Local pollutants go global: The impacts of intercontinental air pollution from China on air quality and morbidity in California.

China is among the greatest emitters of air pollution in the world and one concern is the effects of intercontinental air pollution traveling across the Pacific Ocean from China to the U.S. We exploit a natural experiment by observing the effects of changes in intercontinental air pollution associated with Chinese New Year, a 7-day national holiday, and sandstorms from China on air quality and morbidity in California.

pH-Switchable Fluorescent Probe for Spatially-Confined Visualization of Intracellular Hydrogen Peroxide.

Intracellular H2O2 plays an important role in regulating a variety of cellular functions. Fluorescent probes that can make response to intracellular levels of H2O2 would provide valuable tools for revealing the functions of H2O2 in living organisms. However, traditional pH-insensitive probes and lysosome-targetable probes can only provide spatially nonspecific visualization of intracellular H2O2 and specific sensing of lysosomal H2O2, respectively.

Metal-Organic-Framework-Templated Polyelectrolyte Nanocapsules for the Encapsulation and Delivery of Small-Molecule-Polymer Conjugates.

Herein, we report a strategy for exploiting nanoscale metal-organic frameworks (nano-MOFs) as templates for the layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of polyelectrolytes. Because small-molecule drugs or imaging agents cannot be efficiently encapsulated by polyelectrolyte nanocapsules, we investigated two promising and biocompatible polymers (comb-shaped polyethylene glycol (PEG) and hyperbranched polyglycerol-based PEG) for the conjugation of model drugs and imaging agents, which were then encapsulated inside the nano-MOF-templated nanocapsules. Furthermore, we also systemically explored the release kinetics of the encapsulated conjugates, and examined how the encapsulation and/or release processes could be controlled by varying the composition and architecture of the polymers.