Artificial intelligence (AI) coupled with promising machine learning (ML) techniques well known from computer science is broadly affecting many aspects of various fields including science and technology, industry, and even our day-to-day life. The ML techniques have been developed to analyze high-throughput data with a view to obtaining useful insights, categorizing, predicting, and making evidence-based decisions in novel ways, which will promote the growth of novel applications and fuel the sustainable booming of AI. This paper undertakes a comprehensive survey on the development and application of AI in different aspects of fundamental sciences, including information science, mathematics, medical science, materials science, geoscience, life science, physics, and chemistry. The challenges that each discipline of science meets, and the potentials of AI techniques to handle these challenges, are discussed in detail. Moreover, we shed light on new research trends entailing the integration of AI into each scientific discipline. The aim of this paper is to provide a broad research guideline on fundamental sciences with potential infusion of AI, to help motivate researchers to deeply understand the state-of-the-art applications of AI-based fundamental sciences, and thereby to help promote the continuous development of these fundamental sciences.

Summary We demonstrate that cortical interneurons derived from ventral eminences, including the caudal ganglionic eminence, undergo programmed cell death. Moreover, with the exception of VIP interneurons, this occurs in a manner that is activity-dependent. In addition, we demonstrate that, within interneurons, Calcineurin, a calcium-dependent protein phosphatase, plays a critical role in sequentially linking activity to maturation (E15–P5) and survival (P5–P20). Specifically, embryonic inactivation of Calcineurin results in a failure of interneurons to morphologically mature and prevents them from undergoing apoptosis. By contrast, early postnatal inactivation of Calcineurin increases apoptosis. We conclude that Calcineurin serves a dual role of promoting first the differentiation of interneurons and, subsequently, their survival.

A bilayered chiral metamaterial is proposed and demonstrated to exhibit dual-band asymmetric transmission of linearly polarized electromagnetic waves in two opposite directions. Simulated and measured results show that the bilayered chiral metamaterial can achieve cross-polarization conversion with an efficiency of over 90% for both y- and x-polarized waves. The proposed metasurface can be regarded as an ultrathin polarization-controlled switch that is easily switched on/off by changing a linearly polarized wave to its orthogonal component.

Two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum sulfide (MoS 2 ) is an attractive noble-metal-free electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution (HER) in acids. Tremendous effort has been made to engineer MoS 2 catalysts with either more active sites or higher conductivity to enhance their HER activity. However, little attention has been paid to synergistically structural and electronic modulations of MoS 2 . Herein, 2D hydrogenated graphene (HG) is introduced into MoS 2 ultrathin nanosheets for the construction of a highly efficient and stable catalyst for HER. Owing to synergistic modulations of both structural and electronic benefits to MoS 2 nanosheets via HG support, such a catalyst has improved conductivity, more accessible catalytic active sites, and moderate hydrogen adsorption energy. On the optimized MoS 2 /HG hybrid catalyst, HER occurs with an overpotential of 124 mV at 10 mA cm −2 , a Tafel slope of 41 mV dec −1 , and a stable durability for 24 h continuous operation at 30 mA cm −2 without observable fading. The high performance of the optimized MoS 2 /HG hybrid catalyst for HER was interpreted with density functional theory calculations. The simulation results reveal that the introduction of HG modulates the electronic structure of MoS 2 to increase the number of active sites and simultaneously optimizes the hydrogen adsorption energy at S-edge atoms, eventually promoting HER activity. This study thus provides a strategy to design and develop high-performance HER electrocatalysts by employing different 2D materials.