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Heat stress, as a negative factor, severely threatens the quality and production of bottle gourd, which prefers to grow in a warm environment. To understand which genes are involved in the resistance to heat stress in bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.), we analyzed the characteristics of two genetic bottle gourd varieties, “Mei feng”-MF (heat resistant) and “Lv long”-LL (heat sensitive). Under heat stress, MF plants exhibited a higher survival rate, lower relative electrolytic leakage, and decreased stomatal aperture compared with LL. In addition, RNA-Seq was carried out on the two varieties under normal conditions and heat stress. The results revealed a total of 1485 up-regulated and 946 down-regulated genes under normal conditions, while 602 genes were up-regulated and 1212 genes were down-regulated under heat stress. Among these genes, several differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in the MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) signaling pathway and members of bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix) transcription factors showed significant up- or down-regulation after heat stress. Next, to validate these findings, we conducted quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis, which confirmed the expression patterns of the genes detected through RNA-Seq. Collectively, the DEGs between the two contrasting cultivars identified in our study provide novel insight into excavating helpful candidate genes associated with heat tolerance in bottle gourd.

The application of movement-detection sensors is crucial for understanding surface movement and tectonic activities. The development of modern sensors has been instrumental in earthquake monitoring, prediction, early warning, emergency commanding and communication, search and rescue, and life detection. There are numerous sensors currently being utilized in earthquake engineering and science. It is essential to review their mechanisms and working principles thoroughly. Hence, we have attempted to review the development and application of these sensors by classifying them based on the timeline of earthquakes, the physical or chemical mechanisms of sensors, and the location of sensor platforms. In this study, we analyzed available sensor platforms that have been widely used in recent years, with satellites and UAVs being among the most used. The findings of our study will be useful for future earthquake response and relief efforts, as well as research aimed at reducing earthquake disaster risks.

Sulfonylurea herbicides (SH) are widely used throughout the world. In this paper, the degradation of sulfonylurea herbicides (SH) in eight different agricultural soils was studied by exploring the synergism between microbial consortium (MC) and plants. In the experiment, chlorimuron with a concentration of 50 mg/L was used as the only carbon source to domesticate and prepare the MC. The degradation of six sulfonylurea herbicides was determined, among which bensulfuron (BN), due to its better degradation effects, was selected. The best degradation conditions of BN were determined as follows: pH 7, 20 °C, and BN concentration 20 mg/L, and after 20 days, the degradation rate of BN by MC reached 90.49%. The physical and chemical properties of eight different agricultural soils were compared, and the correlation between them and the degradation effect of BN was analyzed. When plants were combined with 3% MC to remediate BN-contaminated soil, it was beneficial to plant growth, and the degradation rate of BN was the highest (81%) after 25 days. In addition, the content of soil urease and soil catalase in the soil increased to 449 ug/g and 12.19 mmol/g after 25 days of combined remediation. The results showed an effective bioremediation strategy to restore agricultural soil contaminated by BN.

Peanut shells are agricultural waste products that require utilization. The freeze-dried ethanolic peanut shell extract (PSE) contained 10.01 ± 0.55 mg/g of luteolin (LUT) with a total polyphenol content of 18.11 ± 0.88 mg GAE/g. Thus, LUT is one of the major polyphenolic components in PSE. Although PSE displays antibacterial and neurotrophic activities, minimal research is available addressing its potential role in lipid metabolism. This study investigated the role of PSE in terms of inhibiting adipogenesis, accelerating lipolysis, and promoting lipid browning using the 3T3-L1 cell line. Without affecting cell viability, high concentrations of PSE and LUT prevented adipogenesis by reducing the mRNA levels of C/EBPα, PPARγ, and SREBP1-c, and increasing the protein levels of pACC and pAMPK. Moreover, PSE and LUT induced lipolysis by activating lipolytic proteins, and enhanced the protein expressions of the brown adipocyte-specific markers, UCP1, PGC-1α, and SIRT1 in fully differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Increased mitochondrial biosynthesis provided additional evidence in favor of these findings. Due to their anti-obesity properties, it is proposed that PSE and LUT could be used as potential dietary supplements.

