Neuronal activity in the anterior paraventricular nucleus of thalamus positively correlated with sweetener consumption in mice.

Although the brain can discriminate between various sweet substances, the underlying neural mechanisms of this complex behavior remain elusive. This study examines the role of the anterior paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (aPVT) in governing sweet preference in mice. We fed the mice six different diets with equal sweetness for six weeks: control diet (CD), high sucrose diet (HSD), high stevioside diet (HSSD), high xylitol diet (HXD), high glycyrrhizin diet (HGD), and high mogroside diet (HMD). The mice exhibited a marked preference specifically for the HSD and HSSD. Following consumption of these diets, c-Fos expression levels in the aPVT were significantly higher in these two groups compared to the others. Utilizing fiber photometry calcium imaging, we observed rapid activation of aPVT neurons in response to sucrose and stevioside intake, but not to xylitol or water. Our findings suggest that aPVT activity aligns with sweet preference in mice, and notably, stevioside is the sole plant-based sweetener that elicits an aPVT response comparable to that of sucrose.

High-spin states and level structure in stable nucleus strontium-84.

High-spin states of (84)Sr are populated through the reaction (70)Zn ((18)O, 4n) (84)Sr at the beam energy of 75 MeV. The measurements of excitation functions, γ-γ coincidences, directional correlations of oriented states (DCO) ratios and γ-transition intensities are performed using eight anticompton HPGe detectors and one planar HPGe detector. Based on the experimental results, we establish a new level scheme of (84)Sr, in which 12 new states and nearly 30 new γ-transitions are identified in the present work. The positive-parity yrast band is extended to spin I(π) = 24(+), while one negative-parity band is extended to spin I(π) = 19(-) and it is found that the even-spin and odd-spin members in high-spin states show the nature of signature staggering. The deformation of (84)Sr is studied by calculating the total-Routhian-surfaces (TRS) of positive-parity yrast states in the cranked shell model formalism.

Synthesis and photocatalytic application of oriented hierarchical ZnO flower-rod architectures.

An oriented hierarchical ZnO flower-rod arrays (FRs) were prepared on indium doped tin oxide (ITO) glass using a facile solution-based method assisted with ZnO seed layer. And the as-prepared ZnO FRs/ITO was used as a convenient photocatalytic device that recycled without centrifugation. The results show that ZnO FRs are wurtzite phase with single crystalline grown along the [001] direction. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra illustrate that there are more oxygen vacancies on the surface of ZnO FRs compared with ZnO nanoparticles (NPs). The electrochemical methods using Rhodamine B (RhB) as electrolyte are also performed to study on the photodegradation mechanism where RhB is acted as photocatalytic substrate. For ZnO FRs, the higher photoinduced currents under UV irradiation and current density prove that the recombination of electron-hole pairs is restrained with oxygen vacancies, and the lower charge transfer resistance suggest that the charges could move quickly through ZnO oriented structures. Therefore, the photocatalytic activity is enhanced by ZnO FRs compared with ZnO NPs, and RhB degradation efficiency of ZnO FRs photocatalysts is nearly 100% by UV irradiation for 1.5h.

A decay study of 70As.

The excited states of the 70Ge nucleus in radioactive decay of 70As were investigated. Four new transitions with 1036.99, 1196.66, 1539.29 and 2531.7 keV have been found. The placement of 2219.34 keV transition has been reassigned, three gamma-rays with 496.74, 1295.24 and 1417.24 keV have been placed in the decay scheme for the first time, and the placements of 1881.67, 2325.42 and 2424.41 keV gamma-rays are confirmed in the present work. Two new levels at 4243.10 and 5265.81 keV excitation energy, respectively, are proposed. The level scheme was established and for a number of levels spin-parity assignments are suggested on the basis of log ft values and gamma-branching ratios.