GOOD NEWS

Study finds mercury pollution from human activities is declining

Models show that an unexpected reduction in human-driven emissions led to a 10 percent decline in atmospheric mercury concentrations

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, MA – MIT researchers have some good environmental news: Mercury emissions from human activity have been declining over the past two decades, despite global emissions inventories that indicate otherwise.

In a new study, the researchers analyzed measurements from all available monitoring stations in the Northern Hemisphere and found that atmospheric concentrations of mercury declined by about 10 percent between 2005 and 2020.

They used two separate modeling methods to determine what is driving that trend. Both techniques pointed to a decline in mercury emissions from human activity as the most likely cause.

Global inventories, on the other hand, have reported opposite trends. These inventories estimate atmospheric emissions using models that incorporate average emission rates of polluting activities and the scale of these activities worldwide.

“Our work shows that it is very important to learn from actual, on-the-ground data to try and improve our models and these emissions estimates. This is very relevant for policy because, if we are not able to accurately estimate past mercury emissions, how are we going to predict how mercury pollution will evolve in the future?” says Ari Feinberg, a former postdoc in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and lead author of the study.

The new results could help inform scientists who are embarking on a collaborative, global effort to evaluate pollution models and develop a more in-depth understanding of what drives global atmospheric concentrations of mercury.

However, due to a lack of data from global monitoring stations and limitations in the scientific understanding of mercury pollution, the researchers couldn’t pinpoint a definitive reason for the mismatch between the inventories and the recorded measurements.

“It seems like mercury emissions are moving in the right direction, and could continue to do so, which is heartening to see. But this was as far as we could get with mercury. We need to keep measuring and advancing the science,” adds co-author Noelle Selin, an MIT professor in the IDSS and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS).

Feinberg and Selin, his MIT postdoctoral advisor, are joined on the paper by an international team of researchers that contributed atmospheric mercury measurement data and statistical methods to the study. The research appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mercury mismatch

The Minamata Convention is a global treaty that aims to cut human-caused emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that enters the atmosphere from sources like coal-fired power plants and small-scale gold mining.

The treaty, which was signed in 2013 and went into force in 2017, is evaluated every five years. The first meeting of its conference of parties coincided with disheartening news reports that said global inventories of mercury emissions, compiled in part from information from national inventories, had increased despite international efforts to reduce them.

This was puzzling news for environmental scientists like Selin. Data from monitoring stations showed atmospheric mercury concentrations declining during the same period.

Bottom-up inventories combine emission factors, such as the amount of mercury that enters the atmosphere when coal mined in a certain region is burned, with estimates of pollution-causing activities, like how much of that coal is burned in power plants.

“The big question we wanted to answer was: What is actually happening to mercury in the atmosphere and what does that say about anthropogenic emissions over time?” Selin says.

Modeling mercury emissions is especially tricky. First, mercury is the only metal that is in liquid form at room temperature, so it has unique properties. Moreover, mercury that has been removed from the atmosphere by sinks like the ocean or land can be re-emitted later, making it hard to identify primary emission sources.

At the same time, mercury is more difficult to study in laboratory settings than many other air pollutants, especially due to its toxicity, so scientists have limited understanding of all chemical reactions mercury can undergo. There is also a much smaller network of mercury monitoring stations, compared to other polluting gases like methane and nitrous oxide.

“One of the challenges of our study was to come up with statistical methods that can address those data gaps, because available measurements come from different time periods and different measurement networks,” Feinberg says.

Multifaceted models

The researchers compiled data from 51 stations in the Northern Hemisphere. They used statistical techniques to aggregate data from nearby stations, which helped them overcome data gaps and evaluate regional trends.

By combining data from 11 regions, their analysis indicated that Northern Hemisphere atmospheric mercury concentrations declined by about 10 percent between 2005 and 2020.

Then the researchers used two modeling methods — biogeochemical box modeling and chemical transport modeling — to explore possible causes of that decline.  Box modeling was used to run hundreds of thousands of simulations to evaluate a wide array of emission scenarios. Chemical transport modeling is more computationally expensive but enables researchers to assess the impacts of meteorology and spatial variations on trends in selected scenarios.

