Anthropology News, Science News

A researcher from the Physical Anthropological Laboratory of the University of Granada has created the most complete database to date to identify human remains and bodies in the advanced states of decomposition using a 3d computerised technique for facial reconstruction. The method will reduce the time and cost associated with the identification process and will almost dismiss the need to perform expensive DNA testing. This is because the facial reconstruction will give additional details that can be used to decide whether is is necessary to carry out a DNA test or not

Thanks to Lorena Valencia Caballero , the author of this technique, forensic doctors will be able to determine the general and individual facial features of the person. Miguel Botella López , the director of the Physical Anthropological Laboratory, has led this study; and since it has produced a complete database, the researchers are now looking for a company or research group to develop the relevant computer software.

Check out this video from Science News site of the UGR

Recently scientists trained tobacco hornworm caterpillars to
avoid a nail polish-like odor delivered in association with a mild
shock in the lab. After the caterpillar entered the pupal stage and changed into a moth they still avoided the nail-polish odor, this showing that they retained the memory of their youth.

"We concluded that indeed the association does persist and is
accessible to the adults in this artificial scenario," said study
senior author Martha Weiss, a biologist at Georgetown University in
Washington, D.C.
The finding also supports the idea that a piece of the caterpillar brain persists through metamorphosis, she added.

Scientists have long wondered whether memory could survive the dramatic
reorganization of the moth brain during metamorphosis, Weiss noted. "The transition from a caterpillar to a moth or butterfly is really very dramatic," she said.
For example, caterpillars and moths move, eat, and sense the world differently—not to mention appear nothing alike. (see previous post: Bird Poop Bugs)

Caterpillars younger than three weeks old learned to avoid the nail-polish odor but could not recall the information as adults. However caterpillars trained to avoid the nail-polish odor in the final stages before puation retained the lessons.

Larvae trained during the mid stage of caterpillars growth showed that in the final stages before pupation,
they would avoid the odor. However this was not the case when they grew to moth adults.

The research may help explain how adult female moths that can eat a
variety of food choose to lay their eggs on the same type of plant they
fed on as larvae. If the moths retain some memories from their larval stage, as this
research shows, then they could remember what they ate as "kids."

Study author Weiss describes it as an "if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for my kids" type of selection. 

Three billion year old zircon microcrystals found in Ontario
are proving to be a new record of the processes that formed continents
and their natural resources, including gold and diamonds.

The recent discovery was made by an international team
of researchers led by Earth Sciences professor Desmond Moser at The University of
Western Ontario. Measuring no more than the width of a human hair, the
200-million-year growth span of these ancient microcrystals is longer
than any previously discovered.

The findings provide a new record of planetary evolution and
contradict previous experimental predictions that the crystals would
change when exposed to heat and pressure upon burial in the deep Earth.
Instead, they have an incredible ‘memory’ of their time below
volcanoes, of transport to the shores of ancient oceans and of their
burial beneath now-extinct mountain ranges billions of years before the
time of dinosaurs.

Containing trace amounts of uranium, the crystals continued to grow
over hundreds of millions of years, even as the planet evolved and
underwent a series of dramatic shifts. "The oldest pieces of our planet
are crystals of zircon," says Moser. "These crystals are the memory
cells of the Earth and with our study we can now say they are an
accurate recorder of planetary evolution over eons — in the same way
that rings on an old tree can record changes in a forest over
hundreds of years."

Keeping with the tree analogy, Moser found that these crystals had
roughly circular growth zones that he was able to date and analyze with
specialized equipment, ion probes. These zones track the formation of the early
North American continent, from its beginning as a series of volcanic
island chains, to its eventual fusion into a large, thick continental
plate that became the core of North America.

As the crystals formed around the same time as gold, diamond and
other metal deposits, this research provides not only insight into the
formation of Earth itself, it can also help answer the question, "Did
plate tectonics operate early in our planet’s history or did some other
process create the large metal and diamond deposits of the Canadian
Shield?" "It also provides a new tool for dating the appearance of
oceans on other rocky planets like Mars, where Rover results indicate
zircon crystals should exist" says Moser.

Over the course of millions of years, the crystals have been pushed
back to the surface from depths of 30 kilometres by a series of pushes
on the edges of the original continent, which give us globally-rare
exposures in northern Ontario. "It’s not every day you find a piece of
the deep Earth that you can walk around on and explore," Moser says.

Moser’s findings are further detailed in the March issue of Geology, published by the Geological Society of America.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Western Ontario.