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Chronic itch is a debilitating symptom associated with many dermatological and systemic diseases. Rodent behavioral models that distinguish pain and itch responses remain limited. Our previous studies have examined behavioral responses of mice to chemicals delivered to the plantar glabrous skin and suggested that glabrous skin biting is associated with itch sensation whereas licking represents pain sensation, establishing a new mouse behavioral model to differentiate pain and itch responses in the glabrous skin. To provide further validation of this model, we here investigated behavioral responses following intraplantar injection of multiple pruritogens to examine if they can effectively evoke biting behavior. We show that most of the tested pruritogens induced dose-dependent responses. PAR2 peptide agonist SLIGRL selectively evoked licking, whereas deoxycholic acid (DCA) selectively induced biting. 5-HT triggered licking with a low concentration and both licking and biting with a higher concentration. IL-31 and allergen ovalbumin evoked both licking and biting. Importantly, morphine abolished capsaicin-induced licking but not biting induced by Bam8-22 or DCA, confirming that glabrous skin biting represents an itch-associated nocifensive behavior. Together, our results establish a robust model to differentiate between pain and itch and provide a platform for investigating mechanisms underlying glabrous skin itch. 

We present a cavity-enhanced solid-state nuclear spin gyroscope based on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. With the two-field interference, we indicate a state-of-the-art rotation sensitivity and pave the way for advancements in high-performance quantum sensing. 

A novel amphibious strain sensor with a periodic cut pattern and a unique interface design offers an unprecedented combination of high gauge factor, linear sensing response, and excellent stability in water/saline solution. 

Abstract Soft robots with exceptional adaptability and versatility have opened new possibilities for applications in complex and dynamic environments. Thermal actuation has emerged as a promising method among various actuation strategieis, offering distinct advantages such as programmability, light weight, low actuation voltage, and untethered operation. This review provides a comprehensive overview of soft thermal actuators, focusing on their heating mechanisms, material innovations, structural designs, and emerging applications. Heat generation mechanisms including Joule heating, electromagnetic induction, and electromagnetic radiation and heat transfer mechanisms such as fluid convection are discussed. Advances in materials are grouped into two areas: heating materials, primarily based on nanomaterials, and thermally responsive materials including hydrogels, liquid crystal elastomers, and shape‐memory polymers. Structural designs, such as extension, bending, twisting, and 3D deformable configurations, are explored for enabling complex and precise movements. Applications of soft thermal actuators span environmental exploration, gripping and manipulation, biomedical devices for rehabilitation and surgery, and interactive systems for virtual/augmented reality and therapy. The review concludes with an outlook on challenges and future directions, emphasizing the need for further improvement in speed, energy efficiency, and intelligent soft robotic systems. By bridging fundamental principles with cutting‐edge applications, this review aims to inspire further advancements in the field of thermally actuated soft robotics. 

Soft robots often draw inspiration from nature to navigate different environments. Although the inching motion and crawling motion of caterpillars have been widely studied in the design of soft robots, the steering motion with local bending control remains challenging. To address this challenge, we explore modular origami units which constitute building blocks for mimicking the segmented caterpillar body. Based on this concept, we report a modular soft Kresling origami crawling robot enabled by electrothermal actuation. A compact and lightweight Kresling structure is designed, fabricated, and characterized with integrated thermal bimorph actuators consisting of liquid crystal elastomer and polyimide layers. With the modular design and reprogrammable actuation, a multiunit caterpillar-inspired soft robot composed of both active units and passive units is developed for bidirectional locomotion and steering locomotion with precise curvature control. We demonstrate the modular design of the Kresling origami robot with an active robotic module picking up cargo and assembling with another robotic module to achieve a steering function. The concept of modular soft robots can provide insight into future soft robots that can grow, repair, and enhance functionality. 

Abstract Plants are essential for life as we know it on Earth. They oxygenate the atmosphere, regulate the climate, and comprise much of the primary producers underpinning complex food systems. In the 1980s, a multinational group of plant scientists chose the small angiosperm—Arabidopsis thaliana—to serve as the model flowering plant for genetic and molecular studies that would be leveraged to produce vast new datasets, resources, and tools. The rationale they used to persuade funding agencies to make significant investments and focus intense effort on this single plant species was to produce a deep fundamental knowledge of the biology of plants and to apply this knowledge to valuable, but typically less tractable, plant species. Over the past 40 yr, Arabidopsis has emerged as the most powerful and versatile plant model to uncover core biological principles and served as a prototyping system to test advanced molecular and genetic concepts. We argue that the emerging challenges of accelerating climate instability and a rapidly growing global population call for renewed and robust investments in fundamental plant biology research. Leveraging the power of Arabidopsis research, resources, datasets, and global collaborative community is more important than ever. This commentary lays out a vigorous defense of foundational, i.e. “basic,” plant science research; describes that often, Arabidopsis is preferable to working directly in crops; highlights several transformative applications generated from basic plant research; and makes the argument that plant science is vital to the survival of humanity. 

The hope for a futuristic global quantum internet that provides robust and high-capacity quantum information transfer lies largely on qudits, the fundamental quantum information carriers prepared in high-dimensional superposition states. However, preparing and manipulating N-dimensional flying qudits as well as subsequently establishing their entanglement are still challenging tasks, which require precise and simultaneous maneuver of 2 (N-1) parameters across multiple degrees of freedom. Here, using an integrated approach, we explore the synergy from two degrees of freedom of light, spatial mode and polarization, to generate, encode, and manipulate flying structured photons and their formed qudits in a four-dimensional Hilbert space with high quantum fidelity, intrinsically enabling enhanced noise resilience and higher quantum data rates. The four eigen spin–orbit modes of our qudits possess identical spatial–temporal characteristics in terms of intensity distribution and group velocity, thereby preserving long-haul coherence within the entirety of the quantum data transmission link. Judiciously leveraging the bi-photon entanglement, which is well preserved in the integrated manipulation process, we present versatile spin–orbit cluster states in an extensive dimensional Hilbert space. Such cluster states hold the promise for quantum error correction which can further bolster the channel robustness in long-range quantum communication.