City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Research Institute

Ferroptosis is a newly discovered form of regulated cell death that is the nexus between metabolism, redox biology, and human health. Emerging evidence shows the potential of triggering ferroptosis for cancer therapy, particularly for eradicating aggressive malignancies that are resistant to traditional therapies. Recently, there has been a great deal of effort to design and develop anticancer drugs based on ferroptosis induction. Recent advances of ferroptosis-inducing agents at the intersection of chemistry, materials science, and cancer biology are presented. The basis of ferroptosis is summarized first to highlight the feasibility and characteristics of triggering ferroptosis for cancer therapy. A literature review of ferroptosis inducers (including small molecules and nanomaterials) is then presented to delineate their design, action mechanisms, and anticancer applications. Finally, some considerations for research on ferroptosis inducers are spotlighted, followed by a discussion on the challenges and future development directions of this burgeoning field.

Achieving balance between convergence and diversity is a key issue in evolutionary multiobjective optimization. Most existing methodologies, which have demonstrated their niche on various practical problems involving two and three objectives, face significant challenges in many-objective optimization. This paper suggests a unified paradigm, which combines dominance- and decomposition-based approaches, for many-objective optimization. Our major purpose is to exploit the merits of both dominance- and decomposition-based approaches to balance the convergence and diversity of the evolutionary process. The performance of our proposed method is validated and compared with four state-of-the-art algorithms on a number of unconstrained benchmark problems with up to 15 objectives. Empirical results fully demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method on all considered test instances. In addition, we extend this method to solve constrained problems having a large number of objectives. Compared to two other recently proposed constrained optimizers, our proposed method shows highly competitive performance on all the constrained optimization problems.

The fabrication of photoluminescent Ti3C2 MXene quantum dots (MQDs) by a facile hydrothermal method is reported, which may greatly extend the applications of MXene-based materials. Interestingly, the as-prepared MQDs show excitation-dependent photoluminescence spectra with quantum yields of up to ≈10% due to strong quantum confinement. The applications of MQDs as biocompatible multicolor cellular imaging probes and zinc ion sensors are demonstrated. As a service to our authors and readers, this journal provides supporting information supplied by the authors. Such materials are peer reviewed and may be re-organized for online delivery, but are not copy-edited or typeset. Technical support issues arising from supporting information (other than missing files) should be addressed to the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

In the past decade, mechanical metamaterials have garnered increasing attention owing to its novel design principles which combine the concept of hierarchical architecture with material size effects at micro/nanoscale. This strategy is demonstrated to exhibit superior mechanical performance that allows us to colonize unexplored regions in the material property space, including ultrahigh strength‐to‐density ratios, extraordinary resilience, and energy absorption capabilities with brittle constituents. In the recent years, metamaterials with unprecedented mechanical behaviors such as negative Poisson's ratio, twisting under uniaxial forces, and negative thermal expansion are also realized. This paves a new pathway for a wide variety of multifunctional applications, for example, in energy storage, biomedical, acoustics, photonics, and thermal management. Herein, the fundamental scientific theories behind this class of novel metamaterials, along with their fabrication techniques and potential engineering applications beyond mechanics are reviewed. Explored examples include the recent progresses for both mechanical and functional applications. Finally, the current challenges and future developments in this emerging field is discussed as well.

A long-life, high-capacity, highly safe and wearable solid-state zinc ion battery was constructed using a novel gelatin and PAM based electrolyte.

Apoptosis is widely known as programmed cell death eliciting no inflammatory responses. The intricacy of apoptosis has been a focus of an array of researches, accumulating a wealth of knowledge which led to not only a better understanding of the fundamental process, but also potent therapies of diseases. The classic intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways of apoptosis, along with regulatory factors have been well delineated. Drugs and therapeutic measures designed based on current understanding of apoptosis have long been employed. Small-molecule apoptosis inducers have been clinically used for eliminating morbid cells and therefore treating diseases, such as cancer. Biologics with improved apoptotic efficacy and selectivity, such as recombinant proteins and antibodies, are being extensively researched and some have been approved by the FDA. Apoptosis also produces membrane-bound vesicles derived from disassembly of apoptotic cells, now known as apoptotic bodies (ApoBDs). These little sealed sacs containing information as well as substances from dying cells were previously regarded as garbage bags until they were discovered to be capable of delivering useful materials to healthy recipient cells (e.g., autoantigens). In this review, current understandings and knowledge of apoptosis were summarized and discussed with a focus on apoptosis-related therapeutic applications and ApoBDs.

