#plos one

[savage-rhi]

Hi! Allosaurus enthusiast here, wondering if you could toss me a link to the new paper in you mentioned in the baby Allosaurus meme post? The most recent major one I can see is from November (sauropod bone bite marks) and it sounds like this one is even more recent. If you’ve got it I’d love to see it. :)

@wanderingnork sure thing! Let me preface by saying this was published in 2020, and I hadn't read it until now. So, while it's not "fresh off the press" new, it's pretty recent. I think you'll enjoy it if you haven't read it yet, so without further adieu, here's the link!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

This 9,000-year-old necklace is remarkable.

Researchers spent five years reconstructing this remarkable necklace from a tumble of some 2,500 beads discovered in a burial at the site of Baja, Jordan.

Crafted between 7,400 and 6,800 B.C., it's fashioned from sea shell, turquoise, amber, and more with an engraved mother-of-pearl ring and a hematite pendant.

Black foam tubes are used to indicate the presence of beads too poorly preserved to be displayed.

📷: Alarashi et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0

—

Archaeologists have been working there since 1997 in hopes of learning more about its Neolithic inhabitants, including their social structures, crafts, and architecture.

Now, after five years of study, researchers have not only reconstructed the beads into their original form — a multi-stand necklace — but have also gained a better understanding of its owner:

an 8-year-old child who bore the intricate jewelry fashioned from more than 2,500 beads.

An international team led by Syrian-French archaeologist Hala Alarashi recently published their analysis of the necklace, now on display at Jordan’s Petra Museum, in the journal Plos One.

[bpod-bpod]

Preserved Nerves

This image shows the tendrils (axons) of nerve cells viewed under a powerful electron microscope, revealing the fine details of these delicate structures that are a fraction of the thickness of a human hair. But this is not just any nerve cell. It’s a cell from the brain of a young man who died nearly 2000 years ago in an ancient Roman town called Herculaneum, which was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in CE79. Although the man didn’t survive the blast, the hot ash and gases from the volcano turned some of his remains into glass – a process known as vitrification – perfectly preserving the structure of cells in his brain and spinal cord. These extraordinary cells allow researchers to look back into the past to understand more about the sequence of events at Herculaneum that unfolded as the volcano erupted and gain important insights into the people who lived there.

Written by Kat Arney

Image from work by Pierpaolo Petrone and colleagues

Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Avanzate, Università di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS ONE, October 2020

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[thesociologicalcinema]

Despite finding alternatives to unsustainable factory farm methods, people are reluctant to switch.

Source: PLoS ONE, 2017 / Environmental Science & Technology, 2011 / 2019. "Explained: The Future of Meat" (Season 2), Netflix.

[imperium-romanum]

A new Tel Aviv University study provides evidence of the biblical kingdom of Edom that flourished in the Arava Desert in today's Israel and Jordan during the 12th-11th centuries BCE.

From Eureka Alert

“Genesis 36:31 describes an early, pre-10th century BCE Edomite kingdom: "... the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned." But the archaeological record has led to conflicting interpretations of this text.”

“Now a Tel Aviv University study published in PLOS ONE on September 18 finds that the kingdom of Edom flourished in the Arava Desert in today's Israel and Jordan during the 12th-11th centuries BCE.”

Continue reading

[texasdreamer01]

Scientist: Osteoporosis can be prevented with red clover

Works as well as oestrogen, but without the side effects.

This could be the end of oestrogen treatment for post-menopausal women suffering from osteoporosis.

Instead, a shot of concentrated fermented red clover (Trifolium pratense) might prevent the breakdown of bones.

These are the conclusions of two new studies, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and PLOS One.

“The treatment is groundbreaking, as we can now treat osteoporosis without the use of dangerous oestrogens, which introduce a significantly increased risk of cancer and other side effects,” says Associate Professor Per Bendix Jeppesen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University, Denmark, and lead scientist of both of the new studies.

[PDF]

Photo: By Ivar Leidus. The little herb could be the key to preventing osteoporosis in women.

[aruskin]

Metaphors in language appear to instantiate frame-consistent knowledge structures and invite structurally consistent inferences. Far from being mere rhetorical flourishes, metaphors have profound influences on how we conceptualize and act with respect to important societal issues. We find that exposure to even a single metaphor can induce substantial differences in opinion about how to solve social problems: differences that are larger, for example, than pre-existing differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans.

Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning

[sanguinarysanguinity]

New Scientist: Honeybees let out a ‘whoop’ when they bump into each other

Headbutts come as a surprise

Journal reference: Long-term trends in the honeybee ‘whooping signal’ revealed by automated detection, Michael Ramsey, Martin Bencsik , Michael I. Newton PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171162 Published: February 8, 2017