Producing highly complicated materials. Nature does it better.

Through the years, mineralogical studies have produced a tremendous amount of data on the atomic arrangement and mineral properties. Quite often, structural analysis has led to elucidate the role played by minor components, giving interesting insights into the physico-chemical conditions of mineral crystallization and allowing the description of unpredictable structures that represented a body of knowledge critical for assessing their technological potentialities. Using such a rich database, containing many basic acquisitions, further steps became appropriate and possible, into the directions of more advanced knowledge frontiers.

From Neandertals to modern humans: New data on the Uluzzian.

Having thrived in Eurasia for 350,000 years Neandertals disappeared from the record around 40,000-37,000 years ago, after modern humans entered Europe. It was a complex process of population interactions that included cultural exchanges and admixture between Neandertals and dispersing groups of modern humans. In Europe Neandertals are always associated with the Mousterian while the Aurignacian is associated with modern humans only.

Could incommensurability in sulfosalts be more common than thought? The case of meneghinite, CuPbSbS.

The structure of meneghinite (CuPbSbS), from the Bottino mine in the Apuan Alps (Italy), has been solved and refined as an incommensurate structure in four-dimensional superspace. The structure is orthorhombic, superspace group Pnma(0β0)00s, cell parameters a = 24.0549 (3), b = 4.

Thallium-rich rust scales in drinkable water distribution systems: A case study from northern Tuscany, Italy.

Following the detection of a severe thallium contamination of the drinkable water from the public distribution system of Valdicastello Carducci-Pietrasanta (northern Tuscany, Italy), and the identification of the source of contamination in the Molini di Sant'Anna spring (average Tl content≈15μgL), the replacement of the contaminated water with a virtually Tl-free one (Tl<0.10μgL) caused an increase in Tl concentration in the drinkable water. This suggested that the pipeline interior had become a secondary source of Tl contamination, promoting its mineralogical and geochemical study.

A Milk and Ochre Paint Mixture Used 49,000 Years Ago at Sibudu, South Africa.

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, proteomic and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) analyses of residue on a stone flake from a 49,000 year-old layer of Sibudu (South Africa) indicate a mixture of ochre and casein from milk, likely obtained by killing a lactating wild bovid. Ochre powder production and use are documented in Middle Stone Age South African sites but until now there has been no evidence of the use of milk as a binder. Our analyses show that this ochre-based mixture was neither a hafting adhesive nor a residue left after treating animal skins, but a liquid mixture consisting of a powdered pigment mixed with milk; in other words, a paint medium that could have been applied to a surface or to human skin.

Structure of Pb-rich chabournéite from Jas Roux, France.

The crystal structure of a specimen of `Pb-rich' chabournéite from Jas Roux, Hautes-Alpes, France, with the chemical formula obtained by electron microprobe analysis of Ag(0.04 (1))Tl(2.15 (2))Pb(0.

Comparative modular analysis of two complex sulfosalt structures: sterryite, Cu(Ag,Cu)3Pb19(Sb,As)22(As-As)S56, and parasterryite, Ag4Pb20(Sb,As)24S58.

The crystal structures of two very close, but distinct complex minerals of the lead sulfosalt group have been solved: sterryite, Cu(Ag,Cu)(3)Pb(19)(Sb,As)(22)(As-As)S(56), and parasterryite, Ag(4)Pb(20)(Sb,As)(24)S(58). They are analyzed and compared according to modular analysis. The fundamental building block is a complex column centred on a Pb(6)S(12) triangular prismatic core, with two additional long and short arms.