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Functionalization of Bacterial Cellulose Filaments for Knitting Responsive Textiles
Full text linkCopyright \ua9 2026 Laura Freixas et al. Advances in Materials Science and Engineering published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.This study introduces a novel biofabrication strategy to create programmable, moisture-responsive textiles from bacterial cellulose (BC) filaments, establishing a novel material platform that unites biological growth with textile engineering. By integrating BC fermentation, bioengineering, polymer science, and programmable knitting, we demonstrate how in situ and ex situ functionalization can transform microbial biopolymers into adaptive textile systems. BC filaments were produced from Komagataeibacter xylinus and mixed bacterial yeast cultures (SCOBY) using spiral molds and functionalized with chitosan and BslA in situ, and glycerol, NaOH, or chromoprotein ex situ. Comprehensive mechanical test was carried out with tensile test and physical tests with water contact angle and swelling. These characterizations identified combinations that yielded knittable hydrophilic and hydrophobic filaments with tunable flexibility, strength, and water-responsiveness. Knitted hydrophilic BC filaments exhibited pronounced hygromorphic actuation, absorbing 49% water and swelling by 318% and enabling controlled shape transformation under moisture stimuli, while hydrophobic counterparts maintained dimensional stability. This research pioneers the use of biologically functionalized BC filaments for responsive textile fabrication, advancing sustainable smart materials that couple living-inspired biofabrication with textile programmability, with potential applications in adaptive wearables, environmental sensing, and soft robotics
Facial tumor mapping distinguishes Birt-Hogg-Dub\ue9 syndrome from CYLD cutaneous syndrome
Full text linkA call for CARE in animal behaviour: an holistic ethical research framework
Full text link\ua9 2025 The Authors.Despite increasing awareness of animal welfare, there are vast discrepancies between legal protections and recommended practices for different species, in different countries and at different institutions. While many guidelines are now available, they often target specific research contexts or species, leaving a gap in comprehensive ethical oversight across the entire research process. Within animal behaviour research, there is a bias for considering ethics during only the methodology and design phase. This often means only the immediate impact on animals directly involved in the research is accounted for. Conducting ethical research should extend beyond ensuring animal welfare during data collection and include environmentally sustainable research practices, alongside the ethical treatment of people working within and alongside animal behaviour research. We offer the Consult, Approve, Research and Evaluate (CARE) framework to improve the scientific integrity, transparency and ethical practices within the field of animal behaviour. CARE encourages researchers and academic bodies to (1) Consult existing (academic and traditional) knowledge on the study species, local human–animal interactions, their environment and previously implemented ethical practices and to reflect on personal experience and biases when approaching a study question; (2) seek Approval from relevant bodies (e.g. institutional ethics committees and local and government authorities) even when not mandatory; (3) uphold ethical standards while carrying out Research and (4) Evaluate the short- and long-term impacts of the specific study. Our framework is designed to distribute accountability at every level of the academic system, from individual researchers to their institutions, funding bodies and publishers. We pitch this framework as a ‘version 1.0’ to recognize the fast-evolving nature of ethical standards in animal behaviour research and to allow space for improvement. CARE provides a necessary infrastructure for addressing systemic biases and ensuring ethically sound, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable animal behaviour research
Numerical simulations of non-buoyant plastic dispersion around the Iberian Peninsula
Full text linkCopyright \ua9 2025. Published by Elsevier Ltd.The continuous release and accumulation of plastics in the ocean is a major environmental concern as shown by the ongoing negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty led by the United Nations. Numerical models have proven to be valuable tools to improve our knowledge about how marine plastics disperse, identifying, for example, accumulation areas and the pathways followed by plastics to reach them. While models have been widely used for studying floating plastic, there are fewer studies focused on plastic accumulation on the seafloor. In this study, we used a 3D Eulerian model to predict the accumulation patterns of non-floating plastics around the Iberian Peninsula. We selected four of the most common types of plastics and distinguished two scenarios: one considering only plastics from land-based sources and another from sea-based activities. The integrations simulate the dispersion of plastics over 5 years, starting from a plastic-free sea and modeling the daily introduction of plastics into the sea as would be expected under real conditions. Our experiments show an area virtually free of plastics in the southwestern Gulf of Cadiz, likely due to the magnitude of the deep-sea currents occurring in this region, which prevent plastics from settling down. Non-buoyant plastics originating in the coast tend to accumulate on the continental shelf but can gradually disperse into the open ocean and even reach seamounts, depending on how far these seamounts are from land. The inclusion of sea-sourced plastics results, as expected, in a more widespread distribution of plastics towards the open sea
Fuzzy dark matter haloes with repulsive self-interactions: Coherent soliton and halo vortex network with moderate self-coupling
Full text link\ua9 2025 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.We examine the impact of moderate repulsive self-interactions on fuzzy dark matter haloes generated by merging smaller Gaussian density concentrations. We study the size of the core and the granules, the spatial dependence of the field\u27s coherence, the turbulent vortex tangle, and the oscillation frequency of the central soliton, covering the range from quantum-pressure-dominated to self-interaction-dominated stabilization of the solitonic core. For the probed self-coupling strengths g and with a fixed initial configuration, mergers with increasing g result in cores with increased size and a reduced central density, oscillating with decreased frequency, in accordance with expectations from the study of isolated self-interacting fuzzy dark matter solitons. By contrast, the characteristic granule size and typical inter-vortex distances in the surrounding halo are only mildly affected, growing much less relative to the core. The total length of the vortex network, although less robust, shows no signs of decay over our simulation time-scales. The generated haloes therefore develop central self-interaction-dominated cores, but with the outer haloes still supported by quantum-pressure and classical kinetic energy in equipartition as in the non-interacting case. Furthermore, measures of coherence of the field clearly separate the condensed core, identified via the Penrose-Onsager (largest eigenvalue) mode of the entire classical field, from the surrounding quasi-coherent halo. Unlike the case, we observe a relative increase of incoherent fluctuations coexisting with the coherent mode at the centre of the halo with increasing g, a phenomenon also observed in laboratory condensates at non-zero temperature
