Single-cell analysis reveals microbial spore responses to microwave radiation

To determine the effects of microwave radiation at the molecular level as well as on the germination,growth and morphology of dry spores at the single-cell level.Dry Bacillus aryabhattai MCCC 1K02966 spores were microwave-treated at different powers and characterized using single-cell optical technology.As determined by laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy,the Ca^(2+)-dipicolinic acid content increased and nucleic acid denaturation occurred in response to microwave treatment.Livecell microscopy revealed that the germination and growth rates decreased as the microwave power increased.With respect to morphology,atomic force microscopy(AFM)demonstrated that spores became wrinkled and rough after microwave treatment.Furthermore,spores became smaller as the microwave power increased.Microwave treatment can damage DNA,and high-power microwaves can inhibit the germination of spores and reduce spore volumes.These results provide a new perspective on the responses of living single cells to microwave radiation and demonstrate the application of various new techniques for analyses of microorganisms at the single-cell level.

A Brief Review on He Ion Irradiation Research of Steel and Iron‑Based Alloys in Nuclear Power Plants

Nuclear power plays a key role as renewable energy in alleviating the worldwide energy shortage.The material degradation caused by high-temperature and high-flux neutron irradiation is the most concerning issue for nuclear reactor safety.A large number of He atoms produced through the(n,α)transmutation reaction diffuse and migrate in metals and accumulate to form He bubbles because of the extremely low solubility of He atoms in metal materials.The helium bubbles gather at the grain boundary or grain to cause swelling,hardening,embrittlement,and other damages to the in-core structural components.This paper mainly summarizes the research progress on He irradiation in steel and iron-based alloys,including the diffusion and accumulation of He atoms,the nucleation and growth of He bubbles,and the microstructure and macroscopic degradation of material performance caused by He irradiation.The mechanism of helium irradiation-induced corrosion in steel and iron-based alloys in recent years is reviewed as well.Moreover,the investigations on irradiation performance in additive manufactured stainless steels are summarized,and the mechanism of irradiation resistance is prospected.

Instability characteristics of a co-rotating wingtip vortex pair based on bi-global linear stability analysis

The Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry(SPIV)technology is applied to measure the wingtip vortices generated by the up-down symmetrical split winglet.Then,the temporal biglobal Linear Stability Analysis(bi-global LSA)is performed on this nearly equal-strength corotating vortex pair,which is composed of an upper vortex(vortex-u)and a down vortex(vortex-d).The results show that the instability eigenvalue spectrum illustrated by(ωr,ω_(i))contains two types of branches:discrete branch and continuous branch.The discrete branch contains the primary branches of vortex-u and vortex-d,the secondary branch of vortex-d and coupled branch,of which all of the eigenvalues are located in the unstable half-plane ofω_(i)>0,indicating that the wingtip vortex pair is temporally unstable.By contrast,the eigenvalues of the continuous branch are concentrated on the half-plane ofω_(i)<0 and the perturbation modes correspond to the freestream perturbation.In the primary branches of vortex-u and vortex-d,Mode P_(u) and Mode Pd are the primary perturbation modes,which exhibit the structures enclosed with azimuthal wavenumber m and radial wavenumber n,respectively.Besides,the results of stability curves for vortex-u and vortex-d demonstrate that the instability growth rates of vortex-u are larger than those of vortex-d,and the perturbation energy of Mode P_(u) is also larger than that of Mode Pd.Moreover,the perturbation energy of Mode P_(u) is up to 0.02650 and accounts for 33.56%percent in the corresponding branch,thereby indicating that the instability development of wingtip vortex is dominated by Mode P_(u).By further investigating the topological structures of Mode P_(u) and Mode Pd with streamwise wavenumbers,the most unstable perturbation mode with a large azimuthal wavenumber of m=5-6 is identified,which imposes on the entire core region of vortex-u.This large azimuthal wavenumber perturbation mode can suggest the potential physical-based flow control strategy by manipulating it.