The Sun provides the principal energy input into Earth system and solar variability represents a significant external climate forcing. Although observations of activity (sunspots) cover only last about 400 years, radionuclides produced by cosmic rays stored in tree rings or ice cores serve as proxies for extending back thousands years. However, presence weather-induced noise low temporal resolu...

OBJECTIVE To examine the quantity and quality of insomnia symptoms as predictors of treatment for depression in the largest cohort study to date. METHODS Forty thousand seven hundred and ninety-one Finnish public sector employees (mean age 43.9 years, 81% female), free of depression at baseline, participated in this prospective observational cohort study. Participants responded to the survey ...

The crocidurine shrews include the most speciose genus of mammals, Crocidura. The origin and evolution of their radiation is, however, poorly understood because of very scant fossil records and a rather conservative external morphology between species. Here, we use an alignment of 3560 base pairs of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to generate a phylogenetic hypothesis for the evolution of Old Wor...

Abstract Caves are important fossil repositories which provide records extending back over million-year timescales. While the physical processes of cave formation well understood, timing initial development and opening—a more parameter to studies palaeontology, palaeoanthropology archaeology—has proved difficult constrain. Here we investigate speleothems from Naracoorte Cave Complex in southern...

[Purpose] The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of low back pain and associated factors in Thai rice farmers during the rice transplanting process. [Subjects and Methods] Three hundred and forty-four farmers, aged 20-59 years old, were asked to answer a questionnaire modified from the Standard Nordic Questionnaire (Thai version). The questionnaire sought demographic, back-rela...

The Caspian Kutum, Rutilus Kutum (Kamensky 1901) specimens were sampled by purse seine in the northern Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea at four locations:  Feridoonkenar Shahed, Mahmoudabad Khoram, Lariim Azadi fishing coop, and the Shiroud River in Ramsar city. “Back-calculation” is a retrospective method of estimating the characteristics of growth of fish in terms of length and rate of growth...

The best estimate for the age of the material which forms the Earth is 4,566 million years, which is accurate to within a few million years. The universe is three times older, at 13,700 million years. Modern humans extend back only a few thousandths of one per cent of the age of the Earth, although living organisms have been present on Earth throughout most of its history. I discuss the scienti...