A new fossil site in a previously unexplored part of western Madagascar (the Beanka Protected Area) has yielded remains of many recently extinct vertebrates, including giant lemurs (Babakotia radofilai, Palaeopropithecus kelyus, Pachylemur sp., and Archