Higher total energy costs strain the elderly, especially low-income, across 31 developed countries.

Addressing the total energy cost burden of elderly people is essential for designing equitable and effective energy policies, especially in responding to energy crisis in an aging society. It is due to the double impact of energy price hikes on households-through direct impact on fuel bills and indirect impact on the prices of goods and services consumed. However, while examining the household energy cost burden of the elderly, their indirect energy consumption and associated cost burden remain poorly understood. This study quantifies and compares the direct and indirect energy footprints and associated total energy cost burdens for different age groups across 31 developed countries. It reveals that the elderly have larger per capita energy footprints, resulting from higher levels of both direct and indirect energy consumption compared with the younger age groups. More importantly, the elderly, especially the low-income elderly, have a higher total energy cost burden rate. As the share of elderly in the total population rapidly grows in these countries, the larger per capita energy footprint and associated cost burden rate of elderly people would make these aging countries more vulnerable in times of energy crises. It is therefore crucial to develop policies that aim to reduce energy consumption and costs, improve energy efficiency, and support low-income elderly populations. Such policies are necessary to reduce the vulnerability of these aging countries to the energy crisis.

Promoting Sustainable Development Goals by Optimizing City-Level Solar Photovoltaic Deployment in China.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, which enable carbon neutrality, are expected to surge in the coming decades. This growth will support sustainable development goals (SDGs) via reductions in power-generation-related environmental emissions and water consumption while generating new jobs. However, where and to what extent PVs should be utilized to support SDGs must be thoroughly addressed. Here, we use multiple PV deployment scenarios to compare the benefits of PVs and related SDGs progress in 366 prefectural-level cities in China. We developed an assessment framework that integrates a PV allocation model, an electricity system optimization model, and a benefit assessment approach. We identify vast differences in PV distribution and electricity transmission and elucidate trade-offs and synergies among the SDGs under various PV implementation scenarios. The water conservation-oriented scenario yields substantial carbon reduction, air pollutant mitigation, and water saving cobenefits, leading to the greatest SDGs improvements. Prioritizing employment creation enhances job-relevant SDGs but inhibits environmental resource benefits. SDGs in less developed cities present greater progress across all scenarios. This study highlights the need to consider spatial heterogeneity and the potential trade-offs between different SDGs and regions when designing energy transition strategies.

High-throughput and proteome-wide discovery of endogenous biomolecular condensates.

Phase separation inside mammalian cells regulates the formation of the biomolecular condensates that are related to gene expression, signalling, development and disease. However, a large population of endogenous condensates and their candidate phase-separating proteins have yet to be discovered in a quantitative and high-throughput manner. Here we demonstrate that endogenously expressed biomolecular condensates can be identified across a cell's proteome by sorting proteins across varying oligomeric states. We employ volumetric compression to modulate the concentrations of intracellular proteins and the degree of crowdedness, which are physical regulators of cellular biomolecular condensates. The changes in degree of the partition of proteins into condensates or phase separation led to varying oligomeric states of the proteins, which can be detected by coupling density gradient ultracentrifugation and quantitative mass spectrometry. In total, we identified 1,518 endogenous condensate proteins, of which 538 have not been reported before. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our strategy can identify condensate proteins that respond to specific biological processes.

Combined analysis of temporal metabolomics and transcriptomics reveals the metabolic patterns in goat oocytes during maturation.

Well-balanced and orderly metabolism is a crucial prerequisite for promoting oogenesis. Involvement of single metabolites in oocyte development has been widely reported; however, the comprehensive metabolic framework controlling oocyte maturation is still lacking. In the present study, we employed an integrated temporal metabolomic and transcriptomic method to analyze metabolism in goat oocytes at GV, GVBD, and MII stages (GV, fully-grown immature oocyte; GVBD, stage of meiotic resumption; MII, mature oocyte) during in vitro maturation, revealing the global picture of the metabolic patterns during maturation. In particular, several significantly altered metabolic pathways during goat oocyte meiosis have been identified, including active serine metabolism, increased utilization of tryptophan, and marked accumulation of purine nucleotide. In summary, the current study provides transcriptomic and metabolomic datasets for goat oocyte development that can be applied in cross-species comparative studies.

