Human and other hominid fossil footprints provide rare but important insights into anatomy and behavior. Here we report recently discovered fossil trackways of human footprints from the Willandra Lakes region of western New South Wales, Australia. Optically dated to between 19-23 ka and consisting of at least 124 prints, the trackways form the largest collection of Pleistocene human footprints ...

A short soak of protein crystals in cryosolution containing bromides or iodides leads to incorporation of these ions into the ordered solvent shell around the protein surface. The halide ions display significant anomalous signal, bromides in the vicinity of the absorption edge at 0.92 A, and iodides at longer wavelengths, e.g., provided by the copper sources. Bromides can, therefore, be used th...

Urea-melamine-formaldehyde (UMF) resins with 2.5% and 5.0% melamine levels added at the beginning of the third step of the typical urea-formaldehyde (UF) synthesis procedure were synthesized with an F/(U+M) mole ratio of 1.05 and evaluated as particleboard binders to investigate the positive effects of melamine on the formaldehyde content and physical performance of boards. Resins were tested f...

Unprotected wood exposed outdoors suffers from photodegradation due to absorption of UV light by lignin and dimensional changes because of moisture absorption or desorption by free hydroxyl groups in wood constituents. Chemical modification of cell wall polymers is one of the effective methods of inducing dimensional stability and UV resistance in wood. In this work, etherification of Scots pin...

[NiFe] hydrogenases catalyze the reversible splitting of H2 into protons and electrons at a deeply buried active site. The catalytic center can be accessed by gas molecules through a hydrophobic tunnel network. While most [NiFe] hydrogenases are inactivated by O2, a small subgroup, including the membrane-bound [NiFe] hydrogenase (MBH) of Ralstonia eutropha, is able to overcome aerobic inactivat...

Using Dachengqi Tang (DCQT) as a model, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprints were applied to optimize machine extracting process with the Box-Behnken experimental design. HPLC fingerprints were carried out to investigate the chemical ingredients of DCQT; synthetic weighing method based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and criteria importance through intercriteria correl...

Low mole ratio urea-melamine-formaldehyde (UMF) resins synthesized with 2.5% and 5.0% melamine levels added at the beginning, middle, and end points of the first alkaline step of the typical urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin synthesis procedure were compared with typical UMF resins synthesized with melamine additions made at the final alkaline step. Various resin analysis, particleboard preparation,...

Most sharks, rays and chimaeras (chondrichthyans) taken in commercial fisheries are discarded (i.e. returned to the ocean either dead or alive). Quantifying the post-capture survival (PCS) of discarded species is therefore essential for the improved management and conservation of this group. For all chondrichthyans taken in the main shark fishery of Australia, we quantified the immediate PCS of...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the feasibility of using recycled canola oil as raw material to produce ASTM standard biodiesel. Two-step reaction, acid-catalyzed esterification followed by alkali-catalyzed transesterification, was performed. The high level of free fatty acids ( FFA) in the recycled canola oil was reduced to less than 1% by acidcatalyzed esterification with 40/1 molar ...