Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a slow-growing, human pathogen that causes atypical pneumonia. Because it lacks a cell wall, many antibiotics are ineffective. Due to its reduced genome and dearth of many biosynthetic pathways, this fastidious bacterium depends on rich, undefined medium for growth, which makes large-scale cultivation challenging and expensive. To understand factors limiting growth, we developed a genome-scale, constraint-based model of M. pneumoniae called iEG158_mpn to describe the metabolic potential of this bacterium. We have put special emphasis on cell membrane formation to identify key lipid components to maximize bacterial growth. We have used this knowledge to predict essential components validated with in vitro serum-free media able to sustain growth. Our findings also show that glycolysis and lipid metabolism are much less efficient under hypoxia; these findings suggest that factors other than metabolism and membrane formation alone affect the growth of M. pneumoniae. Altogether, our modelling approach allowed us to optimize medium composition, enabled growth in defined media and streamlined operational requirements, thereby providing the basis for stable, reproducible and less expensive production.The discovery of TREM2 as a myeloid-specific Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk gene has accelerated research into the role of microglia in AD. While TREM2 mouse models have provided critical insight, the normal and disease-associated functions of TREM2 in human microglia remain unclear. CFTRinh-172 inhibitor To examine this question, we profile microglia differentiated from isogenic, CRISPR-modified TREM2-knockout induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines. By combining transcriptomic and functional analyses with a chimeric AD mouse model, we find that TREM2 deletion reduces microglial survival, impairs phagocytosis of key substrates including APOE, and inhibits SDF-1α/CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis, culminating in an impaired response to beta-amyloid plaques in vivo. Single-cell sequencing of xenotransplanted human microglia further highlights a loss of disease-associated microglial (DAM) responses in human TREM2 knockout microglia that we validate by flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry. Taken together, these studies reveal both conserved and novel aspects of human TREM2 biology that likely play critical roles in the development and progression of AD.Non-Hermitian systems exhibit markedly different phenomena than their conventional Hermitian counterparts. Several such features, such as the non-Hermitian skin effect, are only present in spatially extended systems. Potential applications of these effects in many-mode systems however remains largely unexplored. Here, we study how unique features of non-Hermitian lattice systems can be harnessed to improve Hamiltonian parameter estimation in a fully quantum setting. While the quintessential non-Hermitian skin effect does not provide any distinct advantage, alternate effects yield dramatic enhancements. We show that certain asymmetric non-Hermitian tight-binding models with a [Formula see text] symmetry yield a pronounced sensing advantage the quantum Fisher information per photon increases exponentially with system size. We find that these advantages persist in regimes where non-Markovian and non-perturbative effects become important. Our setup is directly compatible with a variety of quantum optical and superconducting circuit platforms, and already yields strong enhancements with as few as three lattice sites.Synergistic photoredox and copper catalysis confers new synthetic possibilities in the pharmaceutical field, but is seriously affected by the consumptive fluorescence quenching of Cu(II). By decorating bulky auxiliaries into a photoreductive triphenylamine-based ligand to twist the conjugation between the triphenylamine-based ligand and the polar Cu(II)-carboxylate node in the coordination polymer, we report a heterogeneous approach to directly confront this inherent problem. The twisted and polar Cu(II)-dye conjunction endows the coordination polymer with diode-like photoelectronic behaviours, which hampers the inter- and intramolecular photoinduced electron transfer from the triphenylamine-moiety to the Cu(II) site and permits reversed-directional ground-state electronic conductivity, rectifying the productive loop circuit for synergising photoredox and copper catalysis in pharmaceutically valuable decarboxylative C(sp3)-heteroatom couplings. The well-retained Cu(II) sites during photoirradiation exhibit unique inner-spheric modulation effects, which endow the couplings with adaptability to different types of nucleophiles and radical precursors under concise reaction conditions, and distinguish the multi-olefinic moieties of biointeresting steride derivatives in their late-stage trifluoromethylation-chloration difunctionalisation.Water and lipids are key participants in many biological processes, but there are few non-invasive methods that provide quantification of these components in vivo, and none that can isolate and quantify lipids in the blood. Here we develop a new imaging modality termed shortwave infrared meso-patterned imaging (SWIR-MPI) to provide label-free, non-contact, spatial mapping of water and lipid concentrations in tissue. The method utilizes patterned hyperspectral illumination to target chromophore absorption bands in the 900-1,300 nm wavelength range. We use SWIR-MPI to monitor clinically important physiological processes including edema, inflammation, and tumor lipid heterogeneity in preclinical models. We also show that SWIR-MPI can spatially map blood-lipids in humans, representing an example of non-invasive and contact-free measurements of in vivo blood lipids. Together, these results highlight the potential of SWIR-MPI to enable new capabilities in fundamental studies and clinical monitoring of major conditions including obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.Dense water from the Nordic Seas passes through the Faroe Bank Channel and supplies the lower limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a critical component of the climate system. Yet, the upstream pathways of this water are not fully known. Here we present evidence of a previously unrecognised deep current following the slope from Iceland toward the Faroe Bank Channel using high-resolution, synoptic shipboard observations and long-term measurements north of the Faroe Islands. The bulk of the volume transport of the current, named the Iceland-Faroe Slope Jet (IFSJ), is relatively uniform in hydrographic properties, very similar to the North Icelandic Jet flowing westward along the slope north of Iceland toward Denmark Strait. This suggests a common source for the two major overflows across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge. The IFSJ can account for approximately half of the total overflow transport through the Faroe Bank Channel, thus constituting a significant component of the overturning circulation in the Nordic Seas.