Mandragora als aphrodisische Frucht?

Oler una flor de loto es un motivo iconográfico bien conocido en relieves y pinturas del Egipto antiguo. Con menos frecuencia, la flor es reemplazada por una fruta de color amarillo, identificada por los egiptólogos unas veces como mimusops (persea) y otras como mandrágora. Debido a la marcada y agradable fragancia de la segunda, es más probable que se trate de esta. Los egiptólogos sostienen que los egipcios utilizaban la mandrágora como un afro- disíaco. Dicha idea, sin embargo, no es respaldada por las escenas que muestran a una mujer ofreciendo la fruta amarilla a otra mujer para que la huela. Sólo una escena, conocida como “El paseo en el jardín” (Berlín 15000), muestra a una mujer (la reina) sosteniendo mandrágoras y un capullo de loto en presencia de un hombre (el rey). Teniendo en cuenta que la autenticidad de dicho relieve es cuestionable y que escenas homólogas carecen de connotación erótica, la suposición de que la mandrágora fuera un afrodisíaco parece infundada.Das Riechen an einer Lotusblüte ist ein von Reliefs und Malereien gut bekanntes ikonographisches Motiv. Gelegentlich wird die Blüte durch eine gelbe Frucht ersetzt, die die Ägyptologen entweder als Mimusops (sogenannte Persea) oder als Mandragora identifizieren. Letztere Möglichkeit ist die ahrscheinlichere, wenn man den starken und angenehmen Geruch von Mandragora in Betracht zieht. Nach geläufiger ägyptologischer Auffassung diente die Mandragora im alten Ägypten als Aphrodisiakum. Diese Idee findet keine Stütze in den Szenen in denen eine Frau einer anderen die gelbe Frucht an die Nase hält. Nur eine einzige Szene – der sogenannte ‚Spaziergang im Garten‘ (Berlin 15000) – zeigt eine Frau (eine Königin), die in Gegenwart eines Mannes (eines Königs) Mandragoren und Lotusknospen in Händen hält. Da die Authentizität dieses Reliefs zweifelhaft ist und vergleichbare Szenen keine erotische Konnotation aufweisen, scheint die aphrodisische Verwendung von Mandragora eine grundlose Vermutung zu sein

Operaciones de levantamiento y tiempo de construcción en las pirámides de la Dinastía IV

Earlier studies about how long it took to build the great stone pyramids focused on the cubic amounts of masonry which is not an adequate parameter for determining the achievement of pyramid builders. Rather, the appropriate parameter is lifting work measured in Joules – in brief, the product of mass multiplied by lifting height. Provided lifting of a block took on average the same time at the 4th dynasty pyramid construction sites, then there was a proportion between lifting work and building time. The upper limits of the resulting building times depend on the length of Kheops’s reign.Los estudios previos acerca del tiempo empleado para construir las grandes pirámides de piedra se han centrado en su volumen en metros cúbicos de la piedra utilizada. Sin embargo, este no es un parámetro adecuado para determinar el logro de los constructores de las pirámides. Por el contrario, el parámetro apropiado es la fuerza de elevación medida en julios, es decir, el producto de masa multiplicado por altura elevada. Dado que el levantamiento de un bloque tomaría, como promedio, el mismo tiempo en todas las localizaciones de construcción de pirámides, se puede deducir que hubo una relación proporcional entre trabajo de levantamiento y tiempo de construcción. Los límites resultantes más altos de tiempo de construcción dependen de la duración del reinado de Khufu

A quasi-synoptic survey of the thermocline circulation and water mass distribution within the Canary Basin

Shipboard hydrographic measurements and moored current meters are used to infer both the large-scale and mesoscale water mass distribution and features of the general circulation in the Canary Basin. We found a convoluted current system dominated by the time-dependent meandering of the eastward flowing Azores Current and the formation of mesoscale eddies. At middepths, several distinctly different water masses are identified: Subpolar Mode and Labrador Sea Water are centered in the northwest, Subantarctic Intermediate Water is centered in the southeast, and the saltier, warmer Mediterranean tongue lies between them. Mesoscale structures of these water masses suggest the presence of middepth meanders and detached eddies which may be caused by fluctuations of the Azores Current

Beyond Paradigms in Cultural Astronomy. Proceedings of the 27th SEAC conference held together with the EAA

Proceedings of the 27th SEAC conference held together with the EAA.-- Editors: A. César González-García, Roslyn M. Frank, Lionel D. Sims, Michael A. Rappenglück, Georg Zotti, Juan A. Belmonte, Ivan Šprajc.Cultural Astronomy is the endeavour to understand the role of the sky in past and present societies, and how these societies incorporated the sky into their culture. This broad ranging discipline is closely related to archaeology when investigating material remains of the past. Cultural Astronomy also explores the role of the heavens from the perspectives of the anthropological sciences. In recent decades the discipline has been concerned with methodological and theoretical issues. This volume offers chapters based on presentations at the 27th SEAC meeting held in Bern (2019). These chapters provide a vivid image of front-line research in diverse areas, from Roman light and shadow effects to highlight power, to Maya city organization, Etruscan temple orientation or the ontology of the sky.Peer reviewe

