Alcohol use disorder is a chronic, relapsing disease that affects millions of Americans every day. There are limited treatment options for alcohol dependence and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, including depression and anxiety. Previous studies have shown that probiotics can decrease depression in rodents during maternal separation and anxiety in humans. Therefore, we hypothesized that the ethanol-withdrawn planaria who consumed probiotics would have decreased withdrawal symptoms as measured by increased motility compared to the ethanol-withdrawn planaria that were not fed probiotics. The ethanol-withdrawn planaria had a statistically significant decrease in motility compared to the control group, while the planaria that consumed probiotics had no statistically significant change in motility compared to the control group.

As the world moves towards more eco-friendly methods for chemical synthesis, there's a strong interest in employing enzymes in chemical synthetic processes. Here, the authors explore how the activity of enzymes such as trypsin, lipase and nattokinase is affected by the electronic effects of the substrate they are acting on.

Here, based on the identification of androgapholide as a potential therapeutic treatment against cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis, due to its ability to inhibit a signaling pathway in immune system function, the authors sought ways to optimize the natural product human systems by manipulating its chemical structure. Through the semisynthesis of a natural product along with computational studies, the authors developed an understanding of the kinetic mechanisms of andrographolide and semisynthetic analogs in the context of Michael additions.

Here, seeking a better solution to produce downforce that keeps a vehicle grounded at high speeds than wings which tend to result in degraded car performance due to increased air resistance, the authors considered using the Magnus effect as a replacement. The authors found that a spinning cylinder generated significantly more downforce through the Magnus effect than a standard wing at all wind speeds as simulated through the use of a leaf blower. They suggest that a cylinder could be a potential replacement for a wing when downforce is a priority.