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Lithium metal, the ideal anode material for rechargeable batteries, suffers from the inherent limitations of sensitivity to the humid atmosphere and dendrite growth. Herein, low-cost fabrication of a metallic-lithium anode that is stable in air and plated dendrite-free from an organic-liquid electrolyte solves four key problems that have plagued the development of large-scale Li-ion batteries for storage of electric power. Replacing the low-capacity carbon anode with a safe, dendrite-free lithium anode provides a fast charge while reducing the cost of fabrication of a lithium battery, and increasing the cycle life of a rechargeable cell by eliminating the liquid-electrolyte ethylene-carbonate additive used to form a solid-electrolyte interphase passivation layer on the anode that is unstable during cycling. This solution is accomplished by formation of a hydrophobic solid-electrolyte interphase on a metallic-lithium anode that allows for handling of the treated lithium anode membrane in a standard dry room during cell fabrication. The lithium metal is a promising anode material for batteries; however, the growth of dendrite and its instability against moisture are two technical challenges. Here the authors address both issues by introducing a bifunctional layer consisting of hydrophobic graphite fluoride and lithium fluoride.

Ambient electrochemical N 2 reduction is emerging as a highly promising alternative to the Haber–Bosch process but is typically hampered by a high reaction barrier and competing hydrogen evolution, leading to an extremely low Faradaic efficiency. Here, we demonstrate that under ambient conditions, a single-atom catalyst, iron on nitrogen-doped carbon, could positively shift the ammonia synthesis process to an onset potential of 0.193 V, enabling a dramatically enhanced Faradaic efficiency of 56.55%. The only doublet coupling representing 15 NH 4 + in an isotopic labeling experiment confirms reliable NH 3 production data. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest efficient N 2 access to the single-atom iron with only a small energy barrier, which benefits preferential N 2 adsorption instead of H adsorption via a strong exothermic process, as further confirmed by first-principle calculations. The released energy helps promote the following process and the reaction bottleneck, which is widely considered to be the first hydrogenation step, is successfully overcome. While direct N 2 reduction using electrochemistry offers an appealing method to obtain usable nitrogen, materials typically show poor activities and efficiencies. Here, authors demonstrate a single-atom catalyst, iron on N-doped carbon, to have dramatically enhanced N 2 reduction efficiencies.

The breakthrough in electrolyte technology stands as a pivotal factor driving the battery revolution forward. The colloidal electrolytes, as one of the emerging electrolytes, will arise gushing research interest due to their complex colloidal behaviors and mechanistic actions at different conditions (aqueous/nonaqueous solvents, salt concentrations etc.). Herein, we show “beyond aqueous” colloidal electrolytes with ultralow salt concentration and inherent low freezing points to investigate its underlying mechanistic principles to stabilize cryogenic Zn metal batteries. Impressively, the “seemingly undesired” concentration polarization at the interface would disrupt the coalescence stability of the electrolyte, leading to a mechanically rigid interphase of colloidal particle-rich layer, positively inhibiting side reactions on either side of the electrodes. Importantly, the multi-layered pouch cells with cathode loading of 10 mg cm –2 exhibit undecayed capacity at various temperatures, and a relatively high capacity of 50 mAh g –1 could be well maintained at −80 °C. Here, the authors design a “beyond aqueous” colloidal electrolyte with ultralow salt concentration and inherent low freezing point and investigate its colloidal behaviors and underlying mechanistic principles to stabilize cryogenic Zn metal battery.

Biphasic self-stratified batteries (BSBs) provide a new direction in battery philosophy for large-scale energy storage, which successfully reduces the cost and simplifies the architecture of redox flow batteries. However, current aqueous BSBs have intrinsic limits on the selection range of electrode materials and energy density due to the narrow electrochemical window of water. Thus, herein, we develop nonaqueous BSBs based on Li-S chemistry, which deliver an almost quadruple increase in energy density of 88.5 Wh L −1 as compared with the existing aqueous BSBs systems. In situ spectral characterization and molecular dynamics simulations jointly elucidate that while ensuring the mass transfer of Li + , the positive redox species are strictly confined to the bottom-phase electrolyte. This proof-of-concept of Li-S BSBs pushes the energy densities of BSBs and provides an idea to realize massive-scale energy storage with large capacitance. The use of energy-dense materials is inherently limited in biphasic self-stratified batteries due to the aqueous electrolyte environment. Here, the authors extended the concept of biphasic self-stratified batteries to non-aqueous systems, resulting in increased energy density and output voltage.

Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) have become promising candidate to replace common liquid electrolyte due to highly improved security. However, the practical use of SPEs is still restricted by their decomposition and breakage at the electrode interfacial layer especially at high voltage. Herein, a new cationic covalent organic framework (COF) is designed and synthesized as a reinforced skeleton to resist the constant oxidative decomposition of solid polycarbonate electrolyte, which can stabilize cathode electrolyte interphase layer to develop long‐term cycle solid lithium metal battery. The ultralow HOMO energy (−12.55 eV according to density functional theory (DFT) calculations), reflecting its oxidation resistance at positive potential, would be responsible for the high decomposition voltage of 5.2 V versus Li+/Li of solid polycarbonate electrolyte. Furthermore, the smooth surface of interfacial layer and inhibited decomposition reaction at cathode side is confirmed in solid LiCoO2 cell, which realizes high initial capacity up to 160.3 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C and greatly improved stability in 4.5 V class solid polymer lithium metal battery with high capacity retention over 200 cycles. This new type of high‐voltage resistant solid polymer electrolyte promotes the realization of high‐voltage cathode materials and higher energy density lithium metal battery. A cationic covalent organic framework (COF) with strong antioxidant capacity is synthesized and used as high voltage resistant skeleton material in solid polycarbonate electrolyte. The stable COF acts as a reliable scaffold to prevent the collapse of cathode electrolyte interface (CEI) and the persistent decomposition of polycarbonate and the side reactions at electrode/electrolyte interface can be well restrained.

The therapeutic value of lipid‐lowering drugs in pulmonary vascular disease remains uncertain due to insufficient studies and evidence. This study aims to investigate the causal effects of lipid‐lowering drugs (specifically, inhibitors of APOB, CETP, HMGCR, NPC1L1, and PCSK9) on pulmonary vascular diseases using a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. We utilized summary‐level statistics from genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) to simulate the exposure to low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C) and its outcomes on pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), pulmonary embolism (PE), and pulmonary heart disease (PHD). Single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within or near drug target‐associated LDL‐C loci were selected as proxies for the lipid‐lowering drugs. Data from the FinnGen cohort and UK Biobank (UKB) were incorporated to enhance the robustness and generalizability of the findings. The inverse variance weighted (IVW) and MR‐Egger methods were employed to estimate MR effects. Our MR analysis indicated that LDL‐C mediated by NPC1L1 (odds ratio [OR] = 104.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.01–5457.01, p = 0.021) and PCSK9 (OR = 10.20, 95% CI = 3.58–29.10, p < 0.001) was associated with an increased risk of PAH. In contrast, LDL‐C mediated by APOB was associated with a decreased risk of PE (FinnGen: OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.60–0.91, p = 0.005; UKB: OR = 0.998, 95% CI = 0.996–1.000, p = 0.031) and PHD (FinnGen: OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.59–0.91, p = 0.004). However, LDL‐C mediated by CETP and HMGCR did not show significant associations with the risks of PAH, PE, or PHD. This MR study revealed the causal effects of NPC1L1 and PCSK9 inhibitors on increased PAH risk, while APOB inhibitors appear to reduce the risks of PE and PHD. These findings enhance our understanding of the potential roles of lipid‐lowering drugs in pulmonary vascular disease.

