Wearing face masks has become a common occurrence in everyday life and during athletics due to the spread of diseases. This study tested if masks would affect blood percent saturation of hemoglobin (SpO₂) during treadmill exercise. The data analysis showed that mask type, time, and the interaction of mask type and time were significant results, regardless of physical ability. These results may assist athletes in understanding the differences between training and competing with and without a mask.

Catalase is a critical enzyme in the human body because it is capable of converting potentially dangerous hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. This work asks whether ethanol affects catalase activity, as alcohol consumption has been often linked to hepatitis occurring in the liver, where catalase level is especially high, and ethanol is known to be capable of denaturing proteins. Testing different concentrations of ethanol found that higher concentrations reduced the activity of catalase. This work has important implications on the negative effects of ethanol on metabolism, in which catalase plays an important role, and protein function more broadly.

Seeking to develop a better understanding of the chemical and physical properties of amino acids that compose proteins, here the authors investigated the unusual relative insolubility of racemic mixtures of D- and L-serine compared to the solubility of pure D- or L-serine. The authors used a combination of microscopy and temperature measurements alongside previous X-ray diffraction studies to conclude that racemic DL-serine crystals consist of comparatively stronger hydrogen bond interactions compared to crystals of pure enantiomers. These stronger interactions were found to result in the unique release of heat during the crystallization of racemic mixtures.

In this study, the authors surveyed a number of students in Singapore to determine how their experiences changed after the implementation of home-based learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, the authors survey middle and high school students in different states in the U.S. to evaluate stress levels, learning experiences, and activity levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors explore how similar exoplanets are to Earth and whether they could be inhabited by humans and other living organisms.

Studies show an age-related link between Alzheimer’s Disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus with oxidative stress a characteristic of both. Here, methanolic fractionations and extracts of four Ayurvedic plants were assessed for their protective abilities using a number of in vitro assays. Extracts inhibited oxidative stress and reduced activity of key enzymes involved in the pathogenesis of both diseases in neuroblastoma cells.

Optical reporters like tetrazolium dyes, exemplified by 5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT), are effective tools for quantifying cellular responses under experimental conditions. These dyes assess cell viability by producing brightly-colored formazan dyes when reduced inside active cells. However, certain small molecules, including reducing agents like ascorbic acid, cysteine, and glutathione (GSH), can interfere with MTT assays, potentially compromising accuracy.

Here, through protein-ligand docking, the authors investigated the effect of the interaction of emodin with serine/threonine kinases, a subclass of kinases that is overexpressed in many cancers, which is implicated in phosphorylation cascades. Through molecular dynamics theyfound that emodin forms favorable interactions with chitosan and chitosan PEG (polyethylene glycol) copolymers, which could aid in loading drugs into nanoparticles (NPs) for targeted delivery to cancerous tissue. Both polymers demonstrated reasonable entrapment efficiencies, which encourages experimental exploration of emodin through targeted drug delivery vehicles and their anticancer activity.

Here, seeking to better understand the effects of gadolinium-based contrast agents, dyes typically used for MRI scans, the authors evaluated the activity of catalase found in beef liver both with and without gadodiamide when exposed to hydrogen peroxide. They found that gadioamide did not significantly inhibit catalase's activity, attributing this lack of effects to the chelating agent found in gadodiamide.