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Constructing a crystalline-amorphous hybrid structure is an effective strategy to overcome the conflict between the strength and toughness of materials. However, achieving such a material structure often involves complex, energy-intensive processing. Here, we leverage the natural wood featuring coexisting crystalline and amorphous regions to achieve superstrong and ultratough wood paper (W-paper) via a dual-phase nanostructure regulation strategy. After partially removing amorphous hemicellulose and eliminating most lignin, the treated wood can self-densify through an energy-efficient air drying, resulting in a W-paper with high tensile strength, toughness, and folding endurance. Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations reveal the underlying deformation mechanism of the crystalline and amorphous regions inside cell walls and the failure mechanism of the W-paper under tension. Life cycle assessment reveals that W-paper shows a lower environmental impact than commercial paper and common plastics. This dual-phase nanostructure regulation based on natural wood may provide valuable insights for developing high-performance and sustainable film materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses controlling the duration information lasts on paper so that disappears as desired has crucial for information security. Topics include the information duration on the rewritable paper coated with the title compounds has easily tuned by changing the cation of the compounds; and the fidelity of the information visualization has additionally be used as a time stamp, and a missing anti-counterfeiting label signals.

When neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel put his new fake-paper detector to work, he was "shocked" by what it found. Twenty publishers - including the largest, such as Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley - are helping develop the Integrity Hub tools, and 10 of the publishers are expected to use a paper mill detector the group unveiled in April. They have "a huge conflict of interest" regarding paper mills, says Jennifer Byrne of the University of Sydney, who has studied how paper mills have doctored cancer genetics data. [Extracted from the article]

NEWS When neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel put his new fake-paper detector to work, he was "shocked" by what it found. They have "a huge conflict of interest" regarding paper mills, says Jennifer Byrne of the University of Sydney, who has studied how paper mills have doctored cancer genetics data. [Extracted from the article]

The article highlights the correction of a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper co-authored by chemist Chad Mirkin after a legal dispute, focusing on criticisms regarding the evidence for spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and claims of defamation.

Mechanically transformative electronic systems (TESs) built using gallium have emerged as an innovative class of electronics due to their ability to switch between rigid and flexible states, thus expanding the versatility of electronics. However, the challenges posed by gallium's high surface tension and low viscosity have substantially hindered manufacturability, limiting high-resolution patterning of TESs. To address this challenge, we introduce a stiffness-tunable gallium-copper composite ink capable of direct ink write printing of intricate TES circuits, offering high-resolution (~50 micrometers) patterning, high conductivity, and bidirectional soft-rigid convertibility. These features enable transformative bioelectronics with design complexity akin to traditional printed circuit boards. These TESs maintain rigidity at room temperature for easy handling but soften and conform to curvilinear tissue surfaces at body temperature, adapting to dynamic tissue deformations. The proposed ink with direct ink write printing makes TES manufacturing simple and versatile, opening possibilities in wearables, implantables, consumer electronics, and robotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on scrutiny faced by several research articles co-authored by Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Thomas Südhof, regarding data duplication, image discrepancies, and other issues. Topics include corrections and retractions made by journals for flagged papers; Südhof's denial of wrongdoing; and ongoing investigations into additional articles.

A journal article published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2023, which aimed to demonstrate that certain measures can improve the replicability of behavioral science studies, has been retracted due to concerns about its scientific rigor. The study claimed that the use of measures such as preregistration, large sample sizes, and methodological transparency could increase replicability to 86%. However, critics questioned the methodology and the journal retracted the paper, citing issues with transparency, misstatement of the study's design, problems with preregistration, and incomplete reporting. The authors, who are advocates for scientific rigor, acknowledged the mistakes and agreed to the retraction, but disputed other criticisms as inaccurate. [Extracted from the article]

The article presents a study which explores how wearable plasmonic paper–based microfluidics for continuous sweat analysis. It mentions that wearable sweat sensors have the potential to provide clinically meaningful information associated with the health and disease states of individuals. It discusses that welld-defined flow characteristics of paper microfluidic devices enable accurate quantification of sweat loss and sweat rate.

The article discusses a study on the occupation of Earth orbits by large constellations of satellites, with a focus on the filings with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It mentions that these filings have raised concerns about the safety and long-term sustainability of low Earth orbit (LEO) and have emphasized the need for meaningful controls on satellite constellations' growth.

The article focuses on the detection of suspicious acronyms, termed "tortured acronyms," in scientific papers, often indicative of plagiarism or misconduct, leading to the development of automated tools by researchers for identifying such anomalies, which have been integrated into existing systems like the Problematic Paper Screener (PPS) to aid publishers in screening submissions and uncovering potential instances of deception or unethical practices in academic publishing.