Abstract Anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is recognized as kinetic bottleneck in water electrolysis. Transition metal sites with high valence states can accelerate the reaction kinetics to offer highly intrinsic activity, but suffer from thermodynamic formation barrier. Here, we show subtle engineering of highly oxidized Ni 4+ species in surface reconstructed (oxy)hydroxides on multicomponent FeCoCrNi alloy film through interatomically electronic interplay. Our spectroscopic investigations with theoretical studies uncover that Fe component enables the formation of Ni 4+ species, which is energetically favored by the multistep evolution of Ni 2+ →Ni 3+ →Ni 4+ . The dynamically constructed Ni 4+ species drives holes into oxygen ligands to facilitate intramolecular oxygen coupling, triggering lattice oxygen activation to form Fe-Ni dual-sites as ultimate catalytic center with highly intrinsic activity. As a result, the surface reconstructed FeCoCrNi OER catalyst delivers outstanding mass activity and turnover frequency of 3601 A g metal −1 and 0.483 s −1 at an overpotential of 300 mV in alkaline electrolyte, respectively.

While α-MnO2 has been intensively studied for zinc batteries, δ-MnO2 is usually believed to be more suitable for ion storage with its layered structure. Unfortunately, the extraordinary Zn ion storage performance that δ-MnO2 should exhibit has not yet been achieved due to the frustrating structural degradation during charge–discharge cycles. Here, we found the Na ion and water molecules pre-intercalation can effectively activate stable Zn ion storage of δ-MnO2. Our results reveal that the resulted Zn//pre-intercalated δ-MnO2 battery delivers an extraordinarily high-rate performance, with a high capacity of 278 mAh g–1 at 1 C and up to 20 C, and a high capacity of 106 mAh g–1 can still be measured. The capacity retention is as high as 98% after charged–discharged up to 10,000 cycles benefiting from smooth Zn ion diffusion in the pre-intercalated structure. Further in situ/ex situ characterization confirms the superfast Zn ion diffusion in the pre-intercalated structure at room temperature. In addition, utilizing the well-chosen electrode material and modified polyurethane shell, we fabricated a quasi-solid-state healable Zn-δ-MnO2, which can be self-healed after multiple catastrophic damages, emphasizing the advanced features of aqueous Zn ion battery for wearable applications.

Abstract The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is undergoing significant warming since the 1950s. During the past two decades, extensive research has been conducted to investigate the climate change on the plateau. This review presents an overview of recent progress on climate change on the TP with the aim of providing a comprehensive understanding of changes in climate variables. Long‐term observation data from meteorological stations presented by the published literature were used to show the trends in various climate variables. The TP is overall getting warmer and wetter during the past decades. Temperature is significantly increased, especially since the 1980s. The overall warming rate ranges from 0.16 to 0.67°C decade −1 since the 1950s during different periods. The TP shows a uniform warming trend with the most significant warming in the northern part. Precipitation is slightly increased, and the spatial pattern of changes in precipitation is variable. The annual precipitation is increasing in most areas of the TP. Some subregions are becoming wetter, while some subregions are becoming drier. Pan evaporation, reference evapotranspiration, and potential evapotranspiration have been found to decrease since the 1960s. Actual evapotranspiration is significantly increased since the 1960s. Wind speed and sunshine duration increased up to the 1970s and then decreased significantly afterwards. Relative humidity fluctuated up and down to the end of the 1990s and appeared to decrease afterwards. Vapor pressure deficit shows an overall increasing trend since the 1970s. Causes of changes in the climate variables are presented, and future research directions are recommended.

Over the past two decades, a series of aqueous rechargeable metal-ion batteries (ARMBs) have been developed, aiming at improving safety, environmental friendliness and cost-efficiency in fields of consumer electronics, electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage. However, the notable gap between ARMBs and their organic counterparts in energy density directly hinders their practical applications, making it difficult to replace current widely-used organic lithium-ion batteries. Basically, this huge gap in energy density originates from cell voltage, as the narrow electrochemical stability window of aqueous electrolytes substantially confines the choice of electrode materials. This review highlights various ARMBs with focuses on their voltage characteristics and strategies that can effectively raise battery voltage. It begins with the discussion on the fundamental factor that limits the voltage of ARMBs, i.e., electrochemical stability window of aqueous electrolytes, which decides the maximum-allowed potential difference between cathode and anode. The following section introduces various ARMB systems and compares their voltage characteristics in midpoint voltage and plateau voltage, in relation to respective electrode materials. Subsequently, various strategies paving the way to high-voltage ARMBs are summarized, with corresponding advancements highlighted. The final section presents potential directions for further improvements and future perspectives of this thriving field.

