A geospatial method for estimating soil moisture variability in prehistoric agricultural landscapes.

Prehistoric peoples chose farming locations based on environmental conditions, such as soil moisture, which plays a crucial role in crop production. Ancestral Pueblo communities of the central Mesa Verde region became increasingly reliant on maize agriculture for their subsistence needs by AD 900. Prehistoric agriculturalists (e.g., Ancestral Pueblo farmers) were dependent on having sufficient soil moisture for successful plant growth. To better understand the quality of farmland in terms of soil moisture, this study develops a static geospatial soil moisture model, the Soil Moisture Proxy Model, which uses soil and topographic variables to estimate soil moisture potential across a watershed. The model is applied to the semi-arid region of the Goodman watershed in the central Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. We evaluate the model by comparing the Goodman watershed output to two other watersheds and to soil moisture sensor values. The simple framework can be used in other regions of the world, where water is also an important limiting factor for farming. The general outcome of this research is an improved understanding of potential farmland and human-environmental relationships across the local landscape.

Catastrophic Secondary Infarctions with Onset Seizure Following Tissue Plasminogen Activator Therapy.

Fatalities following intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy have been reported. Major fatal complications following intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy include intracranial hemorrhage, aortic dissection, and extracranial bleeding. However, the possibility that intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy itself paradoxically induces synchronized multiple cerebral novel infarctions has never been considered. We herein report the first case of bilateral internal carotid artery infarction with onset seizure following intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy for a vertebral-basilar artery infarction. A 75-year-old man was transferred to our hospital and diagnosed with acute ischemic stroke in the basilar artery. His National Institute of Health Stroke Scale score was 4. The intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy was initiated 234 minutes after stroke onset because no contraindications were present. Almost 2 hours after the intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy, the patient suddenly fell into a deep coma with generalized convulsions. A huge secondary infarction was found in the bilateral anterior circulation territories, and he died 7 days after stroke onset. This case alerts clinicians to the possibility of synchronized multiple cerebral infarctions following intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator therapy as a dangerous complication in patients with multiple severe stenoses in the cerebral arteries.

The overkill model and its impact on environmental research.

Research on human-environment interactions that informs ecological practices and guides conservation and restoration has become increasingly interdisciplinary over the last few decades. Fueled in part by the debate over defining a start date for the Anthropocene, historical disciplines like archeology, paleontology, geology, and history are playing an important role in understanding long-term anthropogenic impacts on the planet. Pleistocene overkill, the notion that humans overhunted megafauna near the end of the Pleistocene in the Americas, Australia, and beyond, is used as prime example of the impact that humans can have on the planet. However, the importance of the overkill model for explaining human-environment interactions and anthropogenic impacts appears to differ across disciplines. There is still considerable debate, particularly within archeology, about the extent to which people may have been the cause of these extinctions. To evaluate how different disciplines interpret and use the overkill model, we conducted a citation analysis of selected works of the main proponent of the overkill model, Paul Martin. We examined the ideas and arguments for which Martin's overkill publications were cited and how they differed between archeologists and ecologists. Archeologists cite overkill as one in a combination of causal mechanisms for the extinctions. In contrast, ecologists are more likely to accept that humans caused the extinctions. Aspects of the overkill argument are also treated as established ecological processes. For some ecologists, overkill provides an analog for modern-day human impacts and supports the argument that humans have "always" been somewhat selfish overconsumers. The Pleistocene rewilding and de-extinction movements are built upon these perspectives. The use of overkill in ecological publications suggests that despite increasing interdisciplinarity, communication with disciplines outside of ecology is not always reciprocal or even.