For instance, they tested one hypothesis that there may be an additional environmental sink that is removing more mercury from the atmosphere than previously thought. The models would indicate the feasibility of an unknown sink of that magnitude.

“As we went through each hypothesis systematically, we were pretty surprised that we could really point to declines in anthropogenic emissions as being the most likely cause,” Selin says.

Their work underscores the importance of long-term mercury monitoring stations, Feinberg adds. Many stations the researchers evaluated are no longer operational because of a lack of funding.

While their analysis couldn’t zero in on exactly why the emissions inventories didn’t match up with actual data, they have a few hypotheses.

One possibility is that global inventories are missing key information from certain countries. For instance, the researchers resolved some discrepancies when they used a more detailed regional inventory from China. But there was still a gap between observations and estimates.

They also suspect the discrepancy might be the result of changes in two large sources of mercury that are particularly uncertain: emissions from small-scale gold mining and mercury-containing products.

Small-scale gold mining involves using mercury to extract gold from soil and is often performed in remote parts of developing countries, making it hard to estimate. Yet small-scale gold mining contributes about 40 percent of human-made emissions.

In addition, it’s difficult to determine how long it takes the pollutant to be released into the atmosphere from discarded products like thermometers or scientific equipment.

“We’re not there yet where we can really pinpoint which source is responsible for this discrepancy,” Feinberg says.

In the future, researchers from multiple countries, including MIT, will collaborate to study and improve the models they use to estimate and evaluate emissions. This research will be influential in helping that project move the needle on monitoring mercury, he says.

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This research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

 

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2401950121 

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! 

 GEOLOGICAL SEXISM

What's in a mineral name? Not very many women, U-M study finds

University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR—The mineral scottyite was named after Michael Scott.

Not the Michael Scott of the television series "The Office"—the Michael Scott who co-founded the technology company Apple. Billionaire George Soros likewise has a mineral, called sorosite, named after him. There's rooseveltite, after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and leifite after Leif Erickson. Another mineral, dewindtite, was named after a budding 23-year-old geologist named Jean Charles Louis De Windt, who drowned while swimming in a quarry.

Notably absent from this list are any minerals named after women. In fact, of the minerals named after people, 94% have been named after men, according to a study led by recent University of Michigan doctoral graduate Chris Emproto. 

Emproto combed through nearly 6,000 mineral names and found that while 50.7% of all minerals are named after men, just 2.8% of all minerals are named after women. 

Emproto and his co-authors were interested in understanding how this proportion has changed over time and determining when gender parity could be expected in the earth sciences. 

"Gender doesn't pertain to how rocks and minerals form. In the absence of any systemic barriers, we would expect gender equity or gender demographics that are consistent. But we don't see that," he said.

Instead, the researchers found that growth in the proportion of women among new minerals named for people had stalled decades ago—even as more women were becoming scientists. Growth began to slow by the mid-1980s, and by the 2000s, that proportion had reached an equilibrium: only about 10% of minerals named after people in a given year were named for women. If the current rate of naming conventions holds, women will never achieve gender parity in terms of new minerals named after them. 

Emproto's results are published in the journal American Mineralogist.

"What’s interesting is that we slowly stopped making progress towards gender parity in new mineral names over the last 20 years or so, even though it feels like we’ve been making steady progress towards gender parity in the field itself," Emproto said. 

Minerals are most often named by the collectors and scientists who find them. Once the properties of the new mineral are determined, a proposal is submitted for approval to an organization called the International Mineralogical Association Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature, and Classification. Only a few rules are imposed on new mineral names: reuse of an obsolete or discredited name should not happen within 50 years, and new names must not be too similar to existing names.

Minerals are often named after a specific property of the mineral, where it's found, or for arbitrary reasons: Emproto points out "olympite," named for the 1980 Olympic Games. Naming minerals after people is the largest category of arbitrary names. As of December 2022, a total of 3,294 minerals are named for people, representing 2,742 individuals. These people are "scientists, miners, engineers, mineral collectors, poets, politicians, philosophers, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and explorers from every inhabited continent," the researchers note. 

Just 167 of these people with a mineral honorific are women. However, this also includes 23 minerals that share their names with a man. No minerals in the dataset were named after multiple women.

To evaluate these naming conventions, the research team recorded and categorized all 5,901 minerals approved by the IMA or "grandfathered" into use as of December 2022 into a database. They used a binary gender system in the study, but acknowledge that system does not represent gender diversity in the geosciences, Emproto said.

The first two minerals named after women are marialite and laurite, both discovered and named in 1866. Marialite was named for Maria vom Rath, the wife of the German mineralogist Gerhard vom Rath, who discovered the mineral. Friedrich Wöhler named laurite after Laura Rupe Joy, the wife of his close friend, the American chemist Charles Arad Joy. 

It wasn't until 1924 that a mineral was named after a female scientist: the radioactive mineral sklodowskite was named for Marie Skłodowska Curie. But her husband, Pierre Curie, beat her to the name game: the mineral curite was named after Pierre in 1921.

"There was steady progress from the 1950s to about 1985 or 1990, and then things started to trail off," Emproto said. "But the most interesting thing is that this increase in rate is mostly driven by just a few regions."

Russians comprise 15% of all minerals named after people, but are responsible for nearly half—43%—of minerals named for women. The United States ranks second, but Russia has nearly three times the number of women with minerals named for them, 72, compared to the U.S.

Researchers may expect the rate of minerals named after women to increase as more women become involved in the sciences, but that hasn't been the case. By 1985, women earned 26% of geosciences undergraduate degrees and 24% of geosciences graduate degrees. By 2017, those numbers had increased to 43% and 30%. Even so, the increase in the rate of minerals named after women plateaued in the mid-1980s, Emproto said.

The researchers projected how long it would take for men and women to be equally represented by new mineral names—that is, there is an equal proportion of women and men among only new mineral names—assuming that the rate of new mineral discoveries increases as it has since 1950. They found that gender parity would occur around the year 2266. At this rate, people would need to find more than 44,000 as yet undiscovered minerals—something researchers don't expect to happen.

Alternatively, to reach equal representation on a year-on-year basis by the year 2057, the proportion of minerals named for women would need to increase by about 12% annually.

"It's not time to pat ourselves on the back. Not only do we have the unsurprising result that women are significantly outnumbered by men in a field that has nothing to do with gender, but the progress we have made came to a halt a while ago," Emproto said. "We will probably run out of minerals before we reach equity, and if we do achieve that gender equity, it will be at a time when there are very few minerals left to name."

Emproto's co-authors include Gabriela Farfan, Tyler Spano, Marko Bermanec, Mike Rumsey, Barbara Dutrow, Raquel Alonso-Perez, Jessica Riaño and U-M professor of earth and environmental sciences Adam Simon.

 

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Journal

American Mineralogist

DOI

10.2138/am-2024-9327 

Article Title

Gender in Mineral Names

 AIRBORNE FOREVER CHEMICALS

York U researchers develop new technique to measure previously undetected airborne PFAS

A large percentage of PFAS are not being accounted for in the air, while PFAAs have accumulated in sometimes surprising amounts over 50 years in the high Arctic

York University

 

image: 

Arctic ice cores 

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Credit: Alison Criscitiello

TORONTO, Oct. 9, 2024 – For decades, scientists knew there was a huge swath of undetected and unaccounted for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the atmosphere, often referred to as PFAS dark matter, but no one knew how much was missing or how to measure them. Now, a York University atmospheric chemistry research team has devised a way to test for one of the most ubiquitous elements of these potent greenhouse gases.

By measuring for gaseous fluorine, one of the most prevalent and overlooked contaminants, scientists can better understand the extent of previously unaccounted for PFAS, comprised of thousands of organofluorine compounds. These compounds, used in a wide range of products from food, paint, paper packaging and dental floss to cosmetics and agrochemicals, can off gas fluorine.

The researchers measured how much fluorine was released into the air both in the lab and outside using chemicals, such as fluorosurfactant liquids, and found 65 to 99 per cent of the fluorine in the air inside the lab was not normally unaccounted for, while outside that number was about 50 per cent.

“I expected missing fluorine, but I didn’t expect it to be so much. This new technique can measure all fluorinated things in the atmosphere, which has never been done before and shows the majority cannot be accounted for using our usual measurements,” says senior author of the study Professor Cora Young, an atmospheric chemist and Guy Warwick Rogers Chair in York’s Faculty of Science.

“It’s important as missing gaseous fluorine accounts for a huge part of airborne PFAS compared to what we actually measure at the moment, which means a lot of the PFAS aren’t being detected.”

Most PFAS, known as forever chemicals, include fluorine bonded with carbon, a bond that doesn’t naturally break down in the environment. Testing for fluorine is an easier way to assess how many PFAS are present in the air rather than measuring all 4,700 or so PFAS contaminants individually.

The high quantities of previously unknown PFAS points to a gap, not only in measuring them, but also in understanding their sources and the impact on the environment. Gaseous fluorine is a byproduct of chemicals used in a wide range of products from food, paint, paper packaging and dental floss to cosmetics and agrichemicals.

“Our lack of focus on this has been mostly because we didn't have the techniques to look at it properly. It's not that people hadn't thought that this might be important, it's that we didn't know how to do it, but now we do,” says lead author RenXi Ye, a PhD student in Young’s lab.

While there are techniques to measure total fluorine in soil and water, there wasn’t one to capture it in its gas state in the atmosphere. The researchers used a method that they previously developed to test for total gaseous chlorine and adapted it to measure gaseous fluorine.

“Much of the focus of research on PFAS was on what's happening in the water in the soil, not as much on what happens in the air, despite the fact that these fluorinated compounds, by the nature of their chemical properties and that they are in so many commercial products, are more likely to go into the air,” says Young.

The question of how much gaseous fluorine is going unaccounted for piqued the interest of York researchers last year while they were working on their Toronto Halogens, Emissions, Contaminants and Inorganics Experiment (THE CIX).

Should we worry?

Most people are highly concerned about PFAS exposure, but Young says it’s too early to know what the effects are of from the off gassing of fluorine into the environment, either human or on the environment.

“Any fluorinated gas is a potent greenhouse gas, but the impact of that depends on how long it lasts in the atmosphere, but what is the impact of breathing this? When it comes to outdoor air and human exposure, we don't know a lot about how much we breath in,” she says, adding she doesn’t think anyone should panic, but it is an area that needs more research and could certainly have important implications.

The research – A Method to Measure Total Gaseous Fluorine – published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters points out that unknown fluorinated chemicals emitted into the atmosphere could not only contribute to the transport of PFAS around the globe but also impact climate change.

PFAS in the Arctic in sometimes surprising quantities found in 50-year-old ice cores

PFAS is the atmosphere are even finding their way into pristine environments like the Arctic. In a recent study led by York PhD student Daniel Persaud with Young and team looked at perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in ice cores in the Arctic, from 1967 to 2016, on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut.

“The measurement covers the longest time period and so you're seeing that it has been accumulating for a very long time,” says Young. The surprising part? “In the early part of the ice core, there was more than I thought there would be. I expected it to be accumulating since the 1990s, maybe the 1980s, but in the early part of the core, I thought there would be less”

As the longest deposition record in the Arctic for perfluoroalkylcarboxylic acids (PFCAs) and the longest record globally for perfluoroalkylsulfonic acids (PFSAs), it allowed for observations not previously possible.

Before the 1990s, the ice core showed some variable pulses of accumulation, which the researchers at first weren’t sure about, but now think it may be linked to Arctic military activities of the time. Starting in the 1990s, however, the ice core shows a steadier accumulation of the chemicals up to the present.

The study shows that most PFAAs are present in the ice at Mt. Oxford icefield on Ellesmere Island and that over 50 years, there is a steady increase of PFCA deposits, but it also highlighted how ice cores are helpful in understanding how PFAS are transported long-range.