Superior self-healability and stretchability are critical elements for the practical wide-scale adoption of personalized electronics such as portable and wearable energy storage devices. However, the low healing efficiency of self-healable supercapacitors and the small strain of stretchable supercapacitors are fundamentally limited by conventional polyvinyl alcohol-based acidic electrolytes, which are intrinsically neither self-healable nor highly stretchable. Here we report an electrolyte comprising polyacrylic acid dual crosslinked by hydrogen bonding and vinyl hybrid silica nanoparticles, which displays all superior functions and provides a solution to the intrinsic self-healability and high stretchability problems of a supercapacitor. Supercapacitors with this electrolyte are non-autonomic self-healable, retaining the capacitance completely even after 20 cycles of breaking/healing. These supercapacitors are stretched up to 600% strain with enhanced performance using a designed facile electrode fabrication procedure.

Though polypyrrole (PPy) is widely used in flexible supercapacitors owing to its high electrochemical activity and intrinsic flexibility, limited capacitance and cycling stability of freestanding PPy films greatly reduce their practicality in real‐world applications. Herein, we report a new approach to enhance PPy's capacitance and cycling stability by forming a freestanding and conductive hybrid film through intercalating PPy into layered Ti 3 C 2 (l‐Ti 3 C 2 , a MXene material). The capacitance increases from 150 (300) to 203 mF cm −2 (406 F cm −3 ). Moreover, almost 100% capacitance retention is achieved, even after 20 000 charging/discharging cycles. The analyses reveal that l‐Ti 3 C 2 effectively prevents dense PPy stacking, benefiting the electrolyte infiltration. Furthermore, strong bonds, formed between the PPy backbones and surfaces of l‐Ti 3 C 2 , not only ensure good conductivity and provide precise pathways for charge‐carrier transport but also improve the structural stability of PPy backbones. The freestanding PPy/l‐Ti 3 C 2 film is further used to fabricate an ultra‐thin all‐solid‐state supercapacitor, which shows an excellent capacitance (35 mF cm −2 ), stable performance at any bending state and during 10 000 charging/discharging cycles. This novel strategy provides a new way to design conductive polymer‐based freestanding flexible electrodes with greatly improved electrochemical performances.

Abstract The dendritic issue in aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (ZBs) using neutral/mild electrolytes has remained an intensive controversy for a long time: some researchers assert that dendrites severely exist while others claim great cycling stability without any protection. This issue is clarified by investigating charge/discharge‐condition‐dependent formation of Zn dendrites. Lifespan degradation (120 to 1.2 h) and voltage hysteresis deterioration (134 to 380 mV) are observed with increased current densities due to the formation of Zn dendrites (edge size: 0.69–4.37 µm). In addition, the capacity is also found to remarkably affect the appearance of the dendrites as well. Therefore, at small current densities or loading mass, Zn dendrites might not be an issue, while the large conditions may rapidly ruin batteries. Based on this discovery, a first‐in‐class electrohealing methodology is developed to eliminate already‐formed dendrites, generating extremely prolonged lifespans by 410% at 7.5 mA cm –2 and 516% at 10 mA cm –2 . Morphological analysis reveals that vertically aligned Zn dendrites with sharp tips gradually become passivated and finally generate a smooth surface. This developed electrohealing strategy may promote research on metal dendrites in various batteries evolving from passive prevention to active elimination, rescuing in‐service batteries in situ to achieve elongated lifetime.

In this paper, we propose the design of a family of hydrogel electrolytes that featuring freezing resistance, flexibility, safety, superior ionic conductivity and long-term stability to realize anti-freezing flexible aqueous batteries.

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, has boomed over the last 30 years, and its use has accelerated during the last 5 years. AM is a materials-oriented manufacturing technology, and printing resolution versus printing scalability/speed trade-off exists among various types of materials, including polymers, metals, ceramics, glasses, and composite materials. Four-dimensional (4D) printing, together with versatile transformation systems, drives researchers to achieve and utilize high dimensional AM. Multiple perspectives of the AM of structural materials have been raised and illustrated in this review, including multi-material AM (MMa-AM), multi-modulus AM (MMo-AM), multi-scale AM (MSc-AM), multi-system AM (MSy-AM), multi-dimensional AM (MD-AM), and multi-function AM (MF-AM). The rapid and tremendous development of AM materials and methods offers great potential for structural applications, such as in the aerospace field, the biomedical field, electronic devices, nuclear industry, flexible and wearable devices, soft sensors, actuators, and robotics, jewelry and art decorations, land transportation, underwater devices, and porous structures.

