This work is part of the project “Humanity as a Forgotten Olympic Discipline” which represents a humanitarian expedition where an athlete will be enduring 13 days of a triathlon starting at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finishing at the top of the Olympus Mountain in Greece. The primary goal of this project was to collect financial resources for the purpose of treating patients with cancer. Through his actions, the triathlon athlete faced extreme challenges which symbolically represent a battle full of ups and downs which these patients are fighting each day. A triathlon is a sport that requires skills, effort, endurance and motivation. It combines three sports disciplines: running, cycling, and swimming. The athlete was engaged in these disciplines during his venture to the Olympus Mountain. Most important aspect of this humanitarian expedition was the power of will. The will to succeed equals the will to get well. In these extreme circumstances, the athlete had support from his team: project coordinator, Doctor of Medicine, nutritionist, mountain climbing expert and photographer. Due to daily exhausting physical activity, the role of nutritionist played a significant part in his endeavor. Hence, the dietary plan was adapted to the conditions of staying in camper vans and facing unexpected challenges. Used methods were: Anthropometry (height, weight, BMI); instrument based on bioelectrical impedance method (BIA); software Program Prehrane 5.0; creating a dietary plan for 11 days including food preferences, energy needs and endurance parameters. Expected outcome refers to meeting the nutritional needs of the athlete with the aim of maintaining endurance and energy.

Triggered by advances in atomic-layer exfoliation and growth techniques, along with the identification of a wide range of extraordinary physical properties in self-standing films consisting of one or a few atomic layers, two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and other van der Waals (vdW) crystals now constitute a broad research field expanding in multiple directions through the combination of layer stacking and twisting, nanofabrication, surface-science methods, and integration into nanostructured environments. Photonics encompasses a multidisciplinary subset of those directions, where 2D materials contribute remarkable nonlinearities, long-lived and ultraconfined polaritons, strong excitons, topological and chiral effects, susceptibility to external stimuli, accessibility, robustness, and a completely new range of photonic materials based on layer stacking, gating, and the formation of moiré patterns. These properties are being leveraged to develop applications in electro-optical modulation, light emission and detection, imaging and metasurfaces, integrated optics, sensing, and quantum physics across a broad spectral range extending from the far-infrared to the ultraviolet, as well as enabling hybridization with spin and momentum textures of electronic band structures and magnetic degrees of freedom. The rapid expansion of photonics with 2D materials as a dynamic research arena is yielding breakthroughs, which this Roadmap summarizes while identifying challenges and opportunities for future goals and how to meet them through a wide collection of topical sections prepared by leading practitioners.

Introduction Ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (SCA), a deadly gynecologic cancer, often goes undetected until the late stages. Tissue proteomics unveils disease heterogeneity, enhancing tumor classification and enabling personalized treatments tailored to individual expression profiles. Material and methods Tissue samples from 46 serous ovarian tumors were quantified using label-free liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. We identified 80 proteins differentiating SCA from borderline tumors, 277 distinguishing SCA from benign tumors, and 195 between borderline and benign tumors. Ingenuity pathway analysis revealed increased cell proliferation and RNA processing in SCA and borderline tumors compared to benign tumors, with SCA showing greater oxidative phosphorylation than borderline tumors. Results Our comparative analysis indicates that upregulated (ASS1 – argininosuccinate synthase 1, CAPS, PPA1, BCAT1, MCM4) and downregulated proteins (MUC5B, SLC4A1, tenascin-XB – TNXB, carbonic anhydrase 1, hemoglobin β) may offer a robust panel for distinguishing SCA from benign and borderline ovarian tumors, potentially aiding in early diagnosis and disease monitoring. The cancer-associated proteins pyridoxal dependent decarboxylase domain containing 1 (AUC: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.66–1), GFPT1 (AUC: 0.84, CI: 0.70–0.89), and HYOU1 (AUC: 0.84, CI: 0.70–0.98) significantly differentiated between low-grade (LGSCA) and high-grade serous cystadenocarcinoma (HGSCA). Low-grade SCA showed significantly greater levels of MZB1 (log2 fold change (FC): –1.951, p-value: 0.0258), CRABP2 (FC: –2.34, p-value: 0.0016), and BCAM (FC: –1.945, p-value: 0.0197) than borderline cancers. Conclusions Argininosuccinate synthase 1 and TNXB showed potential as markers of disease progression. Elevated ASS1 was observed in borderline, LGSCA, and HGSCA tumors compared to benign tumors, while TNXB levels progressively declined from benign to borderline, LGSCA, and HGSCA tumors. Our study pinpoints critical biomarkers in serous ovarian tumors for HGSCA progression.

