"Stick 'n' peel": Explaining unusual patterns of disarticulation and loss of completeness in fossil vertebrates

Few fossil vertebrate skeletons are complete and fully articulated. Various taphonomic processes reduce the skeletal fidelity of decaying carcasses, the effects of most of which are reasonably well understood. Some fossil vertebrates, however, exhibit patterns of disarticulation and loss of completeness that are difficult to explain. Such skeletons are one of two variants. They are incomplete, often markedly so, but the preserved parts are highly articulated. Alternatively, they are complete, or nearly so, but articulation varies markedly between parts of the body. A characteristic feature is the absence of skeletal elements that, on the basis of their larger size and/or greater density, would be predicted to be present. Here we erect a model, termed “stick ‘n’ peel”, that explains how these distinctive patterns originate. The model emphasizes the role of decay products, especially fluids released from the carcass while resting on the sediment surface. These fluids permeate the sediment below and around the carcass. As a result, skeletal elements on the downward facing side of the carcass become adhered to the sediment surface, and are less likely to be remobilized as a result of current activity than others. The pattern of articulation and, especially, completeness is thus not what would be predicted on the basis of the size, shape and density of the skeletal elements. The effects of stick ‘n’ peel are difficult to predict a priori. Stick ‘n’ peel has been identified in vertebrate fossils in lacustrine and marine settings and is likely to be a common feature of the taphonomic history of many vertebrate assemblages. Specimens becoming adhered to the substrate may also explain the preservation in situ of the multi-element skeletons of invertebrates such as echinoderms, and integumentary structures such as hair and feathers in exceptionally preserved fossils

Three Essential Ribonucleases—RNase Y, J1, and III—Control the Abundance of a Majority of Bacillus subtilis mRNAs

Bacillus subtilis possesses three essential enzymes thought to be involved in mRNA decay to varying degrees, namely RNase Y, RNase J1, and RNase III. Using recently developed high-resolution tiling arrays, we examined the effect of depletion of each of these enzymes on RNA abundance over the whole genome. The data are consistent with a model in which the degradation of a significant number of transcripts is dependent on endonucleolytic cleavage by RNase Y, followed by degradation of the downstream fragment by the 5′–3′ exoribonuclease RNase J1. However, many full-size transcripts also accumulate under conditions of RNase J1 insufficiency, compatible with a model whereby RNase J1 degrades transcripts either directly from the 5′ end or very close to it. Although the abundance of a large number of transcripts was altered by depletion of RNase III, this appears to result primarily from indirect transcriptional effects. Lastly, RNase depletion led to the stabilization of many low-abundance potential regulatory RNAs, both in intergenic regions and in the antisense orientation to known transcripts

Review of Community Pharmacy Staff Educational Needs for Supporting Mental Health Consumers and Carers

Development of a mental health education package for community pharmacy staff should be informed by mental health consumers/carers’ needs, expectations and experiences, and staff knowledge, skills and attitudes. This review (1) explored research on community pharmacy practice and service provision for mental health consumers/carers, and (2) identified validated methods for assessing staff knowledge, skills and attitudes about mental illness to inform the development of a training questionnaire. A literature scan using key words knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs combined with community pharmacy, pharmacist, and pharmacy support staff, and mental illness, depression, anxiety was conducted. A small number of studies were found that used reliable methods to assess pharmacists’ training needs regarding mental illness and treatment options. There was little published specifically in relation to depression and anxiety in community pharmacy practice. No studies assessed the training needs of pharmacy support staff. A systematic analysis of pharmacy staff learning needs is warranted

“Stick ‘n’ peel”: how unusual patterns of disarticulation and loss of completeness in fossil vertebrates originate as a result of carcasses adhering to the substrate during decay

International Meeting on Taphonomy and Fossilization (8º. 2017. Viena)The taphonomic histories of fossil vertebrate skeletons can be both complex and difficult to resolve, even if only examples from exceptional biotas (Konservat Lagerstätten) are considered. Typically, the fidelity with which skeletons are preserved in exceptional biotas is “good to excellent” - even in cases where the non-biomineralised tissues have decayed completely. Crucially, it is, however, unusual that for any biota as a whole, all skeletons are complete and fully articulated. At least a minority, - and often the majority - of taxa within an assemblage show some loss of completeness and articulation.UCD School of Earth Sciences, University College Dublin, IrlandaPaläontologisches Institut und Museum der Universität, SuizaMuseo Geominero, Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, EspañaSchool of Biological, Earth and Environmental Science, University College Cork, IrlandaSouth African Heritage Resources Agency, Archaeology, Palaeontology and Meteorites Unit, SudáfricaPeer reviewe