Development and Validation of a Prognostic Nomogram for Patients with AFP and DCP Double-Negative Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Local Ablation.

Purpose: Although alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin (DCP) have a certain predictive ability for the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), there are still some cases of aggressive recurrence among patients with AFP and DCP double-negative HCC (DNHC) after local ablation. However, prediction models to forecast the prognosis of DNHC patients are still lacking. Thus, this retrospective study aims to explore the prognostic factors in DNHC patients and develop a nomogram to predict recurrence. Patients and methods: 493 DNHC patients who underwent the local ablation at Beijing You'an Hospital between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2022, were enrolled. A part that was admitted from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2018, was designated to the training cohort (n = 307); others from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2022, were allocated to the validation cohort (n = 186). Lasso regression and Cox regression were employed with the aim of screening risk factors and developing the nomogram. The nomogram outcome was assessed by discrimination, calibration, and decision curve analysis (DCA). Results: Independent prognostic factors selected by Lasso-Cox analysis included age, tumor size, tumor number, and gamma-glutamyl transferase. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves (AUCs) of the training and validation groups (0.738, 0.742, 0.836, and 0.758, 0.821) exhibited the excellent predicted outcome of the nomogram. Calibration plots and DCA plots suggest desirable calibration performance and clinical utility. Patients were stratified into three risk groups by means of the nomogram: low-risk, intermediate-risk, and high-risk, respectively. There exists an obvious distinction in recurrence-free survival (RFS) among three groups (p<0.0001). Conclusion: In conclusion, we established and validated a nomogram for DNHC patients who received local ablation. The nomogram showed excellent predictive power for the recurrence of HCC and could contribute to guiding clinical decisions.

KAS-seq profiling captures transcription dynamics during oocyte maturation.

In fully grown oocytes, the genome is considered to be globally transcriptionally silenced. However, this conclusion is primarily derived from the results obtained through immunofluorescence staining or inferred from the highly condensed state of chromosomes, lacking more direct evidence. Here, by using a kethoxal-assisted single-stranded DNA sequencing (KAS-seq) approach, we investigated the landscape of single-strand DNA (ssDNA) throughout the genome and provided a readout of the activity and dynamics of transcription during oocyte meiotic maturation. In non-surrounded nucleolus (NSN) oocytes, we observed a robust KAS-seq signal, indicating the high transcriptional activity. In surrounded nucleolus (SN) oocytes, the presence of ssDNA still persists although the KAS-seq signal was relatively weak, suggesting the presence of transcription. Accompanying with the meiotic resumption, the transcriptional activity gradually decreased, and global repression was detected in matured oocytes. Moreover, we preformed the integrative genomics analysis to dissect the transcriptional dynamics during mouse oocyte maturation. In sum, the present study delineates the detailed transcriptional activity during mammalian oocyte maturation.

Country-specific net-zero strategies of the pulp and paper industry.

The pulp and paper industry is an important contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions1,2. Country-specific strategies are essential for the industry to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, given its vast heterogeneities across countries3,4. Here we develop a comprehensive bottom-up assessment of net greenhouse gas emissions of the domestic paper-related sectors for 30 major countries from 1961 to 2019-about 3.2% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from the same period5-and explore mitigation strategies through 2,160 scenarios covering key factors. Our results show substantial differences across countries in terms of historical emissions evolution trends and structure. All countries can achieve net-zero emissions for their pulp and paper industry by 2050, with a single measure for most developed countries and several measures for most developing countries. Except for energy-efficiency improvement and energy-system decarbonization, tropical developing countries with abundant forest resources should give priority to sustainable forest management, whereas other developing countries should pay more attention to enhancing methane capture rate and reducing recycling. These insights are crucial for developing net-zero strategies tailored to each country and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 for the pulp and paper industry.

Implementation of carbon pricing in an aging world calls for targeted protection schemes.