“We were able to confirm that the PFCAs we found in the ice cores are formed primarily through long-range atmospheric transport and oxidation of volatile precursors in the atmosphere,” says Persaud.

The issue now, says Young, is that as the permafrost melts, this resource is disappearing which creates an urgent need to collect more ice cores to further illuminate temporal trends and possible sources of PFAAs.

The paper, A 50 year record for perfluoroalkyl acids in the high arctic: implications for global and local transport, was published in the journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impact.

PHOTO: Arctic ice cores, by Alison Criscitiello

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York University is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change and prepare our students for success. York's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. York’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future. 

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

DOI

10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00553 

Article Title

A Method to Measure Total Gaseous Fluorine

AI-trained CCTV in rivers can spot blockages and reduce floods

Machine learning-equipped camera systems can be an effective and low-cost flood defence tool, researchers show

University of Bath

 

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The ‘AI on The River’ software is trained to accurately detect debris blocking culvert trash screens

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Credit: University of Bath

Smart CCTV systems trained to spot blockages in urban waterways could become an important future tool in flood prevention, new research published today has found. 

Researchers at the University of Bath have shown that their AI-enabled detection software, ‘AI on The River’ trained to accurately detect natural debris, litter or waste blocking trash screens mounted in culverts, can be integrated to existing CCTV systems to provide an early warning of likely flooding. 

Culverts, which number over 1 million in the UK and are in almost every city, town or built-up area, allow streams and rivers to flow under roads, railway embankments and housing developments, meaning they are an important but hidden part of waterways and infrastructure. Trash screens, usually a set of bars, are mounted at culvert entrances to stop debris from passing through. 

When a culvert trash screen is blocked, flooding can happen quickly. If the flow of water into a culvert is restricted, it can build up and pool, leading to risks to the structural integrity of the waterway and the local environment. 

Helping flood defences worldwide 

The machine learning process created by the team is already attracting attention from flood prevention organisations in countries including South Africa, where monitoring equipment is available but data that could be used to train an AI to do the same job is scarce or not collected. 

Dr Andrew Barnes, a lecturer in Bath’s Department of Computer Science and a member of the Centre for Climate Adaptation & Environment Research, and the team that developed the software underpinning the early warning system. He said: “We’ve been able to develop an efficient model that can capture and identify blockages before they become a problem – it’s proactive, so doesn’t wait for a flood to happen before raising the alarm. 

“We’ve developed the system to be flexible and scalable – it could be applied almost anywhere, giving it huge potential in countries where flooding is an issue but where the resources to develop similar tools locally may be scarce.” 

Identifying blockages with high accuracy 

Focusing on a culvert site in Cardiff, the team used machine learning to train a camera system to automatically spot potential obstructions, resulting in it being able to identify likely blockages with close to 90% accuracy. In most cases in the UK, culverts are monitored manually over CCTV by local authority staff watching a bank of screens. 

Using AI and machine learning to create early warning systems would allow local authorities in charge of keeping waterways flowing to focus resources where they are needed and respond to potential blockages quickly and in a focused way. 

The proactive nature of the system also offers major safety benefits to response teams, as they can attend sites immediately rather than having to work in dangerous flooded conditions. 

Dr Thomas Kjeldsen, a Reader in Bath’s Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering and a member of the Centre for Regenerative Design and Engineering for a Net Positive World (RENEW), added: “Climate change means the risk of flooding is growing all around the world. This work opens the potential for the development of new, light weight and cost-efficient flood management systems in urbanised areas, enabling authorities around the globe to adapt to the changing climate. This study is a first step toward a sustainable solution to flood forecasting, and it has opened a multitude of areas for exploration and exploitation.”  

The paper, CCTV Image-based classification of blocked trash screens, is published today in The Journal of Flood Risk Management: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jfr3.13038 (DOI: 10.1111/jfr3.13038). 

The research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant number EP/W034034/1 Reclaiming Forgotten Cities - Turning cities from vulnerable spaces to healthy places for people (RECLAIM). 

