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In this study, the authors investigate the effects that microplastics (which pollute fresh and saltwater ecosystems) have on plankton species Daphnia Magna by measuring their movement and viability.

In this article, the authors explored the locomotory movement of Euglena sp. and Tetrahymena pyriformis in response to light. Such research bears relevance to the migration and distribution patterns of both T. pyriformis and Euglena as they differ in their method of finding sustenance in their native environments. With little previous research done on the exploration of a potential response to photostimulation enacted by T. pyriformis, the authors found that T. pyriformis do not bias in distribution towards areas of light - unlike Euglena, which displayed an increased prevalence in areas of light.

Here, seeking to develop more efficient solar cells, the authors investigated photo-electrochemical (PEC) solar cells, specifically molybdenum diselenide (MoSe₂) based on its high resistance to corrosion. They found that the percentage efficiency of these PEC solar cells was proportional to light intensity^–0.9 and that performance was positively influenced by increasing the electrolyte volume. They suggest that studies such as these can lead to new insight into reaction-based solar cells.

Berberine, a natural product alkaloid, has been shown to exert biological activity via in situ production of singlet oxygen when photo irradiated. Berberine utilizes singlet oxygen in its putative mechanism of action, wherein it forms an activated complex with DNA and photosensitizes triplet oxygen to singlet oxygen to specifically oxidize guanine residues, thereby halting cell replication and leading to cell death. This has potential application in photodynamic therapy, alongside other such compounds which also act as photosensitizers and produce singlet oxygen in situ. The quantification of singlet oxygen in various photosensitizers, including berberine, is essential for determining their photosensitizer efficiencies. We postulated that the singlet oxygen produced by photoirradiation of berberine would be superior in terms of singlet oxygen production to the aforementioned photosensitizers when irradiated with UV light, but inferior under visible light conditions, due to its strong absorbance of UV wavelengths.

Here, the authors investigated the most efficient way to position magnets to hold the most pieces of paper on the surface of a refrigerator. They used a regression model along with an artificial neural network to identify the most efficient positions of four magnets to be at the vertices of a rectangle.

In this study, the authors develop a new hydrogel using photochemical crosslinking with bovine serum albumin and methylene blue. They find that this new hydrogel has some useful applications!

Here, the authors characterize how silver ions nucleate a star-block copolymer to generate nano-sized silver particles.

In this study, the authors investigated the time-dependent cytokine secretion ability of phyto-hemagglutinin (PHA)-activated T cells derived from human peripheral (PB) and cord blood (CB). They hypothesized that the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-10, and pro-inflammatory cytokine, TNFα, levels would be higher in PHA-activated T cells obtained from PB as compared to the levels obtained from CB and would decrease over time. Upon PHA-activation, the IL-10 levels were relatively high while the TNFα levels decreased, making these findings applicable in therapeutic treatments e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and organ transplantation.

The authors use pictures of candy wrappers and neural networks to improve nutritional accuracy of diet-tracking apps.

In this study, the authors looked at a proto-oncogene, KRAS, and searched for molecules that are predicted to be able to bind to the inactive form of KRAS. They found that a modified version of Irbesartan, a derivative of benzimidazole, showed the best binding to inactive KRAS.