Understanding the impact of climate fiscal policies on vulnerable groups is a prerequisite for equitable climate mitigation. However, there has been a lack of attention to the impacts of such policies on the elderly, especially the low-income elderly, in existing climate policy literature. Here, we quantify and compare the distributional impacts of carbon pricing on different age-income groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan and then on different age groups in other 28 developed countries. We find that the elderly are more vulnerable to carbon pricing than younger groups in the same income group. In particular, the low-income elderly and elderly in less wealthy countries face greater challenges because carbon pricing lead to both higher rate of increase in living cost among low-income elderly and greater income inequality within the same age group. In addition, the low-income elderly would benefit less than the younger groups within the same income group in the commonly proposed carbon revenues recycling schemes. The high vulnerability of the low-income elderly to carbon pricing calls for targeted social protection along with climate mitigation polices toward an aging world.

Tracing metal footprints via global renewable power value chains.

The globally booming renewable power industry has stimulated an unprecedented interest in metals as key infrastructure components. Many economies with different endowments and levels of technology participate in various production stages and cultivate value in global renewable power industry production networks, known as global renewable power value chains (RPVCs), complicating the identification of metal supply for the subsequent low-carbon power generation and demand. Here, we use a multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) combined with a value chain decomposition model to trace the metal footprints (MFs) and value-added of major global economies' renewable power sectors. We find that the MFs of the global renewable power demand increased by 97% during 2005-2015. Developed economies occupy the high-end segments of RPVCs while allocating metal-intensive (but low value-added) production activities to developing economies. The fast-growing demand for renewable power in developed economies or developing economies with upper middle income, particularly China, is a major contributor to the embodied metal transfer increment within RPVCs, which is partly offset by the declining metal intensities in developing economies. Therefore, it is urgent to establish a metal-efficient and green supply chain for upstream suppliers as well as downstream renewable power installers for just transition in the power sector across the globe.

The global power sector's low-carbon transition may enhance sustainable development goal achievement.

The low-carbon power transition, which is key to combatting climate change, has far-reaching effects on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of issues such as resource use, environmental emissions, employment, and many more. Here, we assess the potential impacts of the power transition on progress toward achieving multiple SDGs (covering 18 targets across the 17 goals) across 49 economies under nine socioeconomic and climate scenarios. We find that the low-carbon power transition under the representative concentration pathway (RCP)2.6 scenarios could lead to an approximately 11% improvement in the global SDG index score from 54.70 in 2015 to 59.89-61.33 in 2100. However, the improvement would be significantly decreased to 4.42%-7.40% and 7.55%-8.93% under the RCP6.0 and RCP4.5 scenarios, respectively. The power transition could improve the overall SDG index in most developed economies under all scenarios while undermining their resource-related SDG scores. Power transition-induced changes in international trade would improve the SDG progress of developed economies but jeopardize that of developing economies, which usually serve as resource hubs for meeting the demand for low-carbon power transition in developed economies.

Voluntary Exercise to Reduce Anxiety Behaviour in Traumatic Brain Injury Shown to Alleviate Inflammatory Brain Response in Mice.

Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of neuroinflammation and anxiety disorders in young adults. Immune-targeted therapies have garnered attention for the amelioration of TBI-induced anxiety. A previous study has indicated that voluntary exercise intervention following TBI could reduce neuroinflammation. It is essential to determine the effects of voluntary exercise after TBI on anxiety via inhibiting neuroinflammatory response. Mice were randomly divided into four groups (sham, TBI, sham + voluntary wheel running (VWR), and TBI + VWR). One-week VWR was carried out on the 2nd day after trauma. The neurofunction of TBI mice was assessed. Following VWR, anxiety behavior was evaluated, and neuroinflammatory responses in the perilesional cortex were investigated. Results showed that after one week of VWR, neurofunctional recovery was enhanced, while the anxiety behavior of TBI mice was significantly alleviated. The level of pro-inflammatory factors decreased, and the level of anti-inflammatory factors elevated. Activation of nucleotide oligomerization domain-like thermal receptor protein domain associated protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome was inhibited significantly. All these alterations were consistent with reduced microglial activation at the perilesional site and positively correlated with the amelioration of anxiety behavior. This suggested that timely rehabilitative exercise could be a useful therapeutic strategy for anxiety resulting from TBI by targeting neuroinflammation.

