The genomic portrait of the Picene culture provides new insights into the Italic Iron Age and the legacy of the Roman Empire in Central Italy.

Background: The Italic Iron Age is characterized by the presence of various ethnic groups partially examined from a genomic perspective. To explore the evolution of Iron Age Italic populations and the genetic impact of Romanization, we focus on the Picenes, one of the most fascinating pre-Roman civilizations, who flourished on the Middle Adriatic side of Central Italy between the 9 and the 3 century BCE, until the Roman colonization.

Results: More than 50 samples are reported, spanning more than 1000 years of history from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity.

The final plague outbreak in Scotland 1644-1649: Historical, archaeological, and genetic evidence.

This paper has several aims: to determine if Yersinia pestis was the causative agent in the last Scottish plague outbreak in the mid-17th century; map the geographic spread of the epidemic and isolate potential contributing factors to its spread and severity; and examine funerary behaviours in the context of a serious plague epidemic in early modern Scotland. Results confirm the presence of Y. pestis in individuals associated with a mid-17th century plague pit in Aberdeen.

Low Genetic Impact of the Roman Occupation of Britain in Rural Communities.

The Roman period saw the empire expand across Europe and the Mediterranean, including much of what is today Great Britain. While there is written evidence of high mobility into and out of Britain for administrators, traders, and the military, the impact of imperialism on local, rural population structure, kinship, and mobility is invisible in the textual record. The extent of genetic change that occurred in Britain during the Roman military occupation remains underexplored.

Capturing the fusion of two ancestries and kinship structures in Merovingian Flanders.

The Merovingian period (5th to 8th cc AD) was a time of demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and political realignment in Western Europe. Here, we report the whole-genome shotgun sequence data of 30 human skeletal remains from a coastal Late Merovingian site of Koksijde (675 to 750 AD), alongside 18 remains from two Early to Late Medieval sites in present-day Flanders, Belgium. We find two distinct ancestries, one shared with Early Medieval England and the Netherlands, while the other, minor component, reflecting likely continental Gaulish ancestry.

Development of the PSU Child Pump.

The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) Child Pump, a centrifugal continuous-flow ventricular assist device (cf-VAD), is being developed as a suitable long-term implantable device for pediatric heart failure patients between 10 and 35 kg, body surface area (BSA) of 0.5-1.2 m 2 , 1-11 years of age, and requiring a mean cardiac output of 1.