The accumulation of electrochemically produced bubbles is inevitable in gas-evolving reactions and can induce potential losses by theoretically increasing activation, concentration, and ohmic overpotentials. These effects are often either overstated or completely neglected in the literature, which complicates the accurate analysis of experimental results for gas evolution reactions. This study systematically identifies and quantifies the overpotential losses induced by bubbles by combining experimental results for hydrogen (HER) and oxygen evolution reactions (OER), obtained using the rotating disk electrode (RDE) technique, with simulations based on a two-dimensional transmission line model. Our results show that ohmic overpotential is the primary cause of apparent activity loss due to bubbles in RDE. This effect leads to catalyst activity misestimates exceeding 2 orders of magnitude, and Tafel slope errors of 100% at higher currents if left uncorrected. By identifying these effects, this work provides a robust framework for mitigating inaccuracies and improving the characterization of electrocatalysts for gas evolution reactions.

Spatial transcriptomics has revolutionized our understanding of tissue organization by simultaneously capturing gene expression and spatial localization within intact tissues. However, analyzing these increasingly complex datasets requires specialized expertise across computational biology, statistics, and biological context. To address this challenge, we introduce the Spatial Transcriptomics AI Agent (STAgent), an autonomous multimodal agentic AI that integrates multimodal large language models (LLMs) with specialized computational tools to transform weeks-long analysis tasks into minutes of automated processing. Unlike conventional machine learning approaches that are limited to narrow, predefined tasks, STAgent leverages the emergent capabilities of multimodal LLMs – such as flexible reasoning, contextual understanding, and cross-modal integration – which allow it to adapt to novel data, execute multi-step analyses, and generate biologically meaningful insights with minimal human input. STAgent enables autonomous deep research through integrated capabilities, including dynamic code generation for complex analytical workflows, visual reasoning for interpreting spatial patterns, real-time retrieval of relevant peer-reviewd scientific literature, and synthesis of comprehensive, actionable reports. We applied STAgent to investigate the in vivo maturation of human stem cell-derived pancreatic cells (SC-pancreas) transplanted into immunodeficient mice. We generated single-cell spatial transcriptomics data spanning multiple developmental timepoints. STAgent autonomously (1) identified the maturation of initially scattered endocrine cells into well-defined islet-like structures, with predominantly peripheral α-cells surrounding β-cell cores supported by an expanding mesenchymal network; (2) revealed strengthening endocrine-endocrine cell interactions over time and, through context-aware gene set analysis, uncovered spatially resolved biological processes driving maturation; (3) unlike traditional analytical approaches, STAgent offers mechanistic explanations of spatial patterns, contextualizing findings with relevant literatures and developing cohesive insights into human pancreatic development. This agentic approach establishes a new paradigm in spatial transcriptomics analysis by substantially lowering the expertise barrier and reducing analysis time, accelerating biological and biomedical discovery.

This summary of the second Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry (TVLBAI) Workshop provides a comprehensive overview of our meeting held in London in April 2024 (Second Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop, Imperial College, April 2024), building on the initial discussions during the inaugural workshop held at CERN in March 2023 (First Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop, CERN, March 2023). Like the summary of the first workshop (Abend et al. in AVS Quantum Sci. 6:024701, 2024), this document records a critical milestone for the international atom interferometry community. It documents our concerted efforts to evaluate progress, address emerging challenges, and refine strategic directions for future large-scale atom interferometry projects. Our commitment to collaboration is manifested by the integration of diverse expertise and the coordination of international resources, all aimed at advancing the frontiers of atom interferometry physics and technology, as set out in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by over 50 institutions (Memorandum of Understanding for the Terrestrial Very Long Baseline Atom Interferometer Study).