Hand-powered centrifugal micropipette-tip with distance-based quantification for on-site testing of SARS-CoV-2 virus.

This paper proposed a hand-powered centrifugal micropipette-tip strategy, termed HCM, for all-in-one immunoassay combined with a distance-based readout for portable quantitative detection of SARS-CoV-2. The target SARS-CoV-2 virus antigen triggers the binding of multiple monoclonal antibody-coated red latex nanobeads, forming larger complexes. Following incubation and centrifugation, the formed aggregated complexes settle at the bottom of the tip, while free red nanobeads remain suspended in the solution. The HCM enables sensitive (1 ng/mL) and reliable quantification of SARS-CoV-2 within 25 min. With the advantages of free washing, free fabrication, free instrument, and without the optical device, the proposed low-cost and easy-to-use HCM immunoassay shows great potential for quantitative POC diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2.

China's electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices.

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) on a large scale is crucial for meeting the desired climate commitments, where affordability plays a vital role. However, the expected surge in prices of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, four critical materials in EV batteries, could hinder EV uptake. To explore these impacts in the context of China, the world's largest EV market, we expand and enrich an integrated assessment model. We find that under a high material cost surge scenario, EVs would account for 35% (2030) and 51% (2060) of the total number of vehicles in China, significantly lower than 49% (2030) and 67% (2060) share in the base-line, leading to a 28% increase in cumulative carbon emissions (2020-2060) from road transportation. While material recycling and technical battery innovation are effective long-term countermeasures, securing the supply chains of critical materials through international cooperation is highly recommended, given geopolitical and environmental fragilities.

City-level emission peak and drivers in China.

China is playing an increasing role in global climate change mitigation, and local authorities need more city-specific information on the emissions trends and patterns when designing low-carbon policies. This study provides the most comprehensive CO2 emission inventories of 287 Chinese cities from 2001 to 2019. The emission inventories are compiled for 47 economic sectors and include energy-related emissions for 17 types of fossil fuels and process-related emissions from cement production. We further investigate the state of the emission peak in each city and reveal hidden driving forces. The results show that 38 cities have proactively peaked their emissions for at least five years and another 21 cities also have emission decline, but passively. The 38 proactively peaked cities achieved emission decline mainly by efficiency improvements and structural changes in energy use, while the 21 passively emission declined cities reduced emissions at the cost of economic recession or population loss. We propose that those passively emission declined cities need to face up to the reasons that caused the emission to decline, and fully exploit the opportunities provided by industrial innovation and green investment brought by low-carbon targets to achieve economic recovery and carbon mitigation goals. Proactively peaked cities need to seek strategies to maintain the downward trend in emissions and avoid an emission rebound and thus provide successful models for cities with still growing emissions to achieve an emission peak.

Relocating Industrial Plants Delivers Win-Win Emission Reduction Benefits to Origin and Destination Regions.

Relocating pollution-intensive factories is one of the most effective measures to meet mandatory environmental regulations in developed cities while simultaneously imposing environmental pressure on the receiving cities. Existing studies often assume that relocated plants produce the same or higher emissions when relocated. However, the current pollution mitigation policies enforce even higher emission standards in the destination after plant relocation. We employ a bottom-up pollution accounting approach to assess the impact of intraregional or interregional relocation of iron and steel plants in China's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) area on various air pollutants; specifically, seven policy scenarios are modeled, based on stringency, implementation scope, and production technologies. We find that relocation combined with emission standards enforcement and shifts from BOF (basic oxygen furnace) to EAF (electric arc furnace) production technology may significantly reduce emissions within and outside BTH areas by as much as 28.8% compared to business as usual. The observed reduction is mainly due to the requirement of meeting ultralow emission standards directly or indirectly after relocation. Both origin and destination cities benefit from the relocation, with limited emission spillovers (+9.1%) for destinations outside BTH and even a net reduction (9.4%) in Tangshan. We conclude that combining factory relocation with stricter emission standards and production technological innovation could circumvent the Pollution Haven Hypothesis and deliver win-win air pollution reduction benefits for both origins and destinations.

