Phenotypic suppression caused by resonance with light-dark cycles indicates the presence of a 24-hours oscillator in yeast and suggests a new role of intrinsically disordered protein regions as internal mediators.

The mutual interaction between environment and life is a main topic of biological sciences. An interesting aspect of this interaction is the existence of biological rhythms spanning all the levels of organisms from bacteria to humans. On the other hand, the existence of a coupling between external oscillatory stimuli and adaptation and evolution rate of biological systems is a still unexplored issue. Here we give the demonstration of a substantial increase of heritable phenotypic changes in yeast, an organism lacking a photoreception system, when growing at 12 h light/dark cycles, with respect to both stable dark (or light) or non-12 + 12 h cycling. The model system was a yeast strain lacking a gene whose product is at the crossroad of many different physiological regulations, so ruling out any simple explanation in terms of increase in reverse gene mutations. The abundance of intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDPRs) in both deleted gene product and in its vast ensemble of interactors supports the hypothesis that resonance with the environmental cycle might be mediated by intrinsic disorder-driven interactions of protein molecules. This result opens to the speculation of the effect of environment/biological resonance phenomena in evolution and of the role of protein intrinsically disordered regions as internal mediators.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Carbon Black and Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite for Binder-Free Supercapacitors with Reduced Graphene Oxide Paper as the Current Collector.

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is an ideal candidate for the improvement of supercapacitor (SC) performances due to its industrial-ready manufacturing process and ease of processing. In this work, rGO was used as an active binder for the manufacture of carbon black (CB) and rGO-based SCs. Being able to form a stable suspension in water, graphene oxide (GO) was initially exploited as a dispersing agent to fabricate a homogeneous slurry with CB having exclusively water as a low-cost and environment-friendly solvent. After casting on a suitable substrate, the material was subjected to thermal treatment allowing the reduction of GO to rGO, which was successively confirmed by chemical-physical analysis. An innovative current collector, consisting of high-quality rGO paper, was also proposed ensuring an improved adhesion between the active material and the substrate and a reduction of the whole weight with respect to devices fabricated using common metallic current collectors. Due to the interesting electrochemical performances, with a high specific power of 32.1 kW kg-1 and a corresponding specific energy of 8.8 Wh kg-1 at a current of 1 A g-1, and the improved manufacturing process, the described "all-graphene-based" device represents a valuable candidate for the future of SCs.

Combating Actions of Green 2D-Materials on Gram Positive and Negative Bacteria and Enveloped Viruses.

Interactions of novel bi-dimensional nanomaterials and live matter such as bacteria and viruses represent an extremely hot topic due to the unique properties of the innovative nanomaterials, capable in some cases to exhibit bactericide and antiviral actions. The interactions between bacteria and viruses and two dimensional nanosheets are here investigated. We extensively studied the interaction between a gram-negative bacterium, Escherichia coli, and a gram-positive bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, with two different types of 2D nanoflakes such as MoS2, belonging to the Transition Metal Dichalcogenides family, and Graphene Oxide. The same two types of nanomaterials were employed to study their antiviral action toward the Herpes simplex virus type-1, (HSV-1). The experimental results showed different bactericide impacts as well as different antiviral power between the two nanomaterials. The experimental findings were interpreted in bacteria on the base of the Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek theory. A simple kinetic model of bacterial growth in the presence of the interacting nanosheets is also elaborated, to explain the observed results. The experimental results in viruses are really novel and somewhat surprising, evidencing a stronger antiviral action of Graphene Oxide as compared to MoS2. Results in viruses are complicated to quantitatively interpret due to the complexity of the system under study, constituted by virus/host cell and nanoflake, and due to the lack of a well assessed theoretical context to refer to. Thus, these results are interpreted in terms of qualitative arguments based on the chemical properties of the interactors in the given solvent medium.