Holocene LSA archaeology from Equus Cave, Buxton-Norlim Limeworks, South Africa : an analysis of the bone tool assemblage

Abstract: Equus Cave, Buxton-Norlim Limeworks, near Taung, North West Province, South Africa, was first excavated between 1978 and 1982. While the site dates to the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene the precise age of the different layers is debated, as is the technological assignment of the deepest deposits, which are said to contain both Later or Middle Stone Age elements. While the faunal assemblage and some of the human remains have been published, the archaeology has never been fully analysed or reported. New excavations in 2012 revealed numerous artefacts including ochre, something not previously noted for this site. Comparison of total lithic artefact counts versus faunal NISPs and MNIs shows that the height of human occupation occurred during the Holocene, with preliminary analysis of the >6000 lithic assemblage indicating a dominance of notched artefacts, which, coupled with the presence of 16 bone points, is characteristic of other HoloceneWilton (Later Stone Age) sites in the region. The focus of this paper is the 16 bone points, which include projectile points and link-shafts, and how these items were manufactured and used. The results provide one of the first detailed descriptions of Later Stone Age bone tools, including rare specimens that are mostly complete or still preserve the tips, making an important contribution to our limited understanding of Later Stone Age bone tool technology

Biological Contamination Prevention for Outer Solar System Moons of Astrobiological Interest: What Do We Need to Know?

To ensure that scientific investments in space exploration are not compromised by terrestrial contamination of celestial bodies, special care needs to be taken to preserve planetary conditions for future astrobiological exploration. Significant effort has been made and is being taken to address planetary protection in the context of inner Solar System exploration. In particular for missions to Mars, detailed internationally accepted guidelines have been established. For missions to the icy moons in the outer Solar System, Europa and Enceladus, the planetary protection requirements are so far based on a probabilistic approach and a conservative estimate of poorly known parameters. One objective of the European Commission-funded project, Planetary Protection of Outer Solar System, was to assess the existing planetary protection approach, to identify inherent knowledge gaps, and to recommend scientific investigations necessary to update the requirements for missions to the icy moons

Cytochrome P450 Gene Expression in the Common Mussel Mytilus edulis.

The cytochromes P450 are a ubiquitous family of enzymes involved in metabolism of a wide variety of compounds, both naturally occurring and man-made. A number of isozymes of cytochrome P450 are induced by characteristic compounds. Some of these groups of compounds commonly occur in the marine environment as pollutants. It was proposed, by studying the mechanisms of gene regulation, to develop methods of monitoring marine pollution by using levels of certain P450 isozymes in marine animals (in particular the widely used marine mussel Mytilus edulis) as indices of seawater quality. In this project I have: 1) used radiolabelled vertebrate cDNA probes from cytochrome P450 isoenzymes and other proteins to detect homologous sequences in marine invertebrates, particularly in M. edulis. 2) successfully detected mRNA and DNA sequences related to the cDNA probes used in nucleic acid samples purified from mussel and other marine species. 3) performed assays to determine whether the isozymes identified were inducible, comparing mussel with fish for a number of different P450 cDNA probes. 4) performed PCR amplification of mussel DNA using primer pairs derived from published vertebrate P450 sequences. 5) synthesized a mussel genomic DNA library in the vector lambda EMBL3a to facilitate further examination of which P450 genes are present in the molluscan genome. From this work I have determined that sequences homologous to probes from the vertebrate P450I family and P450IV family isozymes are expressed in the mussel, whereas sequences homologous to probes derived from mammalian P450II family isozymes appear to be absent. In comparison with the vertebrate equivalents however, the molluscan P450s appear to be regulated differently: a variety of experimental and field conditions failed to produce clear induction of invertebrate P450, as detected using these probes. Sequences sufficiently similar to fish P450IA1 were present in mussel DNA to allow in vitro amplification using primers derived from the fish P450 sequence. However primers to the rat P450IVA1 did not amplify a fragment in mussel. The gene library synthesized will allow clones encoding mussel P450s to be isolated, following identification by either probes derived from mammalian P450s or probes derived from in vitro amplification of mussel P450 sequences. In the latter case, sequencing of the amplified fragment will first be required. This work complements existing data from studies using other techniques and facilitates additional study to isolate and further analyse the functioning of mussel P450s

