Trichuris eggs in animal coprolites dated from 30,000 years ago

Trichuris eggs were found in Kerodon rupestris (Rodentia, Caviidae) coprolites collected in archaeological layers dated from 30,000 yr BP (before present) to 8,450 yr BP. Adult worms and eggs of this genus were not found in a search of living mammals of the region. Results indicate that K. rupestris was a host for an unknown Trichuris species not found in this rodent presently. Climate changes that occurred by 10,000 yr ago in the region could be the cause of its disappearance. The finding of parasites in archaeological material can show the antiquity of host-parasite relationships and parasite losses through time.     

Predictors of postoperative cardiovascular complications up to 3 months after kidney transplantation

Netherlands Heart Journal - Renal transplant patients have a high peri-operative risk for cardiovascular events. Pre-operative screening for cardiac ischaemia might lower this risk, but...     

The finding of Echinostoma (Trematoda: Digenea) and hookworm eggs in coprolites collected from a Brazilian mummified body dated 600-1,200 years before present

The identification of parasites from ancient cultures expands our list of parasites infective to extant humans. A partially mummified human body from the archeological site of Lapa do Boquete, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, was recently discovered. It was interred between 600 and 1,200 yr ago. Dietary analysis showed that the mummified body was from a society that had a mixed subsistence of agriculture and gathering of wild foods. Coprolites from the body contained numerous helminth eggs. The eggs were identified as those of Echinostoma sp. and hookworm. Hookworm infection in pre-Columbian populations is already established, but this is the first evidence of Echinostoma sp. eggs found in human coprolites. The diagnosis of a true infection, as opposed to false parasitism, is discussed. The possibility of Echinostoma ilocanum infection is discussed, as this is a common species found in humans in the Asiatic region, which could have been introduced in South America in the pre-Columbian period. Alternative possibilities are also considered, including indigenous Brazilian Echinostoma species.     

Learning-by-doing: experience from 20 years of teaching LCA to future engineers

Purpose

In support of the sustainable development of our societies, future engineers should have elementary knowledge in sustainability assessment and use of life cycle assessment. Publications on pedagogical experience with teaching life cycle assessment (LCA) in high-level education are however scarce. Here, we describe and discuss 20 years of experience in teaching LCA at MSc level in an engineering university with the ambition to share our insights and inspire teaching of LCA as part of a university curriculum.

Methods

We detail the design of an LCA course taught at the Technical University of Denmark since 1997. The course structure relies on (i) a structured combination of theoretical teaching, practical assignments and hands-on practice on LCA case studies, and (ii) the conduct of real-life LCA case studies in collaboration with companies or other organisations. Through the semester-long duration of the course, students from different engineering backgrounds perform full-fledged LCA studies in groups, passing through two iterations—a screening LCA supporting a more targeted LCA.

Results and discussion

The course design, which relies on a learning-by-doing principle, is transparently described to inspire LCA teachers among the readers. Historical evolution and statistics about the course, including its 192 case studies run in collaboration with 105 companies and institutions, are analysed and serve as basis to discuss the benefits and challenges of its different components, such as the theory acquisition, the assignment work, the LCA software learning, the conduct of case studies, the merits of industrial collaborations and grading approaches.

Conclusions

We demonstrate the win-win situation created by the setting of the course, in which the students are actively engaged and learn efficiently how to perform an LCA while the collaborating companies often get useful insights into their analysed case studies. The course can also be an eye opener for companies unfamiliar with LCA, who get introduced to life cycle thinking and the potential benefits of LCA. We have no hesitation in recommending industries and LCA teachers to engage into such collaborations even in the fundamental teaching of LCA techniques.