The article focuses on the retraction of a paper on cancer microbiome research, published in 2020 in the journal "Nature" that claims of identifying microbial signatures of different human cancers.

The article focuses on Nature retracting a highly cited 2002 paper on adult stem cells due to allegations of duplicated data, raising concerns about scientific integrity and transparency.

The article focuses on a news investigation revealing over 900 medical studies published since 1996 with authors having financial ties to tobacco companies, including 27 papers appearing in journals, most notably from MDPI, that explicitly prohibit authors with such connections.

The article focuses on the challenges faced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, like Elicit and Scim, designed to assist scientists in navigating the overwhelming volume of published papers, with technical and legal barriers hindering widespread adoption. Topics discussed include the limitations of generative systems, the issue of papers behind paywalls, and the necessity for sustainable business models in the evolving landscape of AI tools for literature navigation.

This document, published in Science Advances, discusses the challenges of multidisciplinary research in the field of neuroscience. The author emphasizes the importance of drawing on various disciplines to understand the mind and brain. However, the review process can be challenging due to different norms, philosophies, and standards of assessment in different fields. The author suggests tools such as cross-review and involving authors in the editorial process to address these challenges. The document also highlights the importance of collaboration across disciplines in advancing neuroscience knowledge. [Extracted from the article]

AI developers are creating tools to help scientists navigate the overwhelming amount of scientific literature available. These tools, such as Elicit and Scim, use large-language models (LLMs) trained on text samples to summarize search results and identify relevant content. However, there are challenges, including the potential for false content and limited access to paywalled papers. Developers are working to improve the accuracy and accessibility of these tools, but scientists are advised to maintain skepticism and verify the information provided by AI tools. [Extracted from the article]

The paper wasp Polistes atrimandibularis is an obligatory social parasite of another Polistes species, P. biglumis bimaculatus. To control the host nest, the parasite sequentially changes the composition of its chemical signature, the cuticular hydrocarbons, during the colonial cycle. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of the cuticular hydrocarbons at every stage of the cycle showed that the parasite can switch on and off an entire chemical family, namely, the unsaturated hydrocarbons. In this way the parasite can match the host signature at a critical moment of the colonial cycle., Having no worker caste and being incapable of nest building, P. atrirwndibularis is an obligatory social parasite. During the short 4-month summer colonial cycle of the host, a P. atrimandibularis [...]

The article flags over 100 papers for concern, linked to ethical violations by French microbiologist Didier Raoult and his team, including an illegal clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients.

The article offers information on the retraction of papers from a genetics journal due to concerns about informed consent for study participants, particularly from ethnic minorities in China.

The article focuses on a study which found that open-access articles attract more citations from scholars in a wider range of locations, institutions, and disciplines than paywalled papers.

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, which honors achievements in science that are humorous and thought-provoking, took place recently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The ceremony featured 10 winners from various fields, including botany, anatomy, probability, and demography. Unlike the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobels have no set award categories and receive more nominations than the Nobel Prizes. Winning research does not have to be recent, and there are real benefits to winning, such as gaining publicity and sparking new collaborations. The winners are kept secret until the ceremony, and international winners receive calls from past winners in their country. Winners must pay their own way to attend the ceremony, which returned to MIT this year after being held at Harvard University for the past 25 years. [Extracted from the article]

The article reports that paleontologist Robert DePalma has been accused of fabricating data so he could scoop her on a high-profile study by paleontologist Melanie During. It informs that During's study concluded that the asteroid that ended the dinosaur era 65 million years ago struck Earth when it was spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

The article highlights a Chinese team's discovery of a bacterium within mosquitoes' guts that inhibits dengue and Zika viruses, potentially aiding disease control efforts. Topics include the bacterium's efficacy in disrupting viral transmission, the significance amidst rising mosquito resistance to insecticides, and ongoing research to assess its real-world impact alongside existing control measures.

We demonstrate that the evolution of facial recognition in wasps is associated with specialized face-learning abilities. Polistes fuscatus can differentiate among normal wasp face images in rapidly and accurately than nonface images or manipulated faces. A close relative lacking facial recognition, Polistes metficus, however, lacks specialized face learning. Similar specializations for face learning are found in primates and other mammals, although P. fuscatus represents an independent evolution of specialization. Convergence toward face specialization in distant taxa as well as divergence among closely related taxa with different recognition behavior suggests that specialized cognition is surprisingly labile and may be adaptively shaped by species-specific selective pressures such as face recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that stacked sheets of paper preincubated with different biological reagents and skiving them into uniform test paper sheets allow mass manufacturing of multiplexed immunoassay devices and simultaneous detection of multiplex targets that can be read out by a barcode scanner. The thickness of one sheet of paper can form the width of a module for the barcode; when stacked, these sheets of paper can form a series of barcodes representing the targets, depending on the color contrast provided by a colored precipitate of an immunoassay. The uniform thickness of sheets of paper allows high-quality signal readout. The manufacturing method allows highly efficient fabrication of the materials and substrates for a straightforward assay of targets that range from drugs of abuse to biomarkers of blood-transmitted infections. In addition, as a novel alternative to the conventional point-of-care testing method, the paper-based barcode assay system can provide highly efficient, accurate, and objective diagnoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how combination of hierarchical structure comprising mechanical and optical function inspire technological classes of devices and interfaces based on robust, light, and spectrally responsive natural substrates. It mentions the strategies for coloration devoid of inorganic pigments.

