Although recognized as one of the most significant cultural transformations in North America, the reintroduction of the horse to the continent after AD 1492 has been rarely addressed by archaeological science. A key contributing factor behind this limited study is the apparent absence of equine skeletal remains from early historic archaeological contexts. Here, we present a multidisciplinary analysis of a horse skeleton recovered in Lehi, Utah, originally attributed to the Pleistocene. Reanalysis of stratigraphic context and radiocarbon dating indicates a historic age for this horse (cal AD 1681–1939), linking it with Ute or other Indigenous groups, whereas osteological features demonstrate its use for mounted horseback riding—perhaps with a nonframe saddle. DNA analysis indicates that the animal was a female domestic horse, which was likely cared for as part of a breeding herd despite outliving its usefulness in transport. Finally, sequentially sampled stable carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope values from tooth enamel (δ13C, δ18O, and 87Sr/86Sr) suggest that the horse was raised locally. These results show the utility of archaeological science as applied to horse remains in understanding Indigenous horse pastoralism, whereas consideration of the broader archaeological record suggests a pattern of misidentification of horse bones from early historic contexts.

This article uses the copper mining town Tsumeb to examine urban infrastructure, ethnicity, and African political solidarities in apartheid Namibia. To translate apartheid to Namibia, South Africa re-planned Namibian towns to reinforce colonial divisions between two classes of African laborers: mostly Ovambo migrant laborers from northern Namibia and Angola and, secondly, ethnically diverse laborers from the zone of colonial settlement and investment, the Police Zone. Housing and infrastructure were key to this social engineering project, serving as a conduit for official and company ideas about ‘Ovambo’ and Police Zone laborers. Yet Africans’ uses of infrastructure and ethnic discourses challenged, and provoked debates about the boundaries of urban social and political belonging. Between the 1971–2 general strike of northern contract workers and the 1987 strike against the multinational Tsumeb Corporation Limited, which involved northern contract workers and community members, Africans built a political community that challenged both company and colonial state.

Although fungi are fundamentally important in our every day lives, the Kingdom is largely ignored by the National Curriculum in the United Kingdom. Consequently, children are missing out on being taught about a crucially important group of organisms. This paper aims to show the deficiencies in the curriculum specifications in UK primary and secondary schools, and describes a range of British Mycological Society learning resources designed to remedy the situation. These ready-made (and classroom-tested) lessons and workshop sessions cover a range of fungal topics from cell structure and function, through biotechnology to health topics and plant growth and disease. The resources include games and activities, aiming to increase knowledge and awareness of fungi in an active, entertaining way and thereby maintain interest in biology as a science.

We investigated the relationship between basal cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels and impairment in different cognitive and noncognitive measures and the possible interaction of DHEA with hypercortisolemia in dementia in 27 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD). There were 17 men and 10 women. Patients were mildly to moderately cognitively impaired at the time of the initial cortisol measures. Patients were administered the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS) and Folstein Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) at approximately 6-month intervals. Cortisol and DHEA were determined using conventional 125I radioimmunoassay procedures. Pearson product-moment correlations among cortisol and DHEA measures and both initial and longitudinal clinical measures were calculated. There was a relationship between baseline 8 a.m. cortisol levels and cognitive function at the initial testing as measured by the ADAS cognitive measure, with higher cortisol levels being associated with a greater level of impairment. We did not document a relationship between cortisol or DHEA levels and noncognitive measures. There was a significant correlation between both the initial MMSE and ADAS cognitive measures and initial DHEA level, with lower DHEA levels unexpectedly being associated with better performance on these measures. The initial DHEA levels did not predict decline in cognitive function over time. These findings bring into question the potential usefulness of DHEA as a therapeutic agent.

This study compared the energy cost of walking in children with cerebral palsy (CP) classified at different levels of the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) with that in children with typical development. Sixteen female and 14 male children with CP (mean age 9 years 6 months, SD 2 years 4 months, range 6 years 4 months to 13 years 4 months) and 14 male and 13 female typically developing children (mean age 10 years, SD 1 year 6 months, range 7 years 1 month to 12 years 11 months) participated. Children with CP were classified at GMFCS level I, n=5; level II, n=10; level III, n=9; and level IV, n=6. Energy cost was assessed by the gas dilution method as each child walked around an oval track wearing a dilution mask. Significant differences were found across GMFCS levels (p<0.0001) and between adjacent levels (p[les ]0.013). Children with CP displayed a higher energy cost of walking than the typically developing children (p<0.0001). A strong correlation (0.87) was found between the energy cost of walking and GMFCS level (p<0.01) when children with typical development were assigned a GMFCS level of zero to allow statistical analysis. This indicates increasing energy cost of walking with increasing severity of functional involvement. These differences in energy cost across GMFCS levels provide another distinguishing factor between GMFCS levels and further emphasize the importance of considering metabolic demand in determining treatment options.