Anticholinergics are used in treating asthma, a chronic inflammation of the airways. These drugs block human M1 and M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, inhibiting bronchoconstriction. However, studies have reported complications of anticholinergic usage, such as exacerbated eosinophil production and worsened urinary retention. Modification of known anticholinergics using bioisosteric replacements to increase efficacy could potentially minimize these complications. The present study focuses on identifying viable analogs of anticholinergics to improve binding energy to the receptors compared to current treatment options. Glycopyrrolate (G), ipratropium (IB), and tiotropium bromide (TB) were chosen as parent drugs of interest, due to the presence of common functional groups within the molecules, specifically esters and alcohols. Docking score analysis via AutoDock Vina was used to evaluate the binding energy between drug analogs and the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. The final results suggest that G-A3, IB-A3, and TB-A1 are the most viable analogs, as binding energy was improved when compared to the parent drug. G-A4, IB-A4, IB-A5, TB-A3, and TB-A4 are also potential candidates, although there were slight regressions in binding energy to both muscarinic receptors for these analogs. By researching the effects of bioisosteric replacements of current anticholinergics, it is evident that there is a potential to provide asthmatics with more effective treatment options.

In this study the authors looked at sustainable ways to clean up oil spills that harm marine life. Using water spangle leaves and milk week the authors looked at the ability to recovery oil from both fresh and salt water and the ability to reuse the organic material to clean up spills. Their results show promise to help find a sustainable, eco-friendly way to clean up oil spills and protect marine life and habitats.

Ant colony optimization algorithms simulate ants moving from point to point on a graph and coordinate their actions, similar to ants laying down pheromones to strengthen a path as it is used more frequently. These ACO algorithms can be applied to the classic traveling salesman problem, which aims to determine the lowest-cost path through a given set of points on a graph. In this study, a novel multiple-colony system was developed that uses multiple simulated ant colonies to generate improved solutions to the traveling salesman problem.

Here, recognizing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on young peoples' mental health and wellbeing the authors used an online survey which included the short General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to probe 102 young adults. Overall they found that young adults perceived the pandemic to be detrimental to many areas of their wellbeing, with females and those aged 18-19 and 22-23 reporting to be the most significantly impacted.

In this study, the authors sought to find out how many mathematical solutions there were to the Indian mathematician Ramanujan's formula, which is a³ + b³ + c³ = d³, and also quantify the densities its solutions. They wrote their own computer program to do so and kept values of a, b, and c less than 10,000. While conducting the analysis, they were also looking for perfect power taxicab numbers and their frequency. They were able to find solutions and densities for the equation. Additionally, while they found that most perfect cube taxicab numbers had a frequency of 2 or 3, they also found on number with a frequency of 42!

Cosmic rays are high-energy astronomical particles originating from various sources across the universe. Here, The authors sought to understand how surface-level cosmic-ray muon flux is affected by atmospheric attenuation by measuring the variation in relative muon-flux rate relative to zenith angle, testing the hypothesis that muons follow an exponential attenuation model. The attenuation model predicts an attenuation length of 6.3 km. This result implies that only a maximum of 24% of muons can reach the Earth’s surface, due to both decay and atmospheric interactions.

Artificial sweeteners are rising in popularity, in part due to the influence of social media platforms like YouTube. However, YouTube commenters often repeat information about artificial sweeteners that is not supported by scientific research. To investigate how misinformation about sweeteners spreads through social media, Kim and Yoo conduct a content analysis of YouTube comments to reveal how many comments repeat misinformation about artificial sweeteners' effects.

Due to the increase in antimicrobial resistance, alternative medicinal therapies are being explored. Studies have shown that honey and ginger alone have antimicrobial effects on the genera Staphylococcus and Escherichia, including S. epidermidis and E. coli. The authors of this study tested whether a honey-ginger supplement, Jengimiel™, could be used as an antimicrobial agent against S. epidermidis and E. coli K-12.

Here, the authors sought to use Cladophora macroalgae as a possible antibiotic to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. However, when they observed algae extracts to be greatly contaminated with gram-negative bacteria, they adapted to explore the ability to use ultraviolet light as a bactericide. They found that treatment with ultraviolet light had a significant effect.

Reducing paint drying time is an important step in improving production efficiency and reducing costs. The authors hypothesized that decreased humidity would lead to faster drying, ultraviolet (UV) light exposure would not affect the paint colors differently, white light exposure would allow for longer wavelength colors to dry at a faster rate than shorter wavelength colors, and substrates with higher roughness would dry slower. Experiments showed that trials under high humidity dried slightly faster than trials under low humidity, contrary to the hypothesis. Overall, the paint drying process is very much dependent on its surrounding environment, and optimizing the drying process requires a thorough understanding of the environmental factors and their interactive effects with the paint constituents.