Preliminary Report on a Stratified Late Archaic-Woodland Era Rockshelter in Rogers County, Oklahoma

In northeastern Oklahoma, very little is known about the transition from the Late Archaic to the Woodland period (Wyckoff and Brooks, 1983: 55). To date, most of the archeological evidence documenting this time period has been derived from sites with mixed or otherwise uncertain components. In this report, we present a preliminary description of a small rockshelter, 34RO252, which has a Late Archaic deposit stratigraphically below a Woodland era cultural deposit. These two deposits are unmixed, discrete, and are physically separated by an apparently sterile clay soil horizon. It is anticipated that the stratified cultural deposits at this site will help characterize the transition from the Late Archaic to the Early Woodland period along the Verdigris River in northeast Oklahoma. This site was first reported in April 1994 by two men who had discovered partially exposed human skeletal remains located in the rear remnant of a rockshelter at Oologah Lake in Rogers County, Oklahoma. The two men illegally excavated the remains and removed them from the site. 1 The rockshelter where the remains originated was subsequently examined by the authors and additional skeletal material was identified, in situ, in an exposed soil profile. A series of three radiocarbon assays, described below, placed the cultural deposit and the human remains within the Late Archaic-Woodland period (circa 780 B.C. to A.O. 900).2 This site is provisionally classified as corresponding to a cultural sequence that includes the old Grove C described by Purrington and Vehik

Melatonin reduces TNF-a induced expression of MAdCAM-1 via inhibition of NF-kB.

BACKGROUND: Endothelial MAdCAM-1 (mucosal addressin cell adhesion molecule-1) expression is associated with the oxidant-dependent induction and progress of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Melatonin, a relatively safe, potent antioxidant, has shown efficacy in several chronic injury models may limit MAdCAM-1 expression and therefore have a therapeutic use in IBD. METHODS: We examined how different doses of melatonin reduced endothelial MAdCAM-1 induced by TNF-a in an in vitro model of lymphatic endothelium. Endothelial monolayers were pretreated with melatonin prior to, and during an exposure, to TNF-a (1 ng/ml, 24 h), and MAdCAM-1 expression measured by immunoblotting. RESULTS: MAdCAM-1 was induced by TNF-a. Melatonin at concentrations over 100 μm (10(-4) M) significantly attenuated MAdCAM-1 expression and was maximal at 1 mM. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that melatonin may exert therapeutic activity in IBD through its ability to inhibit NF-kB dependent induction of MAdCAM-1

Evaluation of tomato introgression lines diversified for peel color as a source of functional biocompounds and biomass for energy recovery

Aim of the work was to characterize the peels of novel tomato lines (with red, orange, pink, black-red, and darkred fruit) for the content of bioactive substances and for some parameters linked to no-food use. Chlorophyll, polyphenols, and carotenoid content, energy value, theoretical biochemical methane potential (TBMP) through stochiometric method were evaluated. The peel color mirrored a different content of the bioactive substances: the dark-red fruits showed a significant increase of the carotenoid content, while the peel of the black-red fruits had the highest values of polyphenols. The preferential accumulation of functional compounds influenced the values of the other parameters. The colored lines compared to the red-fruited control (C) contained less carbon and hydrogen mass fractions and, subsequently, a lower LHV. This, in turn, led to a substantial difference in the estimation of the TBMP. Interestingly, this production was higher in the highly pigmented line, which contained a gene present in some high-lycopene commercial varieties. A circular production model for exhaustive use of peel is proposed