ENDS 

For more information or to request interviews, contact Will McManus in the University of Bath press office: wem25@bath.ac.uk / +44(0) 1225 385 798 

Images are available at: https://tinyurl.com/bdxsnj5a  

 

The University of Bath

The University of Bath is one of the UK's leading universities, with a reputation for high-impact research, excellence in education, student experience and graduate prospects. 

We are ranked in the top 10 of all of the UK’s major university guides. We are also ranked among the world’s top 10% of universities, placing 150th in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Bath was rated in the world’s top 10 universities for sport in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024.

Research from Bath is helping to change the world for the better. Across the University’s three Faculties and School of Management, our research is making an impact in society, leading to low-carbon living, positive digital futures, and improved health and wellbeing. Find out all about our Research with Impact: https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/research-with-impact/

Research from Bath is helping to change the world for the better. Across the University’s three Faculties and School of Management, our research is making an impact in society, leading to low-carbon living, positive digital futures, and improved health and wellbeing. Find out all about our Research with Impact: https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/research-with-impact/

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Journal

Journal of Flood Risk Management

DOI

10.1111/jfr3.13038 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

CTV Image-based classification of blocked trash screens

Article Publication Date

3-Oct-2024

 

Microscopic study of milk teeth reveals mystery of death of Iberian culture newborns buried inside homes

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

 

image: 

Burial of a perinatal individual from the Fortalesa dels Vilars (Arbeca, Lleida) site. Credit: ARQHISTEC-GIP, UdL.

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Credit: ARQHISTEC-GIP, UdL

A Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona study in collaboration with the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia and the ALBA synchrotron concludes that the Iberian culture (8th to 1st centuries BCE) newborns buried within domestic spaces died of natural causes, such as complications during labour or premature births, and not due to ritual practices. Researchers applied an innovative methodology, based on the study of the neonatal line of baby teeth using optic microscopy and microflourescence with synchrotron light, to analyse the teeth from 45 infant skeletal remains and precisely identified the moments of both birth and death.

The Iberian culture inhabited the eastern and southern coastal regions of the Iberian Peninsula during the Iron Age (8th to 1st centuries BCE). The most common funeral ritual of the Iberians was the cremation of the deceased and subsequent disposal of the remains in urns that were buried in necropolises. However, archaeologists have also discovered burials with remains of newborns who had not been cremated, but were rather located in areas used for housing or production purposes. These burials have generated controversy among experts. Hypotheses suggested that they could have died of natural causes, be proof of infanticide, or even of ritual sacrifices.

A study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science now provides very precise evidence in favour of the hypothesis that these newborn infants died mainly from natural causes and that, therefore, are a reflection of the high infant mortality during the first year of life in the period studied.

Researchers reached this conclusion after studying 45 infant skeletal remains from five Catalan archaeological sites from the Iberian period: Camp de les Lloses (Osona), Olèrdola (Alt Penedès), Puig de Sant Andreu and Illa d'en Reixac (Baix Empordà), and Fortalesa dels Vilars d'Arbeca (Lleida).

The study was led by researchers from the Biological Anthropology Research Group (GREAB) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the MECAMAT Research Group of the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC). Also participating in the study were members of the University of Granada, the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia (MAC), the El Camp de les Lloses Interpretation Centre, the University of Lleida and  the TR2Lab Research Group of UVic-UCC.

Researchers have applied an innovative methodology based on the histological and elemental analysis (tissue and chemical composition) of the deciduous or primary teeth present in the infant skeletal remains. By means of optical microscopy, researchers were able to visualise the growth lines of the dental crown generated in the formation of teeth during intrauterine life and until shortly after birth. This led them to identify the presence of the neonatal line that is produced at the moment of birth.

The analysis allowed them to identify the moment of birth of the individuals and their survival, as well as to determine very precisely the chronological age at the moment of death. The chronological age takes into account the time elapsed since birth and not the biological development of the skeleton.