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Future water quality monitoring--adapting tools to deal with mixtures of pollutants in water resource management

Environmental quality monitoring of water resources is challenged with providing the basis for safeguarding the environment against adverse biological effects of anthropogenic chemical contamination from diffuse and point sources. While current regulatory efforts focus on monitoring and assessing a few legacy chemicals, many more anthropogenic chemicals can be detected simultaneously in our aquatic resources. However, exposure to chemical mixtures does not necessarily translate into adverse biological effects nor clearly shows whether mitigation measures are needed. Thus, the question which mixtures are present and which have associated combined effects becomes central for defining adequate monitoring and assessment strategies. Here we describe the vision of the international, EU-funded project SOLUTIONS, where three routes are explored to link the occurrence of chemical mixtures at specific sites to the assessment of adverse biological combination effects. First of all, multi-residue target and non-target screening techniques covering a broader range of anticipated chemicals co-occurring in the environment are being developed. By improving sensitivity and detection limits for known bioactive compounds of concern, new analytical chemistry data for multiple components can be obtained and used to characterise priority mixtures. This information on chemical occurrence will be used to predict mixture toxicity and to derive combined effect estimates suitable for advancing environmental quality standards. Secondly, bioanalytical tools will be explored to provide aggregate bioactivity measures integrating all components that produce common (adverse) outcomes even for mixtures of varying compositions. The ambition is to provide comprehensive arrays of effect-based tools and trait-based field observations that link multiple chemical exposures to various environmental protection goals more directly and to provide improved in situ observations for impact assessment of mixtures. Thirdly, effect-directed analysis (EDA) will be applied to identify major drivers of mixture toxicity. Refinements of EDA include the use of statistical approaches with monitoring information for guidance of experimental EDA studies. These three approaches will be explored using case studies at the Danube and Rhine river basins as well as rivers of the Iberian Peninsula. The synthesis of findings will be organised to provide guidance for future solution-oriented environmental monitoring and explore more systematic ways to assess mixture exposures and combination effects in future water quality monitoring.</p

Mixture effects in samples of multiple contaminants – An inter-laboratory study with manifold bioassays

© 2018 Chemicals in the environment occur in mixtures rather than as individual entities. Environmental quality monitoring thus faces the challenge to comprehensively assess a multitude of contaminants and potential adverse effects. Effect-based methods have been suggested as complements to chemical analytical characterisation of complex pollution patterns. The regularly observed discrepancy between chemical and biological assessments of adverse effects due to contaminants in the field may be either due to unidentified contaminants or result from interactions of compounds in mixtures. Here, we present an interlaboratory study where individual compounds and their mixtures were investigated by extensive concentration-effect analysis using 19 different bioassays. The assay panel consisted of 5 whole organism assays measuring apical effects and 14 cell- and organism-based bioassays with more specific effect observations. Twelve organic water pollutants of diverse structure and unique known modes of action were studied individually and as mixtures mirroring exposure scenarios in freshwaters. We compared the observed mixture effects against component-based mixture effect predictions derived from additivity expectations (assumption of non-interaction). Most of the assays detected the mixture response of the active components as predicted even against a background of other inactive contaminants. When none of the mixture components showed any activity by themselves then the mixture also was without effects. The mixture effects observed using apical endpoints fell in the middle of a prediction window defined by the additivity predictions for concentration addition and independent action, reflecting well the diversity of the anticipated modes of action. In one case, an unexpectedly reduced solubility of one of the mixture components led to mixture responses that fell short of the predictions of both additivity mixture models. The majority of the specific cell- and organism-based endpoints produced mixture responses in agreement with the additivity expectation of concentration addition. Exceptionally, expected (additive) mixture response did not occur due to masking effects such as general toxicity from other compounds. Generally, deviations from an additivity expectation could be explained due to experimental factors, specific limitations of the effect endpoint or masking side effects such as cytotoxicity in in vitro assays. The majority of bioassays were able to quantitatively detect the predicted non-interactive, additive combined effect of the specifically bioactive compounds against a background of complex mixture of other chemicals in the sample. This supports the use of a combination of chemical and bioanalytical monitoring tools for the identification of chemicals that drive a specific mixture effect. Furthermore, we demonstrated that a panel of bioassays can provide a diverse profile of effect responses to a complex contaminated sample. This could be extended towards representing mixture adverse outcome pathways. Our findings support the ongoing development of bioanalytical tools for (i) compiling comprehensive effect-based batteries for water quality assessment, (ii) designing tailored surveillance methods to safeguard specific water uses, and (iii) devising strategies for effect-based diagnosis of complex contamination