Nuovi ritrovamenti di resti di vertebrati nel travertino di Alcamo (TP).

I depositi di travertino di Alcamo (TP) sono noti sin dal 1928 soprattutto per aver restituito resti dell’elefante di piccola taglia Paleoloxodon falconeri. Intorno agli anni ’80 nella cava di Contrada Cappuccini i lavori di coltivazione portarono alla luce una grossa frattura nel travertino. La frattura, riempita di un paleosuolo e chiaramente successiva alla formazione del travertino, conteneva un’associazione fossile caratterizzata dalla presenza di Paleoloxodon mnaidriensis. Il fatto che il paleosuolo contenga tali resti, assenti nel bancone di travertino caratterizzato invece dalla presenza dell’elefante di piccola taglia, costituisce un'inoppugnabile prova stratigrafica sulla successione degli elefanti di taglia ridotta che hanno popolato la Sicilia durante l’ultimo milione di anni. L’altra scoperta che rende unico questo deposito è legata al ritrovamento, per la prima volta in Sicilia, dei resti fossili di una tartaruga gigante terrestre nonché di centinaia di reperti identificati come uova fossili di tartaruga. Date le sue peculiari caratteristiche geologiche e paleontologiche, per tale sito è in atto da parte dell'ARTA (Assessorato Regionale Territorio e Ambiente) Sicilia l’istituzione del Geosito "Travertino della Cava Cappuccini". Le stesse motivazioni hanno portato l’Amministrazione Comunale di Alcamo a effettuare i lavori di riqualificazione della cava dismessa e, nell’ottica di una sua valorizzazione, la realizzazione di un anfiteatro e di una struttura museale al fine di salvaguardare l'area e, più in particolare, il contenuto fossilifero ancora in situ. Data la peculiarità del sito e la necessità di tutelare il patrimonio paleontologico in esso contenuto, l'Amministrazione Comunale di Alcamo, su richiesta dell'ARTA, ha proceduto all'affidamento di un incarico di assistente paleontologo con il compito di collaborare con la Direzione dei lavori in fase di scavo anche per classificare eventuali nuovi reperti e provvedere alla loro corretta conservazione. La presenza del paleontologo di “cantiere” si è rivelata fondamentale in quanto, durante i lavori di rimozione del materiale di risulta, sono stati rinvenuti numerosi nuovi reperti fossili riferibili alla tartaruga gigante terrestre tra cui numerosi “nidi” di uova e, soprattutto, diversi resti scheletrici. Lo studio di tale materiale, che si aggiunge a quello già esistente, potrà meglio chiarire la posizione sistematica di questo taxon e, al contempo, accrescere l’importanza del Geosito di nuova istituzione

I resti scheletrici della grotta di S. Teodoro presso il Museo Gemmellaro di Palermo: il nuovo restauro conservativo di ST2

The work describes the restoration of the cranium ST2 of the Epipalaeolithic site of S. Teodoro, Sicily. This restoration has been conducted in accordance to modern criteria of conservation limiting the integrative and reconstructive interpretation to the minimum. After the restauration ST2 has been morphologically described and measured. The fortuitous recovery of a left incus bone allowed its morphological and metrical description

An Oreopithecus bambolii jawin the Museum “Giorgio G. Gemmellaro” in Palermo

In this contribution we describe a specimen attributed to Oreopithecus bambolii Gervais, 1872 (Primates), preliminarilyreported in the 1990’s by E. Burgio, the then-curator of the Gemmellaro Museum in Palermo. It is a portion of a maxilla bearing the eruptedright second molar, as well as the unerupted right canine and third molar, all excellently preserved. The fragment has been compared withspecimens preserved in the Museum of Paleontology in Florence. It shows an overall appearance and taphonomic features that matchthose of the specimens from the lignite mines near Grosseto in Tuscany. Basic metric surveys and a microCT scan were carried out on thesample. The Museum’s records do not allow us to define precisely how the specimen was acquired, but we report some research carried outin the archives at Palermo and Florence, in relation to a possible exchange that took place in the 1870’s, between the then-directors G.G.Gemmellaro and I. Cocch

Population dynamic of the extinct European aurochs: genetic evidence of a north-south differentiation pattern and no evidence of post-glacial expansion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aurochs (<it>Bos primigenius</it>) was a large bovine that ranged over almost the entirety of the Eurasian continent and North Africa. It is the wild ancestor of the modern cattle (<it>Bos taurus</it>), and went extinct in 1627 probably as a consequence of human hunting and the progressive reduction of its habitat. To investigate in detail the genetic history of this species and to compare the population dynamics in different European areas, we analysed <it>Bos primigenius </it>remains from various sites across Italy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fourteen samples provided ancient DNA fragments from the mitochondrial hypervariable region. Our data, jointly analysed with previously published sequences, support the view that Italian aurochsen were genetically similar to modern bovine breeds, but very different from northern/central European aurochsen. Bayesian analyses and coalescent simulations indicate that the genetic variation pattern in both Italian and northern/central European aurochsen is compatible with demographic stability after the last glaciation. We provide evidence that signatures of population expansion can erroneously arise in stable aurochsen populations when the different ages of the samples are not taken into account.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Distinct groups of aurochsen probably inhabited Italy and northern/central Europe after the last glaciation, respectively. On the contrary, Italian and Fertile Crescent aurochsen likely shared several mtDNA sequences, now common in modern breeds. We argue that a certain level of genetic homogeneity characterized aurochs populations in Southern Europe and the Middle East, and also that post-glacial recolonization of northern and central Europe advanced, without major demographic expansions, from eastern, and not southern, refugia.</p

Ambiente e clima della Sicilia durante gli ultimi 20 mila anni

Environment and Climate in Sicily over the last 20, 000 years. (IT ISSN 0394-3356, 2010). A series of recent studies shed light on the central Mediterranean, and Sicily, climate and environment, starting from the last glacial maximum (about 20 ka cal BP). In the present paper, we examine most of these works, in order to unravel environmental changes of the past, mainly in terms of temperature, atmospheric pattern, precipitation, vegetation and faunal associations. The climate of the last glacial maximum was characterised by very low temperature and by repeated northerlies penetration, even during summer. Low precipitation values led to a steppe- or semisteppe-like vegetation pattern, dominated by herbs and shrubs. Episodes of climatic anomaly, characterised by lower temperature and strengthened wind activity, could have occurred during the Holocene, as testified by micropaleontological and geochemical investigations carried out on the southern Tyrrhenian Sea and in the northern Sicily Channel. In the terrestrial record, there is evidence of drought at 8.2 ka cal BP, from the isotopic composition of a stalagmite recovered near Palermo, and of prolonged drought intervals during the Little Ice Age in the Erice village (Trapani). The vegetation pattern shows the development of Mediterranean Maquis in coastal sites and deciduous forests in sub-montane and montane regions, approximately from the Holocene base. The human impact is the main factor that forced the present vegetation pattern, as a consequence of intensive land-use, which started about 2.7 ka cal BP, when Greek colonies were first established. Human activity is however superimposed on a natural trend towards aridity, with climatic forces still not fully understood

Cupricyclins, Novel Redox-Active Metallopeptides Based on Conotoxins Scaffold

Highly stable natural scaffolds which tolerate multiple amino acid substitutions represent the ideal starting point for the application of rational redesign strategies to develop new catalysts of potential biomedical and biotechnological interest. The knottins family of disulphide-constrained peptides display the desired characteristics, being highly stable and characterized by hypervariability of the inter-cysteine loops. The potential of knottins as scaffolds for the design of novel copper-based biocatalysts has been tested by engineering a metal binding site on two different variants of an ω-conotoxin, a neurotoxic peptide belonging to the knottins family. The binding site has been designed by computational modelling and the redesigned peptides have been synthesized and characterized by optical, fluorescence, electron spin resonance and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The novel peptides, named Cupricyclin-1 and -2, bind one Cu2+ ion per molecule with nanomolar affinity. Cupricyclins display redox activity and catalyze the dismutation of superoxide anions with an activity comparable to that of non-peptidic superoxide dismutase mimics. We thus propose knottins as a novel scaffold for the design of catalytically-active mini metalloproteins

Lopinavir/Ritonavir and Darunavir/Cobicistat in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: Findings From the Multicenter Italian CORIST Study

Background: Protease inhibitors have been considered as possible therapeutic agents for COVID-19 patients. Objectives: To describe the association between lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) or darunavir/cobicistat (DRV/c) use and in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients. Study Design: Multicenter observational study of COVID-19 patients admitted in 33 Italian hospitals. Medications, preexisting conditions, clinical measures, and outcomes were extracted from medical records. Patients were retrospectively divided in three groups, according to use of LPV/r, DRV/c or none of them. Primary outcome in a time-to event analysis was death. We used Cox proportional-hazards models with inverse probability of treatment weighting by multinomial propensity scores. Results: Out of 3,451 patients, 33.3% LPV/r and 13.9% received DRV/c. Patients receiving LPV/r or DRV/c were more likely younger, men, had higher C-reactive protein levels while less likely had hypertension, cardiovascular, pulmonary or kidney disease. After adjustment for propensity scores, LPV/r use was not associated with mortality (HR = 0.94, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.13), whereas treatment with DRV/c was associated with a higher death risk (HR = 1.89, 1.53 to 2.34, E-value = 2.43). This increased risk was more marked in women, in elderly, in patients with higher severity of COVID-19 and in patients receiving other COVID-19 drugs. Conclusions: In a large cohort of Italian patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in a real-life setting, the use of LPV/r treatment did not change death rate, while DRV/c was associated with increased mortality. Within the limits of an observational study, these data do not support the use of LPV/r or DRV/c in COVID-19 patients