Reprogramming of somatic cells in the enucleated egg made Dolly, the sheep, the first successfully cloned mammal in 1996. However, the mechanism of sheep somatic cell reprogramming has not yet been addressed. Moreover, sheep embryonic stem （ES） cells are still not available, which limits the generation of precise gene-modified sheep. In this study, we report that sheep somatic cells can be directly reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem （iPS） cells using defined factors （Oct4, Sox2, c-Myc, Klf4, Nanog, Lin28, SV40 large T and hTERT）. Our observations indicated that somatic cells from sheep are more difficult to reprogram than somatic cells from other species, in which iPS cells have been reported. We demonstrated that sheep iPS cells express ES cell markers, including alkaline phosphatase, Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, Rexl, stage-specific embryonic antigen-l, TRA-I-60, TRA-1-81 and E-cadherin. Sheep iPS cells exhibited normal karyotypes and were able to differentiate into all three germ layers both in vitro and in teratomas. Our study may help to reveal the mechanism of somatic cell reprogramming in sheep and provide a platform to explore the culture conditions for sheep ES cells. Moreover, sheep iPS cells may be directly used to generate precise gene-modified sheep.

Diabetic neuropathy can damage systemic nervous system, including alteration of enteric nervous system and subsequent gastrointestinal dysfunction. The effect of diabetes on enteric glia cell (EGC) is not clear. We investigated the effect of diabetes and hyperglycemia on EGC, and the role of microRNA375 in modulating EGC survival in vivo and in vitro . Streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice were intraperitoneally injected with microRNA375 inhibitor or its negative control. EGC was transfected with microRNA375 inhibitor or its mimic. Diabetes mice with gastrointestinal dysfunction showed increased apoptosis of EGC (no difference in cell numbers) and gene expression of micorRNA375 in the myenteric plexus. Hyperglycemia triggered apoptosis of EGC in vitro with decreased expression of Pdk1 and p-Akt, but increased expression of micorRNA375. MicorRNA375 mimic induced apoptosis of EGC in vitro with repressed Pdk1and p-Akt. MicorRNA375 inhibitor could both prevent hyperglycemia-induced apoptosis of EGC in vitro and diabetes-induced gastrointestinal dysfunction in vivo . Our results suggest that diabetes-induced gastrointestinal dysfunction is related to increased apoptosis of EGC in the myenteric plexus. Hyperglycemia can increase the expression of microRNA375 and damage EGC survival through PI3K/Akt pathway. MicroRNA375 specific inhibition can prevent hyperglycemia induced EGC damage and diabetes-induced gastrointestinal dysfunction.

The design of the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) disc resonator gyroscope (DRG) structural topology is crucial for its physical properties and performance. However, creating novel high-performance MEMS DRGs has long been viewed as a formidable challenge owing to their enormous design space, the complexity of microscale physical effects, and time-consuming finite element analysis (FEA). Here, we introduce a new machine learning-driven approach to discover high-performance DRG topologies. We represent the DRG topology as pixelated binary matrices and formulate the design task as a path-planning problem. This path-planning problem is solved via deep reinforcement learning (DRL). In addition, we develop a convolutional neural network-based surrogate model to replace the expensive FEA to provide reward signals for DRL training. Benefiting from the computational efficiency of neural networks, our approach achieves a significant acceleration ratio of 4.03 × 105 compared with FEA, reducing each DRL training run to only 426.5 s. Through 8000 training runs, we discovered 7120 novel structural topologies that achieve navigation-grade precision. Many of these surpass traditional designs in performance by several orders of magnitude, revealing innovative solutions previously unconceived by humans.

Many researchers have studied the miniaturization of the hemisphere resonator gyroscope for decades. The hemisphere resonator (HSR), as the core component, has a size that has been reduced to the submillimeter level. We developed a method of batch production of micro-hemisphere shell resonators based on a glass-blowing process to obtain larger hemisphere shells with a higher ratio of height to diameter (H/D), we introduced the chemical foaming process (CFP) and acquired an optimized hemisphere shell; the contrasted and improved H/D of the hemisphere shell are 0.61 and 0.80, respectively. Finally, we increased the volume of glass shell resonator by 51.48 times while decreasing the four-node wineglass resonant frequencies from 7.24 MHz to 0.98 MHz. The larger HSR with greater surface area is helpful for setting larger surrounding drive and sense capacitive electrodes, thereby enhancing the sensitivity of HSR to the rotation. This CFP method not only provides more convenience to control the shape of a hemisphere shell but also reduces non-negligible cost in the fabrication process. In addition, this method may inspire some other research fields, e.g., microfluidics, chemical analysis, and wafer level package (WLP).