Integrated Analysis of Transcriptome and Metabolome Reveals the Regulation of Chitooligosaccharide on Drought Tolerance in Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. Hybrid) under Drought Stress.

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrid) is an important crop for sugar and biofuels, and often suffers from water shortages during growth. Currently, there is limited knowledge concerning the molecular mechanism involved in sugarcane response to drought stress (DS) and whether chitooligosaccharide could alleviate DS. Here, we carried out a combined transcriptome and metabolome of sugarcane in three different treatment groups: control group (CG), DS group, and DS + chitooligosaccharide group (COS). A total of 12,275 (6404 up-regulated and 5871 down-regulated) differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified when comparing the CG and DS transcriptomes (T_CG/DS), and 2525 (1261 up-regulated and 1264 down-regulated) DEGs were identified in comparing the DS and COS transcriptomes (T_DS/COS). GO and KEGG analysis showed that DEGs associated with photosynthesis were significantly enriched and had down-regulated expression. For T_DS/COS, photosynthesis DEGs were also significantly enriched but had up-regulated expression. Together, these results indicate that DS of sugarcane has a significantly negative influence on photosynthesis, and that COS can alleviate these negative effects. In metabolome analysis, lipids, others, amino acids and derivatives and alkaloids were the main significantly different metabolites (SDMs) observed in sugarcane response to DS, and COS treatment reduced the content of these metabolites. KEGG analysis of the metabolome showed that 2-oxocarboxylic acid metabolism, ABC transporters, biosynthesis of amino acids, glucosinolate biosynthesis and valine, leucine and isoleucine biosynthesis were the top-5 KEGG enriched pathways when comparing the CG and DS metabolome (M_CG/DS). Comparing DS with COS (M_DS/COS) showed that purine metabolism and phenylalanine metabolism were enriched. Combined transcriptome and metabolome analysis revealed that pyruvate and phenylalanine metabolism were KEGG-enriched pathways for CG/DS and DS/COS, respectively. For pyruvate metabolism, 87 DEGs (47 up-regulated and 40 down-regulated) and five SDMs (1 up-regulated and 4 down-regulated) were enriched. Pyruvate was closely related with 14 DEGs (|r| > 0.99) after Pearson's correlation analysis, and only 1 DEG (Sspon.02G0043670-1B) was positively correlated. For phenylalanine metabolism, 13 DEGs (7 up-regulated and 6 down-regulated) and 6 SDMs (1 up-regulated and 5 down-regulated) were identified. Five PAL genes were closely related with 6 SDMs through Pearson's correlation analysis, and the novel.31257 gene had significantly up-regulated expression. Collectively, our results showed that DS has significant adverse effects on the physiology, transcriptome, and metabolome of sugarcane, particularly genes involved in photosynthesis. We further show that COS treatment can alleviate these negative effects.

Allocating environmental costs of China's rare earth production to global consumption.

China provides over 80% of global rare earth (RE) that caused serious domestic environmental impacts. However, how much RE-related pollution was transferred to China along global supply chain remains poorly understood. Here we, for the first time, established the RE industry-specific input-output approaches to trace environmental costs transfer through China's RE exports from whole supply chain perspective. We found that foreign consumption contributed over half of the environmental costs from China's RE production, with a gross value increasing from $4.8 billion (65% of total environmental costs) in 2010 to $5.4 billion in 2015 (74% of total environmental costs). Countries in the East Asia (i.e., Japan and South Korea) made the largest contribution (27-37%) to the exports induced environmental costs, followed by North America (i.e., the United States, Mexico, and Canada) with a contribution of 20-27% and the rest East Asia (including countries in Asia-Pacific except China Mainland, by 16-23%). Exports induced environmental costs were mainly from RE raw materials (60%) and high value-added products (22%). Suggestions such as rationalizing RE cost as well as production- and consumption-based measures to mitigate environmental impacts were proposed to enhance RE utilities for global sustainable development.