Predicting City Poverty Using Satellite Imagery

Reliable data about socio-economic conditions of individuals, such as health indexes, consumption expenditures and wealth assets, remain scarce for most countries. Traditional methods to collect such data include on site surveys that can be expensive and labour intensive. On the other hand, remote sensing data, such as high-resolution satellite imagery, are becoming largely available. To circumvent the lack of socio-economic data at high granularity, computer vision has already been applied successfully to raw satellite imagery sampled from resource poor countries

Predicting City Poverty Using Satellite Imagery

Reliable data about socio-economic conditions of individuals, such as health indexes, consumption expenditures and wealth assets, remain scarce for most countries. Traditional methods to collect such data include on site surveys that can be expensive and labour intensive. On the other hand, remote sensing data, such as high-resolution satellite imagery, are becoming largely available. To circumvent the lack of socio-economic data at high granularity, computer vision has already been applied successfully to raw satellite imagery sampled from resource poor countries.In this work we apply a similar approach to the metropolitan areas of five different cities in North and South America, starting from pre-trained convolutional models used for poverty mapping in developing regions. Applying a transfer learning process we estimate household income from visual satellite features. The urban environment we consider is characterized by different features with respect to the resource-poor training environment, such as the high heterogeneity in population density. By leveraging both official and crowd-sourced data at city scale, we show the feasibility of estimating the socio-economic conditions of different neighborhoods from satellite data

Jelly-falls historic and recent observations: a review to drive future research directions

The biological pump describes the transport of particulate matter from the sea surface to the ocean’s interior including the seabed. The contribution by gelatinous zooplankton bodies as particulate organic matter (POM) vectors (“jelly-falls”) has been neglected owing to technical and spatiotemporal sampling limitations. Here, we assess the existing evidence on jelly-falls from early ocean observations to present times. The seasonality of jelly-falls indicates that they mostly occur after periods of strong upwelling and/or spring blooms in temperate/subpolar zones and during late spring/early summer. A conceptual model helps to define a jelly-fall based on empirical and field observations of biogeochemical and ecological processes. We then compile and discuss existing strategic and observational oceanographic techniques that could be implemented to further jelly-falls research. Seabed video- and photography-based studies deliver the best results, and the correct use of fishing techniques, such as trawling, could provide comprehensive regional datasets. We conclude by considering the possibility of increased gelatinous biomasses in the future ocean induced by upper ocean processes favouring their populations, thus increasing jelly-POM downward transport. We suggest that this could provide a “natural compensation” for predicted losses in pelagic POM with respect to fuelling benthic ecosystems

“Stick ‘n’ peel”: Explaining unusual patterns of disarticulation and loss of completeness in fossil vertebrates

Few fossil vertebrate skeletons are complete and fully articulated. Various taphonomic processes reduce the skeletal fidelity of decaying carcasses, the effects of most of which are reasonably well understood. Some fossil vertebrates, however, exhibit patterns of disarticulation and loss of completeness that are difficult to explain. Such skeletons are one of two variants. They are incomplete, often markedly so, but the preserved parts are highly articulated. Alternatively, they are complete, or nearly so, but articulation varies markedly between parts of the body. A characteristic feature is the absence of skeletal elements that, on the basis of their larger size and/or greater density, would be predicted to be present. Here we erect a model, termed “stick ‘n’ peel”, that explains how these distinctive patterns originate. The model emphasizes the role of decay products, especially fluids released from the carcass while resting on the sediment surface. These fluids permeate the sediment below and around the carcass. As a result, skeletal elements on the downward facing side of the carcass become adhered to the sediment surface, and are less likely to be remobilized as a result of current activity than others. The pattern of articulation and, especially, completeness is thus not what would be predicted on the basis of the size, shape and density of the skeletal elements. The effects of stick ‘n’ peel are difficult to predict a priori. Stick ‘n’ peel has been identified in vertebrate fossils in lacustrine and marine settings and is likely to be a common feature of the taphonomic history of many vertebrate assemblages. Specimens becoming adhered to the substrate may also explain the preservation in situ of the multi-element skeletons of invertebrates such as echinoderms, and integumentary structures such as hair and feathers in exceptionally preserved fossils