Most of the current methods for programmable RNA drug therapies are unsuitable for the clinic due to low uptake efficiency and high cytotoxicity. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) could solve these problems because they represent a natural mode of intercellular communication. However, current cellular sources for EV production are limited in availability and safety in terms of horizontal gene transfer. One potentially ideal source could be human red blood cells (RBCs). Group O-RBCs can be used as universal donors for large-scale EV production since they are readily available in blood banks and they are devoid of DNA. Here, we describe and validate a new strategy to generate large-scale amounts of RBC-derived EVs for the delivery of RNA drugs, including antisense oligonucleotides, Cas9 mRNA, and guide RNAs. RNA drug delivery with RBCEVs shows highly robust microRNA inhibition and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in both human cells and xenograft mouse models, with no observable cytotoxicity.

Abstract Hydrogel materials are receiving increasing research interest due to their intriguing structures that consist of a crosslinked network of polymer chains with interstitial spaces filled with solvent water. This feature endows the materials with the characteristics of being both wet and soft, making them ideal candidates for electrolyte materials for flexible energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries that are under intensive studies nowadays. More importantly, the highly abundant and tunable chemistries of these hydrogels allow the introduction of novel functionalities into the existing hydrogels so that it is possible to fabricate unprecedented energy storage devices with additional functions. Here, the state‐of‐the‐art advances of the hydrogel materials for flexible energy storage devices including supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries are reviewed. In addition, devices with various kinds of functions, such as self‐healing, shape memory, and stretchability, are also included to stress the critical role of hydrogel materials. Furthermore, the challenges embedded in the current technologies are also highlighted and discussed with the hope to continually boost future research for the fast‐developing field.

Abstract Natural nitrogen cycle has been severely disrupted by anthropogenic activities. The overuse of N‐containing fertilizers induces the increase of nitrate level in surface and ground waters, and substantial emission of nitrogen oxides causes heavy air pollution. Nitrogen gas, as the main component of air, has been used for mass ammonia production for over a century, providing enough nutrition for agriculture to support world population increase. In the last decade, researchers have made great efforts to develop ammonia processes under ambient conditions to combat the intensive energy consumption and high carbon emission associated with the Haber–Bosch process. Among different techniques, electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO 3 RR) can achieve nitrate removal and ammonia generation simultaneously using renewable electricity as the power, and there is an exponential growth of studies in this research direction. Here, a timely and comprehensive review on the important progresses of electrochemical NO 3 RR, covering the rational design of electrocatalysts, emerging CN coupling reactions, and advanced energy conversion and storage systems is provided. Moreover, future perspectives are proposed to accelerate the industrialized NH 3 production and green synthesis of chemicals, leading to a sustainable nitrogen cycle via prosperous N‐based electrochemistry.

A field-effect transistor (FET) based on ultrathin Ti3C2–MXene micropatterns is developed and utilized as a highly sensitive biosensor. The device is produced with the microcontact printing technique, making use of its unique advantages for easy fabrication. Using the MXene–FET device, label-free probing of small molecules in typical biological environments and fast detection of action potentials in primary neurons is demonstrated. As a service to our authors and readers, this journal provides supporting information supplied by the authors. Such materials are peer reviewed and may be re-organized for online delivery, but are not copy-edited or typeset. Technical support issues arising from supporting information (other than missing files) should be addressed to the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

Emerging research toward next-generation flexible and wearable electronics has stimulated the efforts to build highly wearable, durable, and deformable energy devices with excellent electrochemical performances. Here, we develop a high-performance, waterproof, tailorable, and stretchable yarn zinc ion battery (ZIB) using double-helix yarn electrodes and a cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAM) electrolyte. Due to the high ionic conductivity of the PAM electrolyte and helix structured electrodes, the yarn ZIB delivers a high specific capacity and volumetric energy density (302.1 mAh g–1 and 53.8 mWh cm–3, respectively) as well as excellent cycling stability (98.5% capacity retention after 500 cycles). More importantly, the quasi-solid-state yarn ZIB also demonstrates superior knittability, good stretchability (up to 300% strain), and superior waterproof capability (high capacity retention of 96.5% after 12 h underwater operation). In addition, the long yarn ZIB can be tailored into short ones, and each part still functions well. Owing to its weavable and tailorable nature, a 1.1 m long yarn ZIB was cut into eight parts and woven into a textile that was used to power a long flexible belt embedded with 100 LEDs and a 100 cm2 flexible electroluminescent panel.