Soft robots are those that can move like living organisms and adapt to the surrounding environment. Compared with traditional rigid robots, the advantages of soft robots, in terms of material flexibility, human–computer interaction, and biological ad...
In recent years, nanocarriers have played an ever-increasing role in clinical and biomedical applications owing to their unique physicochemical properties and surface functionalities. Lately, much effort has been directed towards the development of s...
Cordyceps militaris, a fungus widely used in traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology, is recognized for its abundant bioactive compounds, including cordycepin and carotenoids. The growth, development, and metabolite production in various fungi...
In the search for novel smart multifunctional liquid crystalline materials, we report the synthesis, thermal and structural characterisation, and the conductivity, of a set of new block and statistical copolymers, containing light-responsive mesogeni...
Cordyceps militaris is an edible fungus that produces many beneficial compounds, including cordycepin and carotenoid. In many fungi, growth, development and secondary metabolite production are controlled by crosstalk between light-signaling pathways...
The accumulation of chlorophyll and antinutritional glycoalkaloids in potato tubers resulting from exposure to light has been widely recognized as a cause of unpredictable quality loss of potato tuber. While transcriptional regulation of light-induce...
Photoresponsive nanomaterials have recently received great attention in the field of cancer therapy. Here, we report a photosensitizer-trapped gold nanocluster that can facilitate dual light-responsive cancer therapy. We utilized methylene blue (MB)...
Currently, controlled release formulations (CRFs) of pesticides in response to biotic and/or abiotic stimuli have shown great potential for providing “on-demand” smart release of loaded active ingredients. In this study, amphiphilic biopo...
Over the last decade, scientists have shifted their focus to the development of smart carriers for the delivery of chemotherapeutics in order to overcome the problems associated with traditional chemotherapy, such as poor aqueous solubility and bioav...
Background/Objectives: Conventional anticancer drugs often exhibit limited solubility and bioavailability due to unfavorable physicochemical properties and inherent physiological barriers. To overcome these persistent challenges, nanocarriers have be...
Conventional photocatalysts are primarily stimulated using ultraviolet (UV) light to elicit reactive oxygen species and have wide applications in environmental and energy fields, including self-cleaning surfaces and sterilization. Because UV illumina...
The non-specific and minimally selective nature of traditional drug administration methods, along with various other limitations, makes the use of drug delivery systems more favorable. Light-responsive, or light-triggered, drug delivery systems provi...
Conventional cell patterning methods are mainly based on hydrophilic/hydrophobic differences or chemical coating for cell adhesion/non-adhesion with wavering strength as it varies with the substrate surface conditions, including the cell type and the...
Diabetic wounds are therapeutically challenging because of the complex and adverse microenvironment that impedes healing. Unlike conventional wound dressings, hydrogels provide antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and repair-promoting functions. In this...
The detection and retrieval of specific single cells within a cell population is useful for elucidating cellular function as well as early-stage cancer diagnosis by detecting circulating tumor cells. Microcapillaries are used to retrieve specific sin...
“How would you build a robot, the size of a bacteria, powered by light, that would swim towards the light source, escape from it, or could be controlled by means of different light colors, intensities or polarizations?” This was the quest...
Here we report the dual light- and thermo-responsive behavior of well-defined rod-coil block copolymers composed of an azobenzene unit, 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl methacrylate (MEO2MA) and oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (OEGMA). Azobenzene-contain...
The current study evaluated the canopy cover competition for light and heat in a jujube–cotton intercropping system to measure the growth and yield performance of cotton, and the optimal cotton planting configuration. In this study, a two-year...
Here, we report on the fabrication of light-switchable and light-responsive membranes based on graphene oxide (GO) modified with azobenzene compounds. Azobenzene and para-aminoazobenzene were grafted onto graphene oxide layers by covalent attachment/...
Thanks to its innocuousness and high spatiotemporal resolution, light is used in several established and emerging applications in biomedicine. Among them is the modulation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents’ relaxivity with the...
Light is one the most important environmental factors regulating the accumulation of specific metabolites in plants, such as flavonoid. Chalcone synthase (CHS) is the key rate-limiting enzyme of the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, while little is kno...
Novel fibrous graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) derivatives prepared from metal organic frameworks (MOFs) were doped with Ce3+ (Ce-C3N4) as photocatalytic materials. Ce-C3N4 was characterized using various techniques, revealing its high specific surf...
The rational design of small building block molecules and understanding their molecular assemblies are of fundamental importance in creating new stimuli-responsive organic architectures with desired shapes and functions. Based on the experimental res...
RING-zf E3 ligases play key roles in plant development and light signaling, but their genome-wide characterization and light-responsive functions in potatoes remain largely unexplored. In this study, we identified 291 StRING-zf genes containing compl...
In this work, we describe the phase behaviour and the dielectric and conductivity response of new light-responsive ionic liquid crystals, ILCs, which can be applied as controllable electrolytes. The materials include two different dicationic viologen...
