lineage-restricted segments termed rhombomeres. Segment-specific gene expression drives unique programs of neuronal differentiation. Two critical embryonic signaling pathways, Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) and Retinoic Acid (RA), regulate early embryonic rhombomere patterning.