     

Managed realignment in the UK – the first 5 years of colonization by birds

With current losses of saltmarsh running at > 100 ha per year in the UK, creation of new intertidal habitats through managed realignment is likely to be increasingly used. Potentially, this has biodiversity as well as engineering benefits. However, assessing the conservation value of many of the current UK schemes is difficult as the biological monitoring has been generally poor, with a few notable exceptions. At the Tollesbury and Orplands realignment sites, Essex, bird communities were dominated by terrestrial species during the first year of inundation and waterbird communities rapidly developed during the second and third years. Five years after the initial breach in the sea wall, communities were similar to surrounding mudflats but with some notable exceptions. Dunlin Calidris alpina and Common Redshank Tringa totanus that prey on the early colonizing Nereis and Hydrobia used the sites in the first 2 years. Eurasian Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus did not occur on the realignment site as there were no large bivalves, whereas Red Knot Calidris canutus used the site after 4–5 years coincidentally with the appearance of Macoma balthica . The differences in the bird communities occurred because UK sites are often small, enclosed and poorly drained. If at a suitable height in the tidal frame, UK managed realignment sites are successful in that they have developed saltmarsh and biologically active mudflats but they may lack the full range of biodiversity found in surrounding natural intertidal habitats, even decades after inundation.     

Applying modern analogs to understand the pollen content of coprolites

Most scientists working with coprolites from archaeological contexts assume that human fecal specimens reflect the mixing of the pollen ingested during the period in which the contribution to the coprolite, 19 to 37.5 h, was ingested, that the amount of pollen in a fecal sample directly reflects the amount of pollen originally ingested during that interval, and that differences between the amounts of pollen in different fecal specimens reflect differences in the quantities of pollen ingested at different times. These assumptions were tested and found wanting in an experiment in which two persons sequentially ate separate quantities of 15 pollen types in meals over a four-day interval. The pollen was retrieved and analyzed from feces produced during those four days and five days of subsequent fecal production. Pollen ingested first appeared in relatively small amounts, usually the day after it was ingested. Its concentration per gram of sample then increased rapidly and remained high over a one to three day interval relative to the amounts in previous and subsequent fecal specimens deposited. When pollen concentrations declined some pollen was retained in the gastrointestinal system and much lower concentrations per gram of sample of each type continued to appear in fecal samples for several days. These relatively low pollen concentrations appeared in fecal samples approximately twice as often as did higher concentrations. Our results indicate that comparatively high pollen concentrations can be used to determine that a given pollen type was ingested, but comparisons between pollen concentrations of the same pollen type in different fecal specimens or between different pollen types in the same fecal specimen, cannot be used to determine whether different amounts of pollen were ingested, or what was the relative amount of each ingested. Because pollen concentrations per gram of sample varied widely with time since ingestion, percentages of given pollen types did not occur in predictable patterns and could actually increase as the concentration of the pollen type decreases. Hence, percentages should not be used in coprolite pollen analysis. The experimental results also suggest that variations in the pollen content of different portions of a coprolite are meaningful only in terms of the overall pattern of a sequential group of coprolites.     

Nutrient transport systems in brain: 40 years of progress

In the last 40 years, especially with the application of new neurochemical and molecular biologic techniques, there has been an explosive progress in understanding how nutrients are transported across the blood–brain barrier and choroid plexus into brain and CSF, and how nutrient homeostasis in brain is achieved. In most cases, there are separate transporters, or in a few cases, systems that transport related substances (e.g., biotin, lipoic, and pantothenic acids). This review focuses on three crucial nutrients (glucose, ascorbic acid, and folates) for which there is substantial new information including ‘knock down’ and ‘knockout’ models in mice and/or humans. The overall objective is to show that this new knowledge leads not just to a more thorough understanding (e.g., of ‘why’ questions like: why do neurons require up to 10 mM ascorbic acid intracellulary?); but in some cases leads to clinically important predictions that allow treatment of heretofore devastating neurologic disorders.     

For a few years more: reductions in plant diversity 70 years after the last fire in Mediterranean forests

Plant Ecology - Changes in community diversity and dynamics after fires in Mediterranean ecosystems are rarely investigated more than a few years after the fire even though pronounced changes can...     

Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA in calcified pleura from remains 1400 years old

Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA was isolated and identified in calcified pleura from remains 1400 years old, with the polymerase chain reaction. This is the first demonstration of tuberculosis in non-mummified archaeological tissue other than bone; the presence of mycobacterial mycolic acids in the sample supports this conclusion. The study of ancient DNA from microbial pathogens is of interest as it enables verification of traditional diagnoses, may answer long-standing questions in the history of disease, and provides ancient DNA sequences that can be compared with those of modern isolates.