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ABSTRACT Drosophila’s innate response to gravity, geotaxis, has been used to assess the impact of aging and disease on motor performance. Despite its rich history, fly geotaxis continues to be largely measured manually and assessed through simplistic metrics, limiting analytic insights into the behavior. Here, we have constructed a fully programmable apparatus and developed a multi-object tracking software capable of following sub-second movements of individual flies, thus allowing quantitative analysis of geotaxis. The apparatus monitors 10 fly cohorts simultaneously, with each cohort consisting of up to 7 flies. The software tracks single flies during the entire run with ∼97% accuracy, yielding detailed climbing curve, speed and movement direction with 1/30 s resolution. Our tracking permits the construction of multi-variable metrics and the detection of transitory movement phenotypes, such as slips and falls. The platform is therefore poised to advance Drosophila geotaxis assay into a comprehensive assessment of locomotor behavior. 

Complex fluid interfaces are commonplace in natural and engineered systems and a major topic in the fields of rheology and soft matter physics, providing boundary conditions for a system’s hydrodynamics. The relationship between structure and function dictates how constituents within complex fluids govern flow behavior via constituents changing conformation in response to the local microenvironment to minimize free energy. Both hydrodynamics, such as shear flow, and the presence of air–liquid interfaces are principal aspects of a complex fluid’s environment. The study of fluid interfaces coupled to bulk flows can be uniquely advanced through experimentation in microgravity, where surface tension containment can be achieved at relatively large length scales. This computational investigation assesses flow in the ring-sheared drop (RSD), a containerless biochemical reactor operating aboard the International Space Station for the study of complex fluids and soft matter physics. Specifically, the hydrodynamic effects of a generalized Boussinesq–Scriven interface with a shear-thinning surface shear viscosity are examined in flow regimes where the air–liquid interface remains coupled to the Newtonian bulk fluid. The results verify this interfacial model’s ability to affect system-wide hydrodynamics under specific parameter regimes, enabling future model validation with high-precision rheological measurements. 

Since the COVID-19 Pandemic began, there have been several efforts to create new technology to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic around the world. One of those efforts is to design a new task force, robots, to deal with fundamental goals such as public safety, clinical care, and continuity of work. However, those characteristics need new products based on features that create them more innovatively and creatively. Those products could be designed using the S4 concept (sensing, smart, sustainable, and social features) presented as a concept able to create a new generation of products. This paper presents a low-cost robot, Robocov, designed as a rapid response against the COVID-19 Pandemic at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, with implementations of artificial intelligence and the S4 concept for the design. Robocov can achieve numerous tasks using the S4 concept that provides flexibility in hardware and software. Thus, Robocov can impact positivity public safety, clinical care, continuity of work, quality of life, laboratory and supply chain automation, and non-hospital care. The mechanical structure and software development allow Robocov to complete support tasks effectively so Robocov can be integrated as a technological tool for achieving the new normality’s required conditions according to government regulations. Besides, the reconfiguration of the robot for moving from one task (robot for disinfecting) to another one (robot for detecting face masks) is an easy endeavor that only one operator could do. Robocov is a teleoperated system that transmits information by cameras and an ultrasonic sensor to the operator. In addition, pre-recorded paths can be executed autonomously. In terms of communication channels, Robocov includes a speaker and microphone. Moreover, a machine learning algorithm for detecting face masks and social distance is incorporated using a pre-trained model for the classification process. One of the most important contributions of this paper is to show how a reconfigurable robot can be designed under the S3 concept and integrate AI methodologies. Besides, it is important that this paper does not show specific details about each subsystem in the robot. 

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Mononuclear non-heme iron enzymes are a large class of enzymes catalyzing a wide-range of reactions. In this work, we report that a non-heme iron enzyme in Methyloversatilis thermotolerans , OvoA Mtht, has two different activities, as a thiol oxygenase and a sulfoxide synthase. When cysteine is presented as the only substrate, OvoA Mtht is a thiol oxygenase. In the presence of both histidine and cysteine as substrates, OvoA Mtht catalyzes the oxidative coupling between histidine and cysteine (a sulfoxide synthase). Additionally, we demonstrate that both substrates and the active site iron's secondary coordination shell residues exert exquisite control over the dual activities of OvoA Mtht (sulfoxide synthase vs. thiol oxygenase activities). OvoA Mtht is an excellent system for future detailed mechanistic investigation on how metal ligands and secondary coordination shell residues fine-tune the iron-center electronic properties to achieve different reactivities. 

Blind and sighted persons can now share and visualize the same piece of data using tactile graphics that glow in ambient light. 

Handheld models help students visualize three-dimensional (3D) objects, especially students with blindness who use large 3D models to visualize imagery by hand. The mouth has finer tactile sensors than hand, which could improve visualization using microscopic models that are portable, inexpensive, and disposable. The mouth remains unused in tactile learning. Here, we created bite-size 3D models of protein molecules from “gummy bear” gelatin or nontoxic resin. Models were made as small as rice grain and could be coded with flavor and packaged like candy. Mouth, hands, and eyesight were tested at identifying specific structures. Students recognized structures by mouth at 85.59% accuracy, similar to recognition by eyesight using computer animation. Recall accuracy of structures was higher by mouth than hand for 40.91% of students, equal for 31.82%, and lower for 27.27%. The convenient use of entire packs of tiny, cheap, portable models can make 3D imagery more accessible to students. 

Abstract PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA’s M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2R$$_\textrm{Earth}$$ $_{\text{Earth}}^{}$) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5%, 10%, 10% for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO‘s target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile towards the end of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases.