Beads and warriors : the cemetery at Hagar el-Beida 2 (Sudan)

A complex of tumuli cemeteries dating to the first centuries AD was discovered in the vicinity of Hagar el-Beida village located in the region of the Fourth Nile Cataract. In two seasons in 2005, 24 tombs were explored on one of these sites (HB2). The bodies of the deceased were richly equipped, including bracelets and finger rings, but primarily strings of beads wound around the necks and hips. The beads were made of a variety of materials: faience, various stones, glass and ostrich eggshell

Contextualisation of the Early Iron Age hoard of bronze objects discovered in Gdynia-Karwiny, site 1

After the amateur discovery of a hoard of bronze ornaments (a kidney bracelet and two hollow ankle rings) in 2014 in a forest near Gdynia (Pomerania, northern Poland), the place was subjected to excavation. It turned out that in the nearest context of the bronzes (which had been found arranged one on top of the other in a narrow pit reaching 60 cm in depth) there was a cluster of stones, some of which could have been arranged intentionally in order to mark the place of the deposit. Next to this alleged stone circle there was a deep hearth used to heat stones, and for burning amber as incense. Remains of amber were preserved in the form of lumps and probably also as a deposit on the walls of some vessels. Some of the features of the examined complex may indicate a non-profane nature of the deposit: the presence of the stone structure, traces of burning amber, the location of the deposition spot in a not very habitable flattening of a narrow valley, as well as the chemical composition of the alloy of metals themselves. The ornaments were made of a porous copper alloy with a high addition of lead, antimony and arsenic, which could promote their fragility and poor use value. However, the ceramics found near the place where the bronzes are deposited do not differ from the settlement pottery of the time. The hoard and its context should be dated to the transition phase between the periods HaC1 and HaC2 (the turn of the 8th and 7th cent. BC). The Gdynia-Karwiny deposit adds to the list of finds from a period marked by the most frequent occurrence of hoards in Pomerania (turn of the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age). Its research seems to contribute to the interpretation of the deposition of metal objects as a phenomenon primarily of a ritual nature, and at the same time a social behaviour: a manifestation of competition for prestige

Coupling of the oxygen-linked interaction energy for inositol hexakisphosphate and bezafibrate binding to human HbA0.

The energetics of signal propagation between different functional domains (i.e. the binding sites for O2, inositol hexakisphospate (IHP), and bezafibrate (BZF)) of human HbA0 was analyzed at different heme ligation states and through the use of a stable, partially heme ligated intermediate. Present data allow three main conclusions to be drawn, and namely: (i) IHP and BZF enhance each others binding as the oxygenation proceeds, the coupling free energy going from close to zero in the deoxy state to -3.4 kJ/mol in the oxygenated form; (ii) the simultaneous presence of IHP and BZF stabilizes the hemoglobin T quaternary structure at very low O2 pressures, but as oxygenation proceeds it does not impair the transition toward the R structure, which indeed occurs also under these conditions; (iii) under room air pressure (i.e. pO2 = 150 torr), IHP and BZF together induce the formation of an asymmetric dioxygenated hemoglobin tetramer, whose features appear reminiscent of those suggested for transition state species (i.e. T- and R-like tertiary conformation(s) within a quaternary R-like structure)

The 16th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release from the APOGEE-2 Southern Survey and Full Release of eBOSS Spectra

This paper documents the 16th data release (DR16) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), the fourth and penultimate from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). This is the first release of data from the Southern Hemisphere survey of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2); new data from APOGEE-2 North are also included. DR16 is also notable as the final data release for the main cosmological program of the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), and all raw and reduced spectra from that project are released here. DR16 also includes all the data from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey and new data from the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Survey programs, both of which were co-observed on eBOSS plates. DR16 has no new data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey (or the MaNGA Stellar Library "MaStar"). We also preview future SDSS-V operations (due to start in 2020), and summarize plans for the final SDSS-IV data release (DR17)

The 16th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release from the APOGEE-2 Southern Survey and Full Release of eBOSS Spectra

This paper documents the 16th data release (DR16) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), the fourth and penultimate from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). This is the first release of data from the Southern Hemisphere survey of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2); new data from APOGEE-2 North are also included. DR16 is also notable as the final data release for the main cosmological program of the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), and all raw and reduced spectra from that project are released here. DR16 also includes all the data from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey and new data from the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Survey programs, both of which were co-observed on eBOSS plates. DR16 has no new data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey (or the MaNGA Stellar Library "MaStar"). We also preview future SDSS-V operations (due to start in 2020), and summarize plans for the final SDSS-IV data release (DR17)