Recovery and analysis of human genetic material from mummified tissue and bone

Using sensitive techniques of molecular biology, we have been able to demonstrate the presence of genomic material of human origin in samples of mummified human tissue and bone from selected archaeological sites in Greenland. This result has far-reaching consequences for both evolutionary and archaeological studies of past human populations.     

Plastic possibilities: Contrasting the uses of plastic ‘waste’ in India

This article draws on examples of inventive plastic reuse from India and personal anecdotes of elders as an anthropological reflection on possible plastic futures. It sketches the large-scale governmental reforms in the domain of municipal solid waste management, or MSWM (which, by legal definition in India, includes plastic waste). In this regard, it draws out some of the problematic socio-political and environmental implications of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘Clean India’ campaign, whose technocratic policy orientations towards standardized centralized MSWM echo his cultural nationalist agenda. These reforms contrast with home-based re-engineering methods and the redeploying of plastic discards (thereby making them notuner moton (‘like new again’), and their localized circulation through relatively local but uneven reputational and economic networks. Clean India sequesters and processes vast quantities of plastics through the wide-ranging adoption of a waste-to-energy techno-fix (in which plastics are incinerated). In contrast, the authors illustrate routine practices and relations whereby people reuse, repurpose and recycle plastics. While Clean India can detract from and disrupt these mundane practices and everyday relations, these are suggestive of alternative plastic futures – both socio-material and environmental.     

When DNA can't help: The osteobiographical profile and stable isotope analysis as auxiliary tools for refining genealogical relationships,on the example of the Swéerts-Sporck family

Research into the family of the Counts Swéerts-Sporck raised doubts regarding their biographical data, particularly concerning a child who died in 1817, later identified as Philipp Swéerts-Sporck, and his siblings Joseph and Barbara. These were alleged to include a pair of dizygotic twins, but DNA could not be used to clarify their relationships. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes were therefore measured in their first permanent molars, whereas Philipp's biological age was estimated based on his skeleton. Philipp died at an older age than the written sources claim; an isotopic similarity was found between Joseph and Barbara, but Philipp differed.     

OPTIMALITY OF RECYCLING AND THE LOCATION OF A RECYCLING CENTER

ABSTRACT. Consider a community investigating the integration of recycling into its waste management program. Even if (1) the county's citizens do not gain utility from recycling, (2) landfill space is plentiful, and (3) the market price for recyclables is zero, recycling can still be optimal for a local government. By determining the relationship between the amount of recycling and the location of a recycling center, conditions are identified under which recycling will reduce total waste management costs enough that municipal recycling will be optimal. In addition, it is shown that the likelihood of municipal recycling increases with the size of the city.     

Interpreting Spatial Economic Structure and Spatial Multipliers: Three Perspectives

The measurement and interpretation of spatial economic structure have presented many problems for analysts. The notion of a spatial multiplier has received even less formal attention; part of the motivation for this paper is the examination of the degree to which sectoral decomposition analysis might prove useful in illuminating the paths of interaction across space that are associated with changes in exogenous activity levels. In this paper, we present three perspectives that examine spatial structure in the context of an aggregated interregional social accounting matrix for Bangladesh. These perspectives examine structure at the micro-, meso-, and macrolevels and are interpreted with the assistance of several alternative methods, including structural path analysis, the field of influence, the superposition principle, multiregional feedback loop analysis, and the Matrioshka Principle; the results are interpreted analytically and cartographically. Some attention is also devoted to the formulation of a general approach to spatial multipliers. It is shown that the structure of flows and the structure of influence reveal patterns that, taken together, provide important insights into an understanding of structure and may prove to form the basis for the eventual formal presentation of the spatial multiplier.