We baked low-calorie bread by mixing charred cellulose granules with wheat flour, using the charred cellulose granules to eliminate toxic xanthene food dyes contained in processed foods from the alimentary canal. The size of the charred cellulose granules played an important role in determining good breadmaking properties in respect of the bread height (mm) and specific volume (SV, cm3/g). Char...

RATIONALE Stable isotope analysis of archaeological charred plants has become a useful tool for interpreting past agricultural practices and refining ancient dietary reconstruction. Charred material that lay buried in soil for millennia, however, is susceptible to various kinds of contamination, whose impact on the grain/seed isotopic composition is poorly understood. Pre-treatment protocols ha...

Data on menarcheal age were collected on girls admitted to the University College of Swansea over a 12-year period. It appears that the downward trend in menarcheal age ceased in girls born about 1946 (the 1965 student intake) and that an upward swing may have since occurred. This change in the secular trend is not due to the association of menarcheal age with family size or of position in sibs...

Fire is an important part of forest ecosystems, as is the insect fauna. Changes in wood brought about by fire may alter the ability of termites to use the wood, interrupting the decay cycle of woody debris. The ability of termites to find, infest, and feed upon wood after it had been charred was evaluated in the laboratory and field. Eastern subterranean termites, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kolla...

Charred human remains were found in the smoking ambers of a dying fire in an oil palm plantation in Selangor, Malaysia in the midnight of January 28, 2013. Investigations showed that palm fronds and rubber tires were used to light and sustain the blaze. At least four to five tires were estimated to be used based on the residual burnt metal wires at the site. The remains were brought to the Depa...

An important concern of paleoethnobotanists is accounting for the presence and charring of seeds recovered archeologically. The possibility that seeds can be brought to a site incorporated in animal dung and charred when that dung is burned as fuel is considered. Researchers have shown that animal dung can contain seeds. Ethnoarcheological data from the rural village of Malyan, Iran demonstrate...

The incorporation of plant biomass into soil usually leads to long-chain n-alkanes with a relative predominance of odd carbon numbered homologues. Contrastingly, an increase in short-chain even carbon numbered n-alkanes was found in charred biomass with progressing temperatures. We applied lipid analysis to buried ancient topsoils that contained charred organic matter and to corresponding contr...