Advanced Planetary Protection Technologies for the Proposed Future Mission Set

Planetary protection is the discipline of protecting solar system objects from harmful contamination resulting from the activities of interplanetary spacecraft, and of similarly protecting the Earth from uncontrolled release of a putative extra-terrestrial organism from returned extra-terrestrial samples. Planetary protection requirements for Mars are becoming further refined as more is understood about the nature of the Martian environment as a potential habitat. Likewise, increased understanding of the limits of life on Earth is informing planetary protection policy. This presentation will discuss recent technology developments, ongoing work and future challenges of implementing planetary protection for the proposed future mission set

Design Tools for Cost-Effective Implementation of Planetary Protection Requirements

Since the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s, accounting for the costs associated with planetary protection implementation has not been done systematically during early project formulation phases, leading to unanticipated costs during subsequent implementation phases of flight projects. The simultaneous development of more stringent planetary protection requirements, resulting from new knowledge about the limits of life on Earth, together with current plans to conduct life-detection experiments on a number of different solar system target bodies motivates a systematic approach to integrating planetary protection requirements and mission design. A current development effort at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is aimed at integrating planetary protection requirements more fully into the early phases of mission architecture formulation and at developing tools to more rigorously predict associated cost and schedule impacts of architecture options chosen to meet planetary protection requirements

Refining Planetary Protection Requirements for Human Missions to Mars

International audienceCOSPAR and its space agency partners are supporting a multi-year stepwise process to identify, prioritize and plan the research and technology developments needed to address planetary protection requirements for human missions beyond Earth orbit. The objective is to move incrementally from the current qualitative COSPAR planetary protection "Principles and Guidelines for Human Missions to Mars" towards development of quantitative planetary protection requirements for such future missions. The workshops and meetings in this series have involved participants from NASA, ESA, JAXA and other national space agencies, as well as the scientific/technical community, and commercial/private enterprise stakeholders. This presentation provides a summary of the findings of the four COSPAR Meetings on this topic. First, the identification and prioritization of knowledge gaps in three major topic areas will be described. Then, work done to identify the measurements needed to close the knowledge gaps (and instruments necessary to make those measurements) in each area will be described. The three topic areas are: Microbial and Human Health Monitoring; Spacecraft Technology and Operations, and; Natural Transport of Contamination at Mars. Finally, a look forward to how the findings of the study series can be integrated into COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy, and into future human mission architectures and designs, will be presented

The European standard on planetary protection requirements (Forum)

Since the beginning of solar system exploration, numerous spacecrafts have been sent towards others worlds, and one of the main goals of such missions is the search for extraterrestrial forms of life. It is known that, under certain conditions, some terrestrial entities are able to survive during cruises in space and that they may contaminate other planets (forward contamination). At another level, possible extraterrestrial life forms are unknown and their ability to contaminate the Earth’s biosphere (back contamination) in the frame of sample return missions cannot be excluded. Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty (London/Washington, January 27, 1967) requires the preservation of planets and the Earth from contamination. All nations taking part in this Treaty must prevent forward and back contamination during missions exploring our solar system. Consequently, the United Nations (UN-COPUOS) has delegated COSPAR (Committee of Space Research) to take charge of planetary protection and, at present, all space-faring nations must comply with COSPAR policy and consequently with COSPAR planetary protection recommendations. Starting from these recommendations and the “CNES Planetary Protection Standard” document, a working group has been set up in the framework of the “European Cooperation for Space Standardization” (ECSS) to establish the main specifications for preventing cross-contamination between target bodies within the solar system and the Earth–moon system