Understanding the response of the coral holobiont to environmental change is crucial to inform conservation efforts. The most pressing problem is “coral bleaching,” usually precipitated by prolonged thermal stress. We used untargeted, polar metabolite profiling to investigate the physiological response of the coral species Montipora capitata and Pocillopora acuta to heat stress. Our goal was to identify diagnostic markers present early in the bleaching response. From the untargeted UHPLC-MS data, a variety of co-regulated dipeptides were found that have the highest differential accumulation in both species. The structures of four dipeptides were determined and showed differential accumulation in symbiotic and aposymbiotic (alga-free) populations of the sea anemone Aiptasia (Exaiptasia pallida), suggesting the deep evolutionary origins of these dipeptides and their involvement in symbiosis. These and other metabolites may be used as diagnostic markers for thermal stress in wild coral.Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are fundamental molecular building blocks of fullerenes and carbonaceous nanostructures in the interstellar medium and in combustion systems. However, an understanding of the formation of aromatic molecules carrying five-membered rings-the essential building block of nonplanar PAHs-is still in its infancy. Exploiting crossed molecular beam experiments augmented by electronic structure calculations and astrochemical modeling, we reveal an unusual pathway leading to the formation of indene (C9H8)-the prototype aromatic molecule with a five-membered ring-via a barrierless bimolecular reaction involving the simplest organic radical-methylidyne (CH)-and styrene (C6H5C2H3) through the hitherto elusive methylidyne addition-cyclization-aromatization (MACA) mechanism. Through extensive structural reorganization of the carbon backbone, the incorporation of a five-membered ring may eventually lead to three-dimensional PAHs such as corannulene (C20H10) along with fullerenes (C60, C70), thus offering a new concept on the low-temperature chemistry of carbon in our galaxy.Here, we report the topology-matched design of heteromultivalent nanostructures as potent and broad-spectrum virus entry inhibitors based on the host cell membrane. Initially, we investigate the virus binding dynamics to validate the better binding performance of the heteromultivalent moieties as compared to homomultivalent ones. The heteromultivalent binding moieties are transferred to nanostructures with a bowl-like shape matching the viral spherical surface. Unlike the conventional homomultivalent inhibitors, the heteromultivalent ones exhibit a half maximal inhibitory concentration of 32.4 ± 13.7 μg/ml due to the synergistic multivalent effects and the topology-matched shape. At a dose without causing cellular toxicity, >99.99% reduction of virus propagation has been achieved. Since multiple binding sites have also been identified on the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), we envision that the use of heteromultivalent nanostructures may also be applied to develop a potent inhibitor to prevent coronavirus infection.Understanding dynamics across phase transformations and the spatial distribution of minerals in the lower mantle is crucial for a comprehensive model of the evolution of the Earth’s interior. Using the multigrain crystallography technique (MGC) with synchrotron x-rays at pressures of 30 GPa in a laser-heated diamond anvil cell to study the formation of bridgmanite [(Mg,Fe)SiO3] and ferropericlase [(Mg,Fe)O], we report an interconnected network of a smaller grained ferropericlase, a configuration that has been implicated in slab stagnation and plume deflection in the upper part of the lower mantle. Furthermore, we isolated individual crystal orientations with grain-scale resolution, provide estimates on stress evolutions on the grain scale, and report 110 twinning in an iron-depleted bridgmanite, a mechanism that appears to aid stress relaxation during grain growth and likely contributes to the lack of any appreciable seismic anisotropy in the upper portion of the lower mantle.Light-inducible gene switches represent a key strategy for the precise manipulation of cellular events in fundamental and applied research. However, the performance of widely used gene switches is limited due to low tissue penetrance and possible phototoxicity of the light stimulus. To overcome these limitations, we engineer optogenetic synthetic transcription factors to undergo liquid-liquid phase separation in close spatial proximity to promoters. Phase separation of constitutive and optogenetic synthetic transcription factors was achieved by incorporation of intrinsically disordered regions. Supported by a quantitative mathematical model, we demonstrate that engineered transcription factor droplets form at target promoters and increase gene expression up to fivefold. selleck chemicals llc This increase in performance was observed in multiple mammalian cells lines as well as in mice following in situ transfection. The results of this work suggest that the introduction of intrinsically disordered domains is a simple yet effective means to boost synthetic transcription factor activity.Quantum estimation of a single parameter has been studied extensively. Practical applications, however, typically involve multiple parameters, for which the ultimate precision is much less understood. Here, by relating the precision limit directly to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, we show that to achieve the highest precisions for multiple parameters at the same time requires the saturation of multiple Heisenberg uncertainty relations simultaneously. Guided by this insight, we experimentally demonstrate an optimally controlled multipass scheme, which saturates three Heisenberg uncertainty relations simultaneously and achieves the highest precisions for the estimation of all three parameters in SU(2) operators. With eight controls, we achieve a 13.27-dB improvement in terms of the variance (6.63 dB for the SD) over the classical scheme with the same loss. As an experiment demonstrating the simultaneous achievement of the ultimate precisions for multiple parameters, our work marks an important step in multiparameter quantum metrology with wide implications.