This article is concerned with qualitative and quantitative refinements of the concepts of the log-convexity and log-concavity of positive sequences. A new class of tempered sequences is introduced, its basic properties are established and several interesting examples are provided. The new class extends the class of log-balanced sequences by including the sequences of similar growth rates, but of the opposite log-behavior. Special attention is paid to the sequences defined by two- and three-term linear recurrences with constant coefficients. For the special cases of generalized Fibonacci and Lucas sequences, we graphically illustrate the domains of their log-convexity and log-concavity. For an application, we establish the concyclicity of the points a2na2n+1,1a2n+1 for some classes of Horadam sequences (an) with positive terms.

Background: The main feature of osteoarthritis (OA) is the deterioration of articular cartilage, but numerous studies have demonstrated the role of synovial inflammation in the early stages of the disease, leading to further progression of OA. The WNT signaling pathway is involved in numerous activities in joint tissue, but there is a lack of evidence considering the role of WNT in OA synovitis. Our research aims to investigate the expression of WNT Family Member 5A/B (WNT5A/B), β-catenin, acetyl-α-tubulin, Dishevelled-1 (DVL-1), and Inversin (INV) in the synovial membrane of osteoarthritis (OA) hips. Methods: The immunohistochemical expressions of the aforementioned proteins in the synovial membrane were analyzed and compared with samples of control group participants with fractured femoral necks. Results: The immunoexpression of acetyl-α-tubulin was significantly increased in the intima (p < 0.0001) and subintima (p < 0.0001) of the group with OA compared with the intima and subintima of the control group. At the same time, acetyl-α-tubulin was also more highly expressed in the intima of the OA group than in the subintima of the OA group (p < 0.05); we found the same expression pattern in the control group (p < 0.0001). The differential analysis of the GEO dataset did not show significant differences between the osteoarthritis (OA) and control groups in the expression of TUBA1A. β-catenin was significantly increased in the subintima (p < 0.01) of the group with OA compared to the subintima of the control group. WNT expression has significantly higher positivity in the subintima than in the intima, especially in the control group (p < 0.01). WNT5A and WNT5B were significantly down-regulated in OA compared to the control in the differential analysis of the GEO dataset. The expression of INV and DVL-1 in our study and the differential analysis of the GEO dataset did not differ significantly between the osteoarthritis (OA) and control groups. Conclusions: Based on our results, we suggest that acetyl-α-tubulin and β-catenin might be involved in synovial membrane inflammation in OA and serve as potential therapeutic targets.

Background: Different dietary components can affect hematological and biochemical profiles, potentially causing pathohistological changes in liver and kidney tissue. Aim: The animals in the experiment consumed various bakery and meat products, and ultimately, the potential effects on hematological, biochemical, and pathological parameters were evaluated. Methods: The study involved 24 clinically healthy adult rats, randomized into three groups of eight rats each, as follows: rats that consumed meat products (group M), rats that consumed bakery products (group H), and a control group that consumed conventional rodent food (group K) for 7 weeks. After 7 weeks, hematological and biochemical blood analyses were conducted along with pathohistological examinations of the liver and kidneys. Results: Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed among groups for several hematological and biochemical parameters, including creatinine (CREA), urea, blood urea nitrogen /CREA, calcium, alanine transaminase, alkaline phosphatase, and lipase. Consuming meat products had a less favorable impact on the occurrence of kidney function disorders. Group H exhibited significant differences in leukocyte and platelet counts compared with groups M and K. Extreme echinocytosis was recorded in group M, whereas sideropenic anemia was prominent in group H. Analysis of the livers of rats in groups K and H did not show significant differences in the observed parameters (gamma-glutamyl transferase and total bilirubin), whereas group M had a significantly higher degree of hepatocyte degeneration and steatosis, and the observed infiltrate was also more pronounced, but not significantly. The kidneys of group M showed discrete alterations of the microstructure, i.e., slightly increased cellularity of renal corpuscles and hypertrophy of proximal nephrocyte, whereas the kidney tissue of group K had a regular appearance. Conclusion: Consuming meat products was associated with adverse liver and kidney changes, whereas bakery products led to sideropenic anemia and altered hematological values.