Almost half of the infants died during the perinatal period, specifically between the 27th week of gestation and the first week of life. The vast majority of perinatal deaths did not survive the moment of birth, and many of these infants died due to premature births. “These data reinforce the hypothesis that the majority of perinatal deaths were caused by natural factors, such as birth complications or health problems associated with prematurity, and not by cultural practices such as infanticide or ritual sacrifice, as some hypotheses have suggested,” says Xavier Jordana, Associate Professor in the Biological Anthropology Unit of the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology at the UAB.  

Researchers also observed that of the twenty or so infants that survived beyond the first week of life, the longest lived 67 days. “In the sites studied, no burial of an infant beyond two months of life has been identified. This leads us to think that it could probably have been due to a cultural practice of burying in domestic spaces the infants who died in the earliest stages,” says Assumpció Malgosa, researcher at the UAB and co-author of the study.

Unique technique that can specify time of birth and death

The histological analysis researchers applied in this study is an important innovation to calculate very accurately the age of individuals at death based on the study of the crown of their teeth. Primary teeth begin to form during intrauterine life and finish forming in the postnatal stage, around birth, a period in which they register their growth due to the unique property of forming growth lines. These lines can form on a daily basis, but thicker lines can also form due to a punctual and stressful event. One such punctual line that can be visualised with optical microscopy in the teeth of infants who have survived birth is the neonatal line, which is formed by the physiological stress caused by the abrupt change from intrauterine to extrauterine life.

“The technique we used is unique, because it allows us to identify the moment of birth and calculate the chronological age in the skeletal remains. Conventional techniques estimate the biological age of the individual based on skeletal growth and development, so they have a great variability when determining age, and do not allow us to identify the moment of birth,” says Ani Martirosyan, predoctoral researcher at the UAB and first author of the article.

The methodological innovation allowed them to differentiate the individuals who died at birth from those who were born alive and survived. Of those who died at birth, they identified those who died at fullterm (between the 37th and 42nd week of gestation) and those who died prematurely (before the 37th week). They were also able to determine the chronological age of the surviving infants.

Researchers confirmed the accuracy of their technique with contemporary teeth in which the chronological age of death of the individual is known. In addition, they also undertook X-ray microfluorescence from synchrotron light at the ALBA Synchrotron (Cerdanyola del Vallès), particularly at the Xaloc beamline, to analyse the elemental composition of the neonatal line, and in particular the quantification of zinc in cases where the histological visualisation of the line was uncertain.

“Zinc is an important element at birth, particularly related to the onset of breastfeeding, but due to its low content, it is not possible to detect concentration variations in enamel and dentin using electron microscopy. The synchrotron light allows us to apply an X-ray beam of only 10 microns to analyse different elements in the enamel and dentin at extremely low concentrations,” says Judit Molera, researcher at the UVIC-UCC and co-author of the research. The results of the experiment show an increase in the amount of zinc and a decrease in calcium, a main element of dental enamel, coinciding with the presence of the neonatal line, which helped researchers corroborate the histological results.

“The data from our study provide much more detailed and concrete information than we have had so far to establish the pattern of infant mortality in Iberian populations, and help to unravel important aspects of their life history and cultural practices. We trust that the methodology we applied will serve to continue to unveil other mysteries yet to be discovered about ancient populations”, concluded Xavier Jordana.

The study forms part of the research project entitled “Reevaluation of Infanticide and Sex Selection in the Iberian Period”, funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation and directed by GREAB researchers.

Reconstructing infant mortality in Iberian Iron Age populations from tooth histology 

Neonatal line of a baby’s central incisor from the Olèrdola (Alt Penedès) site. Credit: Biological Anthropology Unit, UAB.

Credit

Biological Anthropology Unit, UAB

Journal

Journal of Archaeological Science

DOI

10.1016/j.jas.2024.106088 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Human tissue samples

Article Title

Reconstructing infant mortality in Iberian Iron Age populations from tooth histology

Article Publication Date

6-Oct-2024

 

International collaboration addresses rising cancer rates in South America

National Comprehensive Cancer Network and Latin American Cooperative Oncology Group to publish cancer treatment guidelines tailored for Brazil.

