Globe University

Sheeppox virus (SPPV) is a major livestock pathogen causing economic hardship through reduced production and death of vulnerable sheep, with written descriptions of sheeppox-like disease recorded since antiquity. We report 21 novel ancient SPPV genomes spanning the Eurasian steppe Bronze Age (~1,700 BCE) to the Early Modern period in Western Europe, including multiple genomes obtained from medieval parchment. We estimate that major capripoxvirus lineages diverged ~11,500-3,700 years ago, overlapping known translocations and bio-cultural developments in sheep. Our dataset supports SPPV diverging first within the lineage leading to goatpox virus and lumpy skin disease virus, and that known gene inactivation events within SPPV and goatpox virus occur in our earliest SPPV genomes. These findings reveal that the food security of Eurasian communities have been threatened by sheeppox for over 3,700 years, and provide new insights to the genomic evolution and potential host adaptation of sheeppox virus.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is revolutionising the tourism industry by enhancing customer relationships, marketing tourist destinations, and improving overall travel experiences. Studies show that VR applications create positive images of destinations and effectively communicate these to potential customers. Additionally, VR and augmented reality (AR) technologies are valuable for planning, marketing, education, and preservation in tourism, offering benefits such as cost reduction, tourist attraction through gamification, and brand loyalty building. However, the high cost of these technologies can limit their accessibility and marketing efforts. Tourism 4.0 aims to leverage VR, AR, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence to enhance tourism experiences while minimising negative impacts through data-driven strategic planning aligned with sustainable development goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, VR has emerged as a viable tool for sustainable tourism, serving as a substitute for physical travel when restrictions are in place and allowing tourists to enjoy virtual holiday experiences. This increased use of VR, driven by its ease of use, usefulness, and authenticity, helps reduce virus transmission risks, alleviate pressure on the tourism sector, and promote sustainability. The United Nations highlights the importance of rebuilding the tourism sector in a safe, equitable, and climate-friendly manner post-pandemic. This research explores the impact of VR on sustainable tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a comprehensive review of literature and case studies, this research evaluates VR’s role in shaping a sustainable future for tourism, offering a new model for immersive and responsible travel experiences while addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic.

• Combining analysis of charcoals and seeds provides a better understanding of the fuels used in potter’s kilns. • Seed analysis identifying woody taxa. • Environments around a potter workshop in the southern Narbonensis Gaul. • Management of woodlands. Roman-era pottery workshops have been central to numerous research inquiries for several decades. The increasing exploration of rural contexts in Narbonensis Gaul in recent years has progressively led to the implementation of archaeobotanical studies, especially anthracological analyses. However, until now, fruit and seed studies have largely been neglected in this type of context. A new excavation project began in 2019 at the site of Mas des Tourelles (Beaucaire, France), a pottery workshop associated with a wine-producing villa dating from the Late Republican period to the Late Roman Empire, and allowed the combination of these two approaches. In this study, 55 samples were analyzed for carpological remains and 11 samples for charcoal remains. On the one hand, archaeobotanical data indicate the use of small-caliber wood and faggots as fuel, demonstrating the management of a Mediterranean mixed oak forest and the predominant exploitation of holm oak/kermes oak, rockrose, and heather. On the other hand, the question arises whether non-woody fuels, undetectable through charcoal analysis, were also used for firing the kilns: although the carpological results did not reveal the presence of non-woody fuel, seed analysis provided further information to the anthracological results by identifying additional woody taxa.

Abstract. The Amazon biome, undergoing significant deforestation, requires robust monitoring systems for effective management and conservation. This study introduces DETER-RT, a novel deforestation detection system that combines the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)-based DETER-R and the TropiSCO systems to enhance detection capabilities using Sentinel-1 satellite data. DETER-RT utilizes a double-threshold technique to optimize the detection of deforestation by balancing detection accuracy and minimizing false positives across different forest types and conditions in the Amazon. The new system modulates detection thresholds based on the proximity of new disturbances to previously detected deforestation, incorporating a dynamic, regionalized threshold adjustment to cater to the variable characteristics of the Amazon’s diverse forest cover. Initial results indicate that DETER-RT provides more timely and accurate warnings compared to existing methods, especially during the fire season, where its performance is less impacted by smoke and haze that typically hinder optical sensors. This approach exemplifies the integration of advanced remote sensing technologies and analytical techniques in environmental monitoring.

Abstract Circular structures made from woolly mammoth bones are found across Ukraine and west Russia, yet the origin of the bones remains uncertain. We present ten new mammoth radiocarbon dates from the largest circular structure at Kostenki 11-Ia, identifying two mammoth mandibles ∼200-1,200 years older than the other dated materials from the site, suggesting skeletal material from long-dead individuals was scavenged and used in the site construction. Biomolecular sexing of 30 individuals showed a predominance of females, suggesting the Kostenki mammoths are primarily from herds. We identify six mitochondrial lineages across 16 samples, showing they are not all from the same matriline. Integrating biomolecular sexing with stableδ13C andδ15N isotope analysis, we find no isotopically-differentiated resource use by females and males, providing the first analysis of foraging differences between sexes in any Late Pleistocene megafauna. Our study highlights the significance of integrating ancient biomolecular approaches in archaeological inference.TeaserIntegrating14C dating, ancient DNA, palaeoproteomics, and stable isotopes improves our understanding of Kostenki 11-Ia

The concept of mediation plays a central part in several positions of contemporary philosophy of technology. Especially Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek have served to establish mediation as one of the core concepts in the postphenomenologically rooted philosophical analysis of human-technology-world relations. While meditation theory provides many important conceptual and empirical contributions to our knowledge of how material artefacts shape our embodied being in the world, too little attention has arguably been given to the development of concepts that enable a philosophical analysis of the symbolic aspect of technological artefacts. This paper aims to develop the notion of ‘symbolic mediation’ by drawing on inspiration from the tradition of philosophical anthropology, more specifically, the work of Ernst Cassirer and his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (PSF). Drawing on empirical examples of human-robot interactions (HRI), I coin two types of symbolic mediation: 1) mythic mediation and 2) aesthetic mediation.