The use and detection of quantum dots as nanotracers in environmental fate studies of engineered nanoparticles.

Investigations of the behavior and effects of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) on human health and the environment need detailed knowledge of their fate and transport in environmental compartments. Such studies are highly challenging due to low environmental concentrations, varying size distribution of the particles and the interference with the natural background. A strategy to overcome these limits is to use mimics of ENPs with unique detectable properties that match the properties of the ENPs as nanotracers.

Disentangling cortical functional connectivity strength and topography reveals divergent roles of genes and environment.

The human brain varies across individuals in its morphology, function, and cognitive capacities. Variability is particularly high in phylogenetically modern regions associated with higher order cognitive abilities, but its relationship to the layout and strength of functional networks is poorly understood. In this study we disentangled the variability of two key aspects of functional connectivity: strength and topography.

Assessing the status of the KNM-ER 42700 fossil using Homo erectus neurocranial development.

Based on ontogenetic data of endocranial shape, it has been proposed that a younger than previously assumed developmental status of the 1.5-Myr-old KNM-ER 42700 calvaria could explain why the calvaria of this fossil does not conform to the shape of other Homo erectus individuals. Here, we investigate (ecto)neurocranial ontogeny in H.

Drimolen cranium DNH 155 documents microevolution in an early hominin species.

Paranthropus robustus is a small-brained extinct hominin from South Africa characterized by derived, robust craniodental morphology. The most complete known skull of this species is DNH 7 from Drimolen Main Quarry, which differs from P. robustus specimens recovered elsewhere in ways attributed to sexual dimorphism.

Ontogenetic changes of diploic channels in modern humans.

Objectives: The diploic channels are bony passages of veins, running within frontal, parietal, and occipital bones. In this study, we investigate ontogenetic changes of these channels in a sample of nonadult and adult modern humans.

Materials And Methods: Using computed tomography scans of dried crania, we provide quantitative comparisons of lumen size, branch length, volume, and vascular asymmetries, and correlations with age, cranial size, and bone thickness.

endocasts suggest ape-like brain organization and prolonged brain growth.

Human brains are three times larger, are organized differently, and mature for a longer period of time than those of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees. Together, these characteristics are important for human cognition and social behavior, but their evolutionary origins remain unclear. To study brain growth and organization in the hominin species more than 3 million years ago, we scanned eight fossil crania using conventional and synchrotron computed tomography.

A morphometric comparison of the parietal lobe in modern humans and Neanderthals.

The modern human brain and braincase have a characteristic globular shape including parietal and cerebellar bulging. In contrast, Neanderthals, although having similar endocranial volume, displayed more elongated endocrania with flatter parietal and cerebellar regions. Based on endocranial imprints, we compare the parietal lobe morphology of modern humans and Neanderthals, as this brain region is central to several cognitive functions including tool use and visual imaging.

Contemporaneity of , , and early in South Africa.

Understanding the extinction of and origins of and in South Africa has been hampered by the perceived complex geological context of hominin fossils, poor chronological resolution, and a lack of well-preserved early specimens. We describe, date, and contextualize the discovery of two hominin crania from Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa. At ~2.

Evolution of brain lateralization: A shared hominid pattern of endocranial asymmetry is much more variable in humans than in great apes.

Brain lateralization is commonly interpreted as crucial for human brain function and cognition. However, as comparative studies among primates are rare, it is not known which aspects of lateralization are really uniquely human. Here, we quantify both pattern and magnitude of brain shape asymmetry based on endocranial imprints of the braincase in humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

Skull reconstruction of the late Miocene ape Rudapithecus hungaricus from Rudabánya, Hungary.

We report on a computer-based reconstruction of a well-preserved ape skull from late Miocene deposits in Rudabánya, Hungary. Based on micro-computed tomographic scans of the original Rudapithecus hungaricus partial cranium RUD 200 and the associated mandible RUD 212 we realign displaced bone fragments, and reconstruct the shape of the upper and lower jaws guided by occlusal fingerprint analysis of dental wear patterns. We apply geometric morphometric methods based on several hundred landmarks and sliding semilandmarks to estimate missing data, and create multiple reconstructions of the specimen.

Medical diagnoses showed low relatedness in an explorative mutual information analysis of 190,837 inpatient cases.

Objectives: We aimed to quantify the shared information between medical diagnoses of an adult inpatient population to explore both multimorbidity patterns and vice versa the unrelatedness of medical diagnoses.

Study Design And Setting: This was a cross-sectional study, performed at a tertiary care center in Switzerland. Diagnoses were routinely coded using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision.

Covariation of the endocranium and splanchnocranium during great ape ontogeny.