Accurate photosynthetic parameters obtained from photosynthetic light-response curves (LRCs) are crucial for enhancing our comprehension of plant photosynthesis. However, the task of fitting LRCs is still demanding due to diverse variations in LRCs u...
A significant amount of academic and industrial research efforts are devoted to the encapsulation of active substances within micro- or nanocarriers. The ultimate goal of core–shell systems is the protection of the encapsulated substance from the env...
Light is necessary for primordium differentiation and fruiting body development for most edible fungi; however, light perception and signal transduction have only been well studied in model fungi. In this study, a hierarchical network of transcriptio...
Thiol-based redox regulation ensures light-responsive control of chloroplast functions. Light-derived signal is transferred in the form of reducing power from the photosynthetic electron transport chain to several redox-sensitive target proteins. Two...
Most of reported polymeric light-responsive nanocarriers make use of UV light to trigger morphological changes and the subsequent release of encapsulated cargoes. Moving from UV- to visible-responsive units is interesting for the potential biomedical...
The application of light-responsive nanomaterials (LRNs) in bone tissue engineering shows broad prospects, especially in promoting bone healing and regeneration. With a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of bone defects and healing disorders, LRN...
Stimulus-responsive hydrogels are an important member of smart materials owing to their reversibility, soft/wet properties, and biocompatibility, which have a wide range of applications in the field of intelligent actuations. However, poor mechanical...
An integrated solution providing a bi-stable antenna with reconfigurable performance and light-responsive behavior is presented in this paper for the first time. The proposed antenna includes a radiation layer with conductivity, which is integrated o...
In the present study, we developed near-infrared (NIR)-responsive shell-crosslinked (SCL) micelles using the Diels–Alder (DA) click reaction between an amphiphilic copolymer poly(d,l-lactide)20-b-poly((furfuryl methacrylate)10-co-(N-acryloylmor...
This study analyzes stomatal conductance (gsc) in Trifolium repens L., Lolium perenne L., and Triticum aestivum L. under varying environmental conditions. Light-response curves for photosynthesis (An–I) at 420 μmol mol−1 CO2 were used...
In this study, a highly stable light-responsive superhydrophobic paper was successfully fabricated. The process involved polymerizing the synthesized light-responsive monomer PAPAE with the hydrophilic monomer 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate(HEMA), the f...
This study presents an introduction to a new type of ultraviolet (UV) light intensity sensor using photo-rheological (PR) fluids whose properties, such as color, can be changed by UV light. When the PR fluids were irradiated by UV light, colorimetric...
Rice is the major staple food crop for more than 50% of the world’s total population, and its production is of immense importance for global food security. As a photophilic plant, its yield is governed by the quality and duration of light. Like...
The locomotor behavior of creatures in nature can bring a lot of inspiration for the fabrication of soft actuators. In this paper, we fabricated a bionic light-driven swimming soft robot that can perform grasping of tiny objects and achieve the task...
A novel technique for the covalent attachment of a light-responsive spiropyran onto polyamide thin film composite nanofiltration (NF) membranes in a one-step reaction using low-energy electron beam technology is described. The effect of illumination...
Light-sensitive polymeric micelles have recently emerged as promising drug delivery systems for spatiotemporally controlled release of payload at target sites. Here, we developed diazonaphthoquinone (DNQ)-conjugated micellar nanoparticles that showed...
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in stimuli-responsive host–guest materials due to the high potential for their application in switchable devices. Light is the most convenient stimulus for operating these materials; a ligh...
Here, we present a photothermally triggered drug delivery nanosystem MoS2-NIMO-CHIT-SH, using the thiolated chitosan (CHIT-SH)-modified molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets as near-infrared (NIR) photo-responsive carriers, loaded with the dihydropy...
The root is an important organ for obtaining nutrients and absorbing water and carbohydrates, and it depends on various endogenous and external environmental stimulations such as light, temperature, water, plant hormones, and metabolic constituents....
The synthesis of light-responsive nanocarriers (LRNs) with a variety of surface functional groups and/or ligands has been intensively explored for space-temporal controlled cargo release. LRNs have been designed on demand for photodynamic-, photother...
We report a near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive hydrogel that is capable of undergoing the gel to sol transition upon 785 nm light exposure based on a photothermal effect. The new hydrogel design relies on loading gold nanorods (AuNRs) in an ABA-typ...
Light acts as a complex signal, influencing various plant physiological, phenological and morphogenetic traits. Although previous studies have explored the effects of varying light levels on branch growth and survival, the underlying mechanisms of br...
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii) is a single-cell green alga that can be easily genetically manipulated. With its favorable characteristics of rapid growth, low cost, non-toxicity, and the ability for post-translational protein modification...
Plants can be grouped into sun- and shade-type owing to their distinct irradiance adaptation. Aglaonema commutatum is a typical shade-tolerant perennial foliage plant native to South Asia with various leaf colorations. ‘Red’ cultivars are...
Soft robots with good deformability and adaptability have important prospects in the bionics and intelligence field. However, current research into soft robots is primarily limited to the study of actuators and ignores the integrated use of functiona...
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