National Comprehensive Cancer Network

 

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The NCCN Guidelines for Prostate Cancer: Brazil Edition are now available free-of-charge at NCCN.org/global. 

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Credit: NCCN

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [October 9, 2024] — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®)—an alliance of leading cancer centers in the United States—announces a renewed collaboration with the Latin American Cooperative Oncology Group (LACOG) to improve cancer outcomes in South America. The international oncology organizations worked together to publish new NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Prostate Cancer: Brazil Edition.

The NCCN Guidelines® for Prostate Cancer: Brazil Edition are now available free-of-charge at NCCN.org/global. Additional Brazilian adaptations of NCCN Guidelines for other cancer types are planned for the future.

"Cancer care in Brazil and throughout Latin America should follow internationally accepted best practices while addressing the unique challenges faced by healthcare providers in the region,” said Dr. Karine Trindade, Chair of the LACOG Genitourinary Group. “Standardizing care through evidence-based expert consensus-driven guidelines is associated with better patient outcomes and more efficient resource use. By formalizing these recommendations, we ensure that our medical teams can offer the most up-to-date, expert-vetted treatments tailored to the specific needs of the Latin American population."

Prostate cancer was selected as the first NCCN Guidelines Adaptation to come out of this collaboration based on need. It is the most common cancer type for men in Brazil and the second highest cause of cancer death.[1] The incidence of prostate cancer in the region has been rising steadily by 3-5% a year,[2] adding to a growing need for access to established, evidence-based treatment recommendations.

“It is always an honor to work with local experts and exchange critical knowledge to enhance care for people with cancer,” said Crystal S. Denlinger, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN. “This work with LACOG enhances our efforts to define and advance high-quality, high-value, patient-centered cancer care globally. It enables us to adapt our world-renowned NCCN Guidelines to the specific circumstances in Brazil, so that providers have information at their fingertips to help patients with cancer live better lives.”

NCCN Guidelines are the recognized standard for clinical direction and policy in cancer management and the most thorough and frequently updated clinical practice guidelines available in any area of medicine. The primary versions are written by subject-specific, multidisciplinary panels of experts from across leading cancer centers in the United States. Studies have shown that treatment that matches guideline recommendations is associated with longer survival and better outcomes.

The NCCN Global Program first began working with LACOG in 2011, and subsequently embarked on new projects in 2021 to increase accessibility to NCCN Guidelines and related content for providers, patients, family members, and caregivers in Latin America.

There are currently more than 20 global adaptations of the NCCN Guidelines, along with more than 270 translations across 51 languages. NCCN Harmonized Guidelines™ and NCCN Framework for Resource Stratification (NCCN Framework™) offer additional recommendations for defining appropriate treatment for differing resource levels. Learn more at NCCN.org/global.

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About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) is a not-for-profit alliance of leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education. NCCN is dedicated to improving and facilitating quality, effective, equitable, and accessible cancer care so all patients can live better lives. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) provide transparent, evidence-based, expert consensus recommendations for cancer treatment, prevention, and supportive services; they are the recognized standard for clinical direction and policy in cancer management and the most thorough and frequently-updated clinical practice guidelines available in any area of medicine. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients® provide expert cancer treatment information to inform and empower patients and caregivers, through support from the NCCN Foundation®. NCCN also advances continuing education, global initiatives, policy, and research collaboration and publication in oncology. Visit NCCN.org for more information.

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[1] Tourinho-Barbosa RR, Pompeo AC, Glina S. Prostate cancer in Brazil and Latin America: epidemiology and screening. Int Braz J Urol. 2016 Nov-Dec;42(6):1081-1090. doi: 10.1590/S1677-5538.IBJU.2015.0690. PMID: 27622278; PMCID: PMC5117963.

[2] Mónica S. Sierra, Isabelle Soerjomataram, David Forman, Prostate cancer burden in Central and South America, Cancer Epidemiology, Volume 44, Supplement 1, 2016, Pages S131-S140, ISSN 1877-7821, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canep.2016.06.010.