The biology, ecology, and life cycle of the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), were studied using regular inspection in the forest and observations in the laboratory. Results indicated that A. planipennis are mostly univoltine in Tianjin, China. They overwintered individually as mature larvae in shallow chambers excavated in the outer sapwood. In late July, some full-grown larvae began to build overwintering chambers, and all larvae entered the sapwood for dormancy by early November. A. planipennis pupated in the overwintering chamber from early April to mid May the following year, and the average pupal duration was about 20 days. In late April, some newly eclosed adults could be found in the pupal cells, but they had not yet emerged from the tree. Adults began to emerge in early May, with peak flight occurring in mid May. The average longevity of adults was about 21 days and the adult stage lasted through early July. The adults fed on ash foliage as a source of nutrition. Mating was usually conducted and completed on the leaf or trunk surfaces of ash trees. Oviposition began in mid May and eggs hatched on average in 15.7 days. The first instar larvae appeared in early June. The larval stage lasted about 300 days to complete an entire generation. The emerald ash borer had four larval instars on velvet ash, Fraxinus velutina (Scrophulariales: Oleaceae). The major natural control factors of A. planipennis were also investigated, and preliminary suggestions for its integrated management are proposed.

Obesity is a major global health problem that significantly increases the risk of many other diseases. Herein, a facile method of suppressing lipogenesis and obesity using L‐arginine‐functionalized carbon dots (L‐Arg@CDots) is reported. The prepared CDots with a negative surface charge form stronger bonds than D‐arginine and lysine with L‐Arg in water. The L‐Arg@CDots in the aqueous solution offer a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 23.6% in the red wavelength region. The proposed L‐Arg functionalization strategy not only protects the red emission of the CDots from quenching by water molecules but also enhances the intracellular uptake of L‐Arg to reduce lipogenesis. Injection of L‐Arg@CDots can reduce the body weight increase in ob/ob mice by suppressing their food intake and shrinking the white adipose tissue cells, thereby significantly inhibiting obesity.

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large‐scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.

As a new type of luminescent material, carbon dots (CDs) have attracted increased attention for their superior optical properties in recent years. However, CDs generally suffer from aggregation-induced luminescence quenching, which means they are highly emissive in solution or a dispersed state but dramatically quenched in a solid or aggregated state. This problem significantly limits the application of CDs, partially in the solid-state light-emitting devices. In this work, a new kind of solid-state emissive CDs have been synthesized via simple one-step hydrothermal strategy. Under 450 nm excitation, the CDs exhibit bright green luminescence in the solid state, with a quantum yield of 26%. The luminescence lifetime of the CDs is only 4 ns. Employing the CDs as a color converter, white light-emitting diodes were fabricated and a visible light communication system with high performance (modulation bandwidth of 55 MHz, data transmission rate of 181 Mbps) was realized.

In this work, we report a successful extension of the family of light-emitting colloidal carbon nanostructures to a number of different shapes and morphologies, namely, carbon nanorolls (CNRs) and carbon nanobelts (CNBs). Near infrared (NIR)-emissive CNRs were synthesized via a solvothermal fusion of carbon dots (CDs) triggered by a dehydration process of their surface functional groups. They appear in a form of short cylinders, with diameters ranging from 20 to 40 nm and cylinder lengths ranging from 7 to 20 nm. In ethanol solution, CNRs have a maximum absorption peak at 665 nm and a NIR emission band extending from 650 to 800 nm, with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 9.2%. Intriguingly, the rolled structure of CNRs can be uncoiled under 655 nm laser irradiation (power density 1 W•cm −2 ) of their solution in ethanol, forming CNBs with a width of 7−20 nm and lengths reaching several hundreds of nanometers, which is accompanied by a considerably decreased absorption band at 665 nm and a decreased NIR emission. This unfolding is ascribed to the decrease of the strength of interlayer hydrogen bonding, owing to the photothermally induced dehydration and further carbonization of the CNRs. Alongside the decreased NIR emission, CNBs exhibit enhanced green and red emissions under UV and green light excitation, respectively, which allows us to demonstrate multiple-level luminescence encryptions on a paper stamped with CNR-and CNB-inks.