The article offers information on role of Graduate Record Examinations (GREs) to help predict whether physics graduate students will get Ph.D. Topics include use of collider-like stratification bias, variance inflation by collinearity and range restriction, and omission of parts of a needed correlation matrix in analyses; need for randomized trials to evaluating how well students admitted by different criteria; and information on predictors that involves percentile ranks of GRE scores.

Advances in synthetic biology have led to an arsenal of proof-of-principle bacterial circuits that can be leveraged for applications ranging from therapeutics to bioproduction. A unifying challenge for most applications is the presence of selective pressures that lead to high mutation rates for engineered bacteria. A common strategy is to develop cloning technologies aimed at increasing the fixation time for deleterious mutations in single cells. We adopt a complementary approach that is guided by ecological interactions, whereby cyclical population control is engineered to stabilize the functionality of intracellular gene circuits. Three strains of Escherichia coli were designed such that each strain could kill or be killed by one of the other two strains. The resulting “rock-paper-scissors” dynamic demonstrates rapid cycling of strains in microfluidic devices and leads to an increase in the stability of gene circuit functionality in cell culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that researchers suspect paper mill in which papers contain questionable Western blot and flow cytometry images and similar keywords, titles, and layout according to microbiologist Elisabeth Bik.

A single "paper mill" appears to have churned out 400 papers, sleuths find Bik's hunch is that the studies were published as a tick-box exercise by physicians who have to publish papers in international journals in order to be eligible for promotions. He notes that if the images are found to be fabricated, he will request that the journal's publisher, Karger Publishers, retract the papers. [Extracted from the article]

To learn the evolutionary trajectories of caste differentiation in eusocial species is a major goal of sociobiology. We present an explanatory framework for caste evolution in the eusocial wasp genus Polistes (Vespidae), which is a model system for insect eusocial evolution. We hypothesize that Polistes worker and gyne castes stern from two developmental pathways that characterized the bivoltine life cycle of a solitary ancestor. Through individual-based simulations, we show that our mechanistic framework can reproduce colony-level characteristics of Polistes and, thereby, that social castes can emerge from solitary regulatory pathways. Our explanatory framework illustrates, by specific example, a changed perspective for understanding insect social evolution., The essence of eusociality in Polistes wasps is the differentiation of female offspring into two castes: nonreproductive females that work in their natal colony and reproductive gynes that found colonies [...]

Even in the best of times, 95% of Jan Hendrik Schon's experiments fizzled out. It's the other 5% that made him one of nanotechnology's brightest stars and the envy of [...]

PUBLISHING | Describing uncertainty in findings and conclusions is considered a hallmark of carefully prepared scientific papers, but the frequency of such hedges has fallen over the past 2 decades - perhaps because of pressure to publish, a study asserts. In one of the largest studies of its kind, a research team looked for words conveying doubt and uncertainty - such as "might", "could", "appear to", "probably", "approximately", and "seem" - in research articles published from 1997 to 2021 in Science, which the team chose because it publishes articles from multiple disciplines. The frequency of hedges dropped by close to half, from 115.8 instances per 10,000 words in 1997 to 67.42 per 10,000 words in 2021. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the announcement by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden that by the end of 2025, federal agencies must make papers that describe taxpayer-funded work freely available to the public as soon as the final peer-reviewed manuscript is published by a journal. Topics include the effort by officials to work out details of the policy, reaction from Heather Joseph of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and the impact of the policy.

WHEN A TEAM OF RESEARCHERS PUBLISHED A paper in Cell in April 1986, (*) they probably expected to generate scientific controversy, for they were reporting results that challenged the conventional [...]

The article informs that many biologists have started to share their unreviewed papers by endorsements of preprint publishing from high-profile scientists, as well as launch of the nonprofit bioRxiv by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York in 2013. Topics discussed include increase in biology preprints, how polished a preprint need to be for publication and how preprints have catalyzed collaboration.

The article discusses that the nonprofit publisher Company of Biologists will plant a tree for each peer review and each paper it publishes to acknowledge the contributions of authors and peer reviewers and impart environmental education.