Old stones’ song—second verse: use-wear analysis of rhyolite and fenetized andesite artifacts from the Oldowan lithic industry of Kanjera South, Kenya

This paper investigates Oldowan hominin behavioral ecology through use-wear analysis of artifacts from Kanjera South, Western Kenya. It extends development of our experimental use-wear reference collection and analysis of use-wear on the well preserved and unweathered Oldowan tools from this site to include rhyolite, a non-local material of similar durability to previously studied quartz and quartzite tools, and fenetized andesite, a local material with considerably less durability. Variability in rhyolite and fenetized andesite texture, inclusions, and matrix required enhancement of previous methods so we combine the use of stereoscopic, metallographic, and scanning electron microscopy in this study. This study allows us to begin exploration of the links between specific artifactual raw materials and the materials they were used to process. Data assembled so far suggest that tools fashioned from non-local and local stone were, with one possible exception, used to process similar materials. Additionally, experiments carried out with replicas of tools made of rhyolite and fenetized andesite confirm interpretation of reduction sequences that tools made of less durable local material had a shorter use-life and were used expediently compared to the more durable non-local quartz, quartzite, and rhyolite. These new data improve our understanding, of the functional needs, behavioral solutions, and cognitive capacities of Oldowan hominins. Finally, these data show how use-wear analysis, combined with lithic raw material and lithic technology, can be a powerful means for evaluating two key points for human evolution: long-term memory, and planning

Oldest evidence of tool making hominins in a grassland-dominated ecosystem.

BACKGROUND: Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C(4) grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C(4) vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), evidence for grassland-dominated ecosystems in continental Africa and hominin activities within such ecosystems have been lacking. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report stable isotopic analyses of pedogenic carbonates and ungulate enamel, as well as faunal data from approximately 2.0 Ma archeological occurrences at Kanjera South, Kenya. These document repeated hominin activities within a grassland-dominated ecosystem. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data demonstrate what hitherto had been speculated based on indirect evidence: that grassland-dominated ecosystems did in fact exist during the Plio-Pleistocene, and that early Homo was active in open settings. Comparison with other Oldowan occurrences indicates that by 2.0 Ma hominins, almost certainly of the genus Homo, used a broad spectrum of habitats in East Africa, from open grassland to riparian forest. This strongly contrasts with the habitat usage of Australopithecus, and may signal an important shift in hominin landscape usage

Two New Vortex Liquids

It is suggested that the observations of nonlinear susceptibility and Nernst effect in cuprate superconductors above Tc, and those of non-classical rotational inertia in solid He, are two manifestations of a state of matter we call a vortex liquid, distinct from a conventional liquid in that its properties are dominated by conserved supercurrents flowing around a thermally fluctuating tangle of vortices

Parabens as Urinary Biomarkers of Exposure in Humans

BACKGROUND: Parabens appear frequently as antimicrobial preservatives in cosmetic products, in pharmaceuticals, and in food and beverage processing. In vivo and in vitro studies have revealed weak estrogenic activity of some parabens. Widespread use has raised concerns about the potential human health risks associated with paraben exposure. OBJECTIVES: Assessing human exposure to parabens usually involves measuring in urine the conjugated or free species of parabens or their metabolites. In animals, parabens are mostly hydrolyzed to p-hydroxybenzoic acid and excreted in the urine as conjugates. Still, monitoring urinary concentrations of p-hydroxybenzoic acid is not necessarily the best way to assess exposure to parabens. p-Hydroxybenzoic acid is a nonspecific biomarker, and the varying estrogenic bioactivities of parabens require specific biomarkers. Therefore, we evaluated the use of free and conjugated parent parabens as new biomarkers for human exposure to these compounds. RESULTS: We measured the urinary concentrations of methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, butyl (n- and iso-), and benzyl parabens in a demographically diverse group of 100 anonymous adults. We detected methyl and n-propyl parabens at the highest median concentrations (43.9 ng/mL and 9.05 ng/mL, respectively) in nearly all (> 96%) of the samples. We also detected other parabens in more than half of the samples (ethyl, 58%; butyl, 69%). Most important, however, we found that parabens in urine appear predominantly in their conjugated forms. CONCLUSIONS: The results, demonstrating the presence of urinary conjugates of parabens in humans, suggest that such conjugated parabens could be used as exposure biomarkers. Additionally, the fact that conjugates appear to be the main urinary products of parabens may be important for risk assessment

Every bordered Riemann surface is a complete proper curve in a ball

We prove that every bordered Riemann surface admits a complete proper holomorphic immersion into a ball of C^2, and a complete proper holomorphic embedding into a ball of C^3.Comment: Math. Ann., in pres

Bayesian estimates of linkage disequilibrium

[Background] The maximum likelihood estimator of D' – a standard measure of linkage disequilibrium – is biased toward disequilibrium, and the bias is particularly evident in small samples and rare haplotypes. [Results] This paper proposes a Bayesian estimation of D' to address this problem. The reduction of the bias is achieved by using a prior distribution on the pair-wise associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP)s that increases the likelihood of equilibrium with increasing physical distances between pairs of SNPs. We show how to compute the Bayesian estimate using a stochastic estimation based on MCMC methods, and also propose a numerical approximation to the Bayesian estimates that can be used to estimate patterns of LD in large datasets of SNPs. [Conclusion] Our Bayesian estimator of D' corrects the bias toward disequilibrium that affects the maximum likelihood estimator. A consequence of this feature is a more objective view about the extent of linkage disequilibrium in the human genome, and a more realistic number of tagging SNPs to fully exploit the power of genome wide association studies.Research supported by NIH/NHLBI grant R21 HL080463-01, NIH/NIDDK 1R01DK069646-01A1 and the Spanish research program [projects TIN2004-06204-C03-02 and TIN2005-02516]

Discrete element modelling and cavity expansion analysis of cone penetration testing

This paper uses the discrete element method (DEM) in three dimensions to simulate cone penetration testing (CPT) of granular materials in a calibration chamber. Several researchers have used different numerical techniques such as strain path methods and finite element methods to study CPT problems. The DEM is a useful alternative tool for studying cone penetration problems because of its ability to provide micro mechanical insight into the behaviour of granular materials and cone penetration resistance. A 30° chamber segment and a particle refinement method were used for the simulations. Giving constant mass to each particle in the sample was found to reduce computational time significantly, without significantly affecting tip resistance. The effects of initial sample conditions and particle friction coefficient on tip resistance are investigated and found to have an important effect on the tip resistance. Biaxial test simulations using DEM are conducted to obtain the basic granular material properties for obtaining CPT analytical solutions based on continuum mechanics. Macro properties of the samples for different input micro parameters are presented and used to obtain the analytical CPT results. Comparison between the numerical simulations and analytical solutions show good agreement