Archaeobotany at Oplontis: woody remains from the Roman Villa of Poppaea (Naples, Italy)

The Vesuvius area near Naples, southern Italy, is one of the richest places for archaeological finds from Roman times. The a.d. 79 volcanic eruption also caused the preservation of a huge quantity of archaeobotanical material. In this paper the available wood and charcoal remains from the timber structures as well as from the garden soils of the Villa of Poppea at Oplontis are presented. The analyses provide new evidence of the history of some significant trees of the Mediterranean region, such as Abies alba and Cupressus sempervirens, and allow us to put forward hypotheses about wood use during the Roman period. The identification of the building material confirms that the Romans had a good knowledge of the technological properties of wood and mainly used local resources. There is also evidence of trade in high quality timber, in particular Picea abies. The strong presence of climbing plants and of branches and small size stems of wild trees together with typical ornamental plants in the two gardens of the villa reveals a lack of regular gardening maintenance. This evidence is in agreement with the absence of occupants at the moment of the eruption, since the villa was under restoration after the a.d. 62 earthquake.     

Fungi from the A. O. Garrett Herbarium,University of Utah (UT)

The University of Utah donated fungi from the A. O. Garrett Herbarium to the New York Botanical Garden (NY) in 1982. Most specimens are members either of the Ustilaginales or Uredinales (Basidiomycotina). Biographical data are given for some of the most important regional collectors represented: Albert O. Garrett, George L. Zundel, Seville Flowers, Marcus E. Jones, and Patrick J. O'Gara. Other contributors are listed in the appendix.     

Rediscovery of Professor Thomas Bell's type Crustacea (Brachyura) in the dry crustacean collection of the Zoological Collections, University Museum, Oxford

While examining and curating the dry crustacean collection in the University Museum, Oxford, the author verified the presence of type crustaceans of the suborder Brachyura acquired by Thomas Bell and that were believed to be no longer extant. Included is a listing of type material of 70 crab species that were described by Bell in three papers between 1835 and 1855. Complete synonymies and the present condition of each type are included.     

An appreciation of A.E. Malloch,MB, MD (1844-1919): a forgotten surgical pioneer

Dr. Archibald Edward Malloch was a surgeon whose life and work were greatly influenced by Joseph Lister and his revolutionary system of antiseptic surgery. This paper describes how a young Canadian medical man came to introduce Lister''s system to North America in 1869 and studies his career in the light of Lister''s surgical epoch.     

A 45,XX,-5,-14,+t(5q;14q)mat cri du chat child.

A two-year-old girl has the following features of the cri du chat syndrome: microcephaly, hypertelorism, downward slanting of the palpebral fissures, psychomotor retardation and a cat-like cry. She is only of five patients having the cat cry syndrome with 45 chromosomes. Her karyotype is 45,XX, -5, -14, +t(5; 14)(5qter leads to 5p11: : 14q11 leads to 14qter) with the translocation inherited from her mother and maternal grandmother, each of whom is the carrier of a balanced translocation 46,XX,t(5;14)(p11q11). Normal plasma activity for hexosaminidase B suggests the locus for this enzyme is not located in the delected segment of 5 p.     

A stereochemical investigation of phosphoryl transfer catalysed by phosphoglucomutase by the use of alpha-D-glucose 1-[(S)-16O,17O,18O]phosphate.

Fluorescence spectra of protoporphyrin bound to its most affinitive site on human serum albumin, bound to human haemopexin and dissolved in human plasma reveal that, when present in plasma, at least 90% of this porphyrin is bound to albumin. Human serum albumin binds protoporphyrin with an affinity KA = 3 X 10(9)M-1 in phosphate-buffered saline. The affinity of haemopexin for protoporphyrin is 4 times smaller. From these data it is concluded that less than 1% of plasma protoporphyrin is bound to haemopexin. Implications of the data for protoporphyrin transport and clearance are discussed.     

Conversion of (U-14C)-glycerol, (2-3H)-glycerol and (1-14C)-palmitate into circulating lipoproteins in the rat.

The in vivo formation of labelled very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) from (U-14C)-glycerol, (2-3H)-glycerol and (1-14C)-palmitate was studied in fed female rats. The rate of disappearance of radioactivity from plasma after the i.v. injection with these tracers was similar for (U-14C)-glycerol and (1-14C)-palmitate. With (2-3H)-glycerol, plasma radioactivity at 10 min was lower than with the other substrates although it did not change thereafter. A certain proportion of radioactivity administered as glycerol appeared in plasma lipids, mainly in the VLDL glyceride glycerol fraction, although when (U-14C)-glycerol was the substrate, a considerable portion also appeared in the esterified fatty acids of these lipoproteins. When using (1-14C)-palmitate, practically all the circulating labelled esterified fatty acids appeared in the VLDL fraction, while the labelled free fatty acids appeared in lipoprotein of higher density, presumable free fatty acid-albumin complexes. This data is discussed in terms of the role of the liver in the rapid, continuous cycling of these substrates to yield VLDL-glycerides for their extrahepatic utilization.     

Results of studying the types of species of the genus Chrysopilus (Diptera, Rhagionidae) from the collection of the Natural History Museum of the Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany): Communication 3

Communication 3 presents the results of studying the types of Chrysopilus auratus (Fabr.), Ch. aureus (Meigen), Ch. aureus meridionalis Bezzi, Ch. splendidus (Meigen), and Ch. luteolus (Fallén). Two new species, Ch. subauratus sp. n. and Ch. subsplendidus sp. n., are described. The results of examination of 19 species of the genus are given.     

珍贵的小龙虾蜕皮化石

淡水小龙虾化石在世界上十分少见。龙虾蜕皮的化石还未曾有过记录。文中讨论热生物群上侏罗统义县组发现的,保存十分完好的蜕皮化石。判断其蜕皮标本的３个理由是：没有保存头胸甲;步足与体节之间的关节膜很薄以及几乎看不到磷盐化的软组织。