HIV testing in primary care in a low-prevalence area of Northeast England
No full text\ua9 2025 British HIV Association.Objectives: Indicator condition-based HIV testing is recommended by the British HIV Association in all clinical settings, including in primary care. We estimated the frequency of non-obstetric HIV testing in primary care in an area of Northeast England with a low prevalence of HIV and examined the effects of clinical and demographic indicators on testing rates. Methods: We collated data from 358 603 patients across 54 general practices. Multilevel logistic regression modelling was used to identify associations between clinical and demographic indicators and non-obstetric HIV testing. Results: People with any indicators for testing were more than four times as likely to be tested for HIV than those without (odds ratio [OR] 4.5; 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.10–4.94). Women were less likely than men to have been tested (OR 0.75; 95% CI 0.71–0.80). People aged 56–75 years were less likely to be tested (OR 0.67; 95% CI 0.62–0.72) compared to those aged 16–35; people of white ethnicity were less likely to be tested than those of non-white ethnicity (OR 0.66; 95% CI 0.59–0.73); there was a directional correlation between lower levels of deprivation and reduced likelihood of testing. The overall frequency of testing, however, was low (2.4% in whole study population; 4.9% in people with any indicators for testing). Conclusion: Low rates of non-HIV testing in primary care, including where clinical and/or demographic indicators are present, represent a barrier to reducing late diagnoses and achieving the UK government\u27s target of eliminating HIV transmission by 2030
Patterns of steroid use in patients with established rheumatoid arthritis commencing treatment with biologic or targeted synthetic DMARDs
Full text link\ua9 The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. Objectives: To investigate the clinical use of steroids in established RA. Methods: A cohort of RA patients commencing treatment with biologic or targeted synthetic (b/ts) DMARDs was followed prospectively, with clinical data recorded pre-baseline and at the 3, 6 and 12-month follow-up. Patients were included in this analysis if they had completed the first year of follow-up and had data on steroid use available for at least one follow-up. The proportions of patients receiving steroids at different timepoints were compared and further differentiated between continued (receiving steroids at two consecutive timepoints) and newly started treatment. Lastly, mixed linear effect models were used to assess the relationship between clinical factors and steroid use. Results: The cohort (N=1846) had a median disease duration of 7years and, across each timepoint, ≈30% of patients received steroids, up to two-thirds of which continued treatment from a preceding follow-up. At 12months, the proportion of patients continuing treatment decreased, but more patients started steroid treatment (P<0.001). Linear mixed effects modelling further showed that steroid use was more common in patients who had required pre-baseline steroids [odds ratio (OR) 1.44 (95% CI 1.38, 1.49)] and in those on later-stage treatments [OR 1.15 (95% CI 1.08, 1.23)]. Conclusion: Despite the introduction of b/tsDMARDs, steroid use in this cohort continued over the first year of follow-up, particularly in patients with more severe RA. Together with previous data, this further highlights the need for future research and trials to better understand the right course of steroid administration to maximize efficacy and limit adverse side effects
Shaping the next era of stem cell science: a vision for stem cells journal and its global community
Full text linkFactors affecting territory size and group composition in a social carnivore
Full text link\ua9 The Author(s) 2026.The order Carnivora is dominated by solitary predatory species, yet sociality exists across about 10–15% of species within the order. The European Badger (Meles meles) is a medium sized carnivore that exhibits broad plasticity in its tendency to form social groups. Across its range, populations may exist as individuals, pairs, families and multi-generational groups. The rationale for group living among species of this order has been the subject of much study. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain group living in the species including the role of drivers such as territory defence and resource availability. However very little attention has been paid to the fact that many of these putative drivers of sociality are not independent of one another. Using data from a long-term study in the south-west of England we have shown how the direct and indirect drivers impact the environment in which a badger resides. The strength of individual drivers on territory and group size is mediated through interactions with other variables. Both environmental and demographic variables such as, habitat, weather and number of animals in neighbouring territories are shown to have an important influence and their effects can be across multiple scales. Further investigation of these complex indirect pathways will help to improve our understanding of group living in this species
Analysis of uphill diffusion of CO<sub>2</sub> driven by the chemical potential difference of H<sub>2</sub>O
Full text link\ua9 2026 The Authors. While membrane-based CO2 capture is a promising technology for separating CO2 from low-concentration environments such as air, it is generally more energy-intensive than alternative separation methods like adsorption. The uphill diffusion of CO2, driven by the dissipation of the chemical potential difference of water, can potentially reduce the energy demand of membrane-based CO2 capture from dilute sources. In this analysis, we explore the coupling between CO2 flux and H2O\u27s chemical potential gradient, hypothesizing that dissipation of H2O chemical potential gradients and CO2-selective sorption enable CO2 transport against its concentration gradient and even its chemical potential gradient. Through Onsager analysis and second-law thermodynamic evaluations, we demonstrate the feasibility of this mechanism under steady-state conditions from multiple perspectives, considering various thermodynamic and transport aspects. We also highlight how the level of CO2 enrichment from the diluted feed to the more concentrated permeate depends on the fraction of water free energy utilized to drive uphill CO2 diffusion. This analysis aims to provide a foundation and identify key targets for developing membrane materials and processes that are designed to exploit this coupling phenomenon