Negative muons reveal the economic chaos of Rome’s AD 68/9 Civil Wars

During the AD 68/9 Civil Wars, Galba, Otho, Vitellius and then Vespasian fought for — and gained — control of the Roman Empire. Our textual sources suggest that this was a period of serious and sustained disruption. However, existing analyses of gold coinages produced in AD 68/9 show only a minor reduction in the purity of the gold coinage. Using X-ray fluorescence, we identify a number of heavily debased gold coins issued during the AD 68/9 Civil Wars, and many slightly debased coins issued in their immediate aftermath. We then confirm the interior composition of these coins totally non-destructively using muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy, thus eliminating hypothetical problems of ‘surface enrichment’ or compositional differences between ‘surface’ and ‘core’. Here we show that heavily debased Civil War gold coinages were indeed produced; that copper was used to debase Roman gold coins during this time, c. 185 years earlier than first shown; and that slightly debased gold coins were regularly issued in the years immediately after the Civil Wars. The metallurgical evidence from the gold coinage now allows us to show that the AD 68/9 Civil Wars caused significant and sustained disruption to the Roman economic system. More broadly, we have shown that muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy is a powerful tool for generating important archaeological conclusions from high-value cultural heritage objects that simply cannot be destructively analysed, but need to have their interior compositions sampled

Whole genome comparison of a large collection of mycobacteriophages reveals a continuum of phage genetic diversity

The bacteriophage population is large, dynamic, ancient, and genetically diverse. Limited genomic information shows that phage genomes are mosaic, and the genetic architecture of phage populations remains ill-defined. To understand the population structure of phages infecting a single host strain, we isolated, sequenced, and compared 627 phages of Mycobacterium smegmatis. Their genetic diversity is considerable, and there are 28 distinct genomic types (clusters) with related nucleotide sequences. However, amino acid sequence comparisons show pervasive genomic mosaicism, and quantification of inter-cluster and intra-cluster relatedness reveals a continuum of genetic diversity, albeit with uneven representation of different phages. Furthermore, rarefaction analysis shows that the mycobacteriophage population is not closed, and there is a constant influx of genes from other sources. Phage isolation and analysis was performed by a large consortium of academic institutions, illustrating the substantial benefits of a disseminated, structured program involving large numbers of freshman undergraduates in scientific discovery

Negative muons reveal the economic chaos of Rome’s AD 68/9 Civil Wars

During the AD 68/9 Civil Wars, Galba, Otho, Vitellius and then Vespasian fought for — and gained — control of the Roman Empire. Our textual sources suggest that this was a period of serious and sustained disruption. However, existing analyses of gold coinages produced in AD 68/9 show only a minor reduction in the purity of the gold coinage. Using X-ray fluorescence, we identify a number of heavily debased gold coins issued during the AD 68/9 Civil Wars, and many slightly debased coins issued in their immediate aftermath. We then confirm the interior composition of these coins totally non-destructively using muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy, thus eliminating hypothetical problems of ‘surface enrichment’ or compositional differences between ‘surface’ and ‘core’. Here we show that heavily debased Civil War gold coinages were indeed produced; that copper was used to debase Roman gold coins during this time, c. 185 years earlier than first shown; and that slightly debased gold coins were regularly issued in the years immediately after the Civil Wars. The metallurgical evidence from the gold coinage now allows us to show that the AD 68/9 Civil Wars caused significant and sustained disruption to the Roman economic system. More broadly, we have shown that muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy is a powerful tool for generating important archaeological conclusions from high-value cultural heritage objects that simply cannot be destructively analysed, but need to have their interior compositions sampled

Effects of Zeolite X on Dissipation of Hexazinone from Agricultural Waste Waters in Western Kenya

Dissipation of hexazinone in Zeolite X treated wastewater followed pseudo first-order kinetics giving a calculated half-life of 41 days compared to a half-life of 144 days in untreated wastewater. The herbicide degraded faster (0.0067 h-1 ) in treated than in nonzeolite-treated wastewater (0.0027 h-1 ) forming products A, B, C, D and E within the first 12 h. Zeolite X effectively catalyzed the formation of product A compared to the rest. Calculated rate constants for formation of products A, B, D and E were: 8.33 x 10-4 h -1 , 5.65 x 10-4 h -1 , 5.52 x 10-4 h -1 and 1.38 x10-3 h -1 respectively in non-zeolite-treated wastewater; and 3.988 x 10-3 h -1 , 4.875 x 10-4 h -1 , 4.745 x 10-4 h -1 and 2.82 x 10-3 h -1 respectively in zeolite-treated wastewater

A new multidisciplinary non-destructive protocol for the analysis of stony meteorites: gamma spectroscopy, neutron and muon techniques supported by Raman microscopy and SEM-EDS

The physical and chemical characterisation of meteorites is of paramount importance in the study of the formation of the Solar System. In this work we show the feasibility of a complete set of non-destructive measurements to perform such a characterisation using a stony meteorite as a mock-up sample. The identification of the sample as a meteorite was performed by means of gamma ray spectrometry, which identified the presence of cosmogenic Al-26. Time-of-Flight Neutron Diffraction (ToF-ND) enabled the mineralogical phase quantification and the analysis of the presence of strains and substitutions in each mineral. Neutron Resonance Capture Analysis (NRCA), Neutron Resonance Transmission Imaging (NRTI) and Muonic Atom X-Ray Spectroscopy (MAXRS) allowed a study of the presence and the space distribution of certain elements. Furthermore, micro-Raman Spectroscopy (mu RS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) were also considered in order to validate the protocol