That great ape endocranial shape development persists into adolescence indicates that the splanchnocranium succeeds brain growth in driving endocranial development. However, the extent of this splanchnocranial influence is unknown. We applied two-block partial least squares analyses of Procrustes shape variables on an ontogenetic series of great ape crania to explore the covariation of the endocranium (the internal braincase) and splanchnocranium (face, or viscerocranium).

Neandertal Introgression Sheds Light on Modern Human Endocranial Globularity.

One of the features that distinguishes modern humans from our extinct relatives and ancestors is a globular shape of the braincase [1-4]. As the endocranium closely mirrors the outer shape of the brain, these differences might reflect altered neural architecture [4, 5]. However, in the absence of fossil brain tissue, the underlying neuroanatomical changes as well as their genetic bases remain elusive.

Morphological trends in arcade shape and size in Middle Pleistocene Homo.

Objectives: Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins, often summarized as Homo heidelbergensis sensu lato, are difficult to interpret due to a fragmentary fossil record and ambiguous combinations of primitive and derived characters. Here, we focus on one aspect of facial shape and analyze shape variation of the dental arcades of these fossils together with other Homo individuals.

Materials And Methods: Three-dimensional landmark data were collected on computed tomographic scans and surface scans of Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins (n = 8), Homo erectus s.

Secondary use of routine data in hospitals: description of a scalable analytical platform based on a business intelligence system.

We describe a scalable platform for research-oriented analyses of routine data in hospitals, which evolved from a state-of-the-art business intelligence architecture for enterprise resource planning. This platform involves an in-memory database management system for data modeling and analytics and a high-performance cluster for more computing-intensive analytical tasks. Setting up platforms for research-oriented analyses is a highly dynamic, time-consuming, and costly process.

Author Correction: New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens.

In the originally published version of this Letter, the x axis in Fig. 3a should have been: 'PC1: 26%' rather than 'PC1: 46%', and the y axis should have been: 'PC2: 16%' rather than 'PC2: 29%'. We also noticed an error in the numbering of the fossils from Qafzeh: Qafzeh 27 should be removed, and Qafzeh 26 is actually Qafzeh 25, following Tillier (2014)1 and Schuh et al.

Reconstruction, endocranial form and taxonomic affinity of the early Homo calvaria KNM-ER 42700.

When first described, the small calvaria KNM-ER 42700 from Ileret, Kenya, was considered a late juvenile or young adult and assigned to Homo erectus. However, this species attribution has subsequently been challenged because the specimen's neurocranial shape differs substantially from that of H. erectus adults.

Using the covariation of extant hominoid upper and lower jaws to predict dental arcades of extinct hominins.

Upper and lower jaws are well represented in the fossil record of mammals and are frequently used to diagnose species. Some hominin species are only known by either their maxillary or mandibular morphology, and in this study, we explore the possibility of predicting their complementary dental arcade shape to aid the recognition of conspecific specimens in the fossil record. To this end, we apply multiple multivariate regression to analyze 3D landmark coordinates collected on associated upper and lower dental arcades of extant Homo, Pan, Gorilla, Pongo, and Hylobates.

The evolution of modern human brain shape.

Modern humans have large and globular brains that distinguish them from their extinct relatives. The characteristic globularity develops during a prenatal and early postnatal period of rapid brain growth critical for neural wiring and cognitive development. However, it remains unknown when and how brain globularity evolved and how it relates to evolutionary brain size increase.

New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens.

Fossil evidence points to an African origin of Homo sapiens from a group called either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis.

Hominoid arcade shape: Pattern and magnitude of covariation.

The shape of the dental arcade and canine size distinguish extant humans from all apes. Humans are characterized by a parabolic arcade with short postcanine tooth rows and small canines, whereas apes have long, U-shaped arcades with large canines. The evolutionary and biomechanical mechanisms underlying arcade shape differences between and within groups are not well understood.

Reconstructed Homo habilis type OH 7 suggests deep-rooted species diversity in early Homo.

Besides Homo erectus (sensu lato), the eastern African fossil record of early Homo has been interpreted as representing either a single variable species, Homo habilis, or two species. In the latter case, however, there is no consensus over the respective groupings, and which of the two includes OH 7, the 1.8-million-year-old H.

Brain ontogeny and life history in Pleistocene hominins.

A high level of encephalization is critical to the human adaptive niche and emerged among hominins over the course of the past 2 Myr. Evolving larger brains required important adaptive adjustments, in particular regarding energy allocation and life history. These adaptations included a relatively small brain at birth and a protracted growth of highly dependent offspring within a complex social environment.