The effects of the Promoting the Big and Quashing the Small Policy on pollutants from a coal power supply chain perspective.

China implemented the Promoting the Big and Quashing the Small Policy (PBQSP) in 2007 to alleviate air pollution due to coal-fired power plants (CFPPs). However, how the policy affected the air pollutant emissions remains poorly understood. We compared the air pollutant emissions between decommissioned and newly-built CFPPs under the PBQSP by developing a plant-level supply chain emission inventory model, taking Shandong, China's top provincial-level coal power producer, as the case area. The results indicated that compared to a 27.4% increase in electricity produced in Shandong from 2010 to 2014, the NOx, particulate matter (PM), Hg, and SO2 emissions disproportionately increased by 10.3%, 11.7%, 11.8% and 0.5%, respectively. It was found that the PBQSP policy has made great contribution to air pollution mitigation, as the supply chain emission intensities (emissions per kilowatt-hour) of NOX, PM, Hg and SO2 of the newly-built CFPPs are three-quarters, two-fifths, three-fifths, and four-fifths lower, respectively, than those of the decommissioned CFPPs. However, coal transport route changes caused an increase in NOX, PM, and SO2 emissions by 44.0%, 45.5%, and 55.6%, respectively, during the transportation stage, which offset the PBQSP overall mitigation effect. By building a comprehensive assessment framework for air pollutant control policies, our study provides insights for formulating coordinated mitigation measures for the pollutant-intensive industries, such as promoting efficient air pollutant control technologies including the spray dust suppression devices.

Suppression of axonal attractant netrin-1 injured dopaminergic neuronal and motor function of mice during manganese overexposure.

Manganese (Mn) can accumulate in the striatum through the blood-brain barrier and cause neurotoxicity. It is mainly due to the decrease of dopamine (DA) levels in the striatum, which leads to extrapyramidal dysfunction. Netrin-1, as an axon guidance factor, can regulate the normal transmission of DA. However, few people have explored the role of netrin-1 in Mn-induced neurotoxicity. The purpose of the present study is to verify whether overexposure of Mn inhibits the axon attractant netrin-1, thereby damaging dopaminergic neuronal and motor function of mice. Here, we found that excessive Mn exposure reduces the expression of striatum netrin-1, tyrosine hydroxylase, DA receptor D3, and dopamine transporter 1, and the levels of serum netrin-1, and promotes dopaminergic neuronal and striatum injury, leading to DA transmission and motor dysfunction. Notably, recombinant mouse netrin-1 protein significantly antagonized Mn-induced neurotoxicity. These findings suggest that netrin-1 participates in Mn-induced motor dysfunction. Our findings may provide an experimental basis for fully elucidating the effects of Mn-induced neurotoxicity.

Increasing mercury risk of fly ash generated from coal-fired power plants in China.

The trend in mercury (Hg) content of fly ash, the primary solid Hg waste from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs), has not been well evaluated in China. This study integrated a national sampling campaign, a literature survey, and model predictions to investigate the trend in Hg content of fly ash and associated output nationwide. The results demonstrated that Hg content of fly ash from both our campaign conducted in 2020 and the literature survey met the Weibull distribution. The best estimate for the distribution of Hg content in our campaign (401.4 µg/kg) was about two-fold higher than that from the literature survey (236.6 µg/kg). The increasing trend was mainly attributed to the increasing installation of advanced air pollution control devices (APCDs) in CFPPs. The total national Hg output by fly ash was estimated to be 217.7 tons (64.1-501.8 tons) currently. Regarding the disposal of fly ash, a total of 16.1 tons and 105.8 tons of Hg were re-emitted into the air and immobilized in materials, respectively. The increasing trend in the Hg content of fly ash suggested the need for more stringent requirements for the disposal of solid Hg waste from CFPPs in China.