(1) Background: Wax gourd is an economically important vegetable crop in many tropical and sub-tropical countries in Asia. Fruit color is an important fruit quality trait, but the genetic, biochemical basis and regulatory network of fruit color variation in wax gourd are rarely studied. (2) Methods: In this study, two wax gourd inbred lines with different pericarp colors were used as materials to conduct joint metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses on mature fruit pericarp: B214 with yellow and B227 with dark green color. (3) Results: It was found that the chlorophyll content in the pericarp of B214 was significantly lower than that of B227, consistent with the down-regulation of several genes involved in the chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway, including hemA, hemB, hemC, hemF, chlH, chlI, chlM, POR, and CAO. The 229 metabolites showed differential accumulation levels between B214 and B227, and 4 anthocyanins, 5 flavanones, 25 flavones, 25 flavone C-glycosides, 12 flavonols, and 3 isoflavones were identified. In particular, cyanidin 3-O-glucoside, an anthocyanin contributing to the coloration of dark color, showed higher accumulation in B227 than in B214, probably due to the higher expression of genes of F3′H and glucosyl transferases (GTs) in B227. Transcription factors such as MYBs and bHLHs showed differential expressions between the two lines including bHLH14, a homolog of Arabidopsis AtbHLH14 that had significantly higher expression in B227 than in B214. bHLH14 was located in a region where the pericarp color (pc) locus was mapped, suggesting it may be a candidate gene for the pc locus. (4) Conclusions: This work supports the association of chlorophyll and flavonoid synthesis in wax gourd fruit color variation and also provides a good foundation for understanding the regulatory network for wax gourd coloration.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous single-stranded non-coding small RNAs of 20–24 nucleotides and play important roles in many plant biological and metabolic processes. Wax gourd is an important vegetable of Cucurbitacea family, with great economic and medicinal value. Although miRNAs have been extensively studied in model plant species, less is known in wax gourd (Benincasa hispida). In this study, in order to identify miRNAs in wax groud, five independent small RNA libraries were constructed using leaf, root, stem, flower, and fruit of B227. Based on high-throughput Illumina deep sequencing. In total, 422 known and 409 novel miRNAs were identified from five libraries. Comparative analysis revealed that many miRNAs were differentially expressed among different tissues, indicating tissue-specific expression of some miRNAs. qRT-PCR verified the reliability of small RNA sequencing results. Furthermore, miRNAs with similar expression patterns among five tissues were clustered into the same profile, among which many miRNAs were found with relatively high expression in the fruit of wax gourd. MiR164-x had the highest expression in fruit than in other tissues and many NAC transcription factors were predicted as its target genes. We propose that miR164 might regulate fruit development by forming miR164-NAC module in wax gourd. Taken together, this study provides the first global miRNAs profiling of wax gourd, and lays the foundation for understanding the regulatory roles of miRNAs in the growth and development processes of wax gourd.

Titanium alloys have been widely used in aerospace engineering due to their excellent mechanical properties, especially their strength-to-weight ratio. In addition, Ti6Al4V (TC4) alloy is the most widely used among α+β alloys. The main three elements of TC4 alloy are titanium (Ti), aluminum (Al) and vanadium (V). Since the boiling point of aluminum is much lower than the melting point of the other two elements, the consistency of TC4 alloy during smelting, additive manufacturing and surface treatment is difficult to control. Therefore, in order to study the difficult problem of composition control in TC4 alloy production, we measured the vacuum evaporation of Al, Ti and V in Ti-Al, V-Al and TC4 alloys, and tracked the changes of molten pool temperature, heating time and weight. According to the results, the Al started to evaporate near 1300 ± 10 °C in vacuum and totally evaporated after 225 s heating to 1484 °C at 10−2 Pa. However, V and Ti barely evaporated below 2000 °C. The Al in Ti-Al alloy started to evaporate at 1753 ± 10 °C and lost 20.6 wt.% aluminum during 500 s at 1750~1957 °C. The Al in V-Al alloy started to evaporate at 1913 ± 10 °C and lost 26.4 wt.% aluminum during 543s at 1893~2050 °C. The Al in TC4 alloy started to evaporate at 1879 ± 10 °C and lost 79.6 wt. % aluminum after 113 s at 1879~1989 °C. The results indicate that smelting TC4 alloy with Ti-Al and V-Al alloys by EBM below 1900 °C improves the consistency and performance. Additionally, the lowest loss of Al occurred in the additive manufacturing of TC4 alloy below 1900 °C.

Fusarium wilt results in undesirable effects on the quality and production of chieh-qua (Benincasa hispida Cogn. var. Chieh-qua How). Fusaric acid (FA), a secondary metabolite of biotin produced by pathogens of genus Fusarium, induced resistant responses in chieh-qua; however, the physiological and molecular mechanism(s) of FA resistance remains largely unknown. In our study, ‘A39’ (FA-resistant cultivar) exhibited decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) content and increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme activity when exposed to FA compared with ‘H5’ (FA-susceptible cultivar). More apoptosis cells existed in ‘H5’ than ‘A39’ after 2 days of FA treatment. RNA-seq results revealed that a total of 2968 and 3931 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected under normal conditions (1562 up-regulated and 1406 down-regulated) and FA treatment (2243 up-regulated and 1688 down-regulated), respectively. Interestingly, DEGs associated with pathogen-related protein and ethylene (ET) biosynthesis and signal pathways were most significantly changed during FA stress. Notably, several crucial genes encoding pathogenesis-related protein (CL4451.Contig2, CL2175.Contig4), peroxidase (Unigene49615 and CL11695.Contig2), and ET-responsive transcription factors (TFs) (CL9320.Contig1, CL9849.Contig3, CL6826.Contig2, CL919. Contig6, and CL518.Contig7) were specifically induced after FA treatment. Collectively, the study provides molecular data for isolating candidate genes involved in FA resistance, especially ET related genes in chieh-qua.

In recent years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the development of concentrating solar power (CSP) technology. For the commercialization of CSP technology, economically competitive costs of electricity generation is one of the major obstacles. However, studies of electricity generation cost analysis for CSP systems in China, particularly for the tower systems, are quite limited. This paper conducts an economic analysis by applying a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model for 100 MW tower CSP plants in five locations in China with four different molten-salts for thermal energy storage (TES). The results show that it is inappropriate to build a tower CSP plant nearby Shenzhen and Shanghai. The solar salt (NaNO3-KNO3, 60-40 wt.%) has lower LCOE than the other three new molten-salts. In order to calculate the time when the grid parity would be reached, four scenarios for CSP development roadmap proposed by International Energy Agency (IEA) were considered in this study. It was found that the LCOE of tower CSP would reach the grid parity in the years of 2038–2041 in the case of no future penalties for the CO2 emissions. This study can provide support information for the Chinese government to formulate incentive policies for the CSP industry.