An international research team studying fossilized oyster shells has revealed substantial annual temperature variation in sea water during the Early Cretaceous. The finding overturns the assumption that Earth's greenhouse periods are marked by universally warmer and uniformly stable temperatures. 

Subwavelength optics delves into the study of light at spatial scales smaller than its wavelength, opening up new possibilities for understanding light–matter interactions. Over the past few decades, significant advancements have been made in the field, ranging from fundamental theories and technologies to practical engineering applications. A special issue in Engineering 2025 reported recent research on various topics such as nonlinear optics, chirality, optical singularities, and so forth.

Background: Timing of chest tube removal in trauma patients is debatable. This study aimed to assess whether protocolized early thoracostomy tube (TT) removal is associated with better outcomes. The study hypothesis is that early removal of TT is feasible and safe.

Methods: This was a prospective study for clinical assessment of early TT removal initiated 48 hours post-insertion [early (≤3 days) vs. late (>3 days) groups].

Results: One hundred and fifty patients were enrolled, and a total of 174 TTs were inserted. There were 24 patients with bilateral TTs. The median age was 34 years (range, 15–78 years), and 93% were males. Following this protocol, 105 TTs were removed within 3 days post-insertion. There was a slight increase in the number of patients with recurrent pneumothorax in the early removal group compared to the late removal group (P=0.09). The chest Abbreviated Injury Scale, the rates of recurrent hemothorax, hemopneumothorax, and tube dislodgement were comparable among the two groups. The rate of recurrent pneumothorax (22.2% vs. 5.1%; P=0.02) and chest tube re-insertion (11.1% vs. 0.0%; P=0.002) were significant in patients with TT output 150–200 mL (over 24 h) as compared to those with lesser TT output. There was no significant difference in complications and post-TT removal interventions based on the size and anatomical location of TT insertion.

Conclusions: Although there were post-removal events in the early removal group, the rate of post-removal complications and interventions was comparable to that in the late group. Moreover, the laterality of insertion and the tube size were not associated with complications. The TT removal protocol needs validation in larger multicenter studies.

Keywords: Chest trauma; chest tube; thoracostomy; tube removal; hemopneumothorax

Background: Chronic cough (CC) is defined by cough more than 8 weeks. Common causes of CC are upper airway cough syndrome (UACS), asthma, eosinophilic bronchitis (EB), and gastroesophageal reflux diseases (GERD). However, we do not know the characteristics of responding to treatment early. We conducted this study to evaluate the characteristics of the early responder group of CC.

Methods: This study was conducted as multi-center, retrospective observational study. Patients were collected in 15 university hospitals. The severity and quality of life (QOL) of CC were measured by cough numeric rating scale (NRS) and Cough Assessment Test (COAT) scores three times (baseline, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks after treatment). The early responder group was defined by improvement of minimal important difference in both cough NRS and COAT.

Results: Early responder group was more diagnosed as UACS compared to non-early responder group (65.7% vs. 49.2%, P=0.006). They also had higher baseline cough NRS (5.5±1.2 vs. 4.9±1.3, P<0.001). After adjusting confounding factors such as sex, age, cough duration, baseline cough severity and QOL, and diagnoses of UACS, asthma/EB, or GERD, higher cough NRS [odds ratio (OR) 1.44; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06–1.97; P=0.02] and diagnosis of UACS (OR 1.76; 95% CI: 1.02–3.02; P=0.04) were associated with being early responder group in the multivariate logistic regression analyses.

Conclusions: We demonstrated the characteristics of early responders of CC treatment. UACS group and higher baseline cough severity group showed earlier response to treatment than other groups.

Keywords: Chronic cough (CC); early responder; upper airway cough syndrome (UACS); cough numeric rating scale (cough NRS); Cough Assessment Test (COAT)