Norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis with most infections caused by GII.4 variants. To understand the evolutionary processes that contribute to the emergence of GII.4 variants, we examined the molecular epidemiology of norovirus-associated acute gastroenteritis in Australia and New Zealand from 893 outbreaks between 2009 and 2012. Throughout the study GII.4 New Orleans 2009 was predominant; however, during 2012 it was replaced by an emergent GII.4 variant, Sydney 2012. An evolutionary analysis of capsid gene sequences was performed to determine the origins and selective pressures driving the emergence of these recently circulating GII.4 variants. This revealed that both New Orleans 2009 and Sydney 2012 share a common ancestor with GII.4 Apeldoorn 2007. Furthermore, pre-epidemic ancestral variants of each virus were identified up to two years before their pandemic emergence. Adaptive changes at known blockade epitopes in the viral capsid were also identified that likely contributed to their emergence.

Hydrogen is important as a new source of energy for automotive applications. It is clear that the key challenge in developing this technology is hydrogen storage. Current methods for hydrogen storage have yet to meet all the demands for on‐board applications. High‐pressure gas storage or liquefaction cannot fulfill the storage criteria required for on‐board storage. Solid‐state materials have shown potential advantages for hydrogen storage in comparison to other storage methods. In this article, the most popular solid‐state storage materials and methods including carbon based materials, metal hydrides, metal organic frameworks, hollow glass microspheres, capillary arrays, clathrate hydrates, metal nitrides and imides, doped polymer and zeolites, are critically reviewed. The survey shows that most of the materials available with high storage capacity have disadvantages associated with slow kinetics and those materials with fast kinetics have issues with low storage capacity. Most of the chemisorption‐based materials are very expensive and in some cases, the hydrogen absorption/desorption phenomena is irreversible. Furthermore, a very high temperature is required to release the adsorbed hydrogen. On the other hand, the main drawback in the case of physisorption‐based materials and methods is their lower capacity for hydrogen storage, especially under mild operating conditions. To accomplish the requisite goals, extensive research studies are still required to optimize the critical parameters of such systems, including the safety (to be improved), security (to be available for all), cost (to be lowered), storage capacity (to be increased), and the sorption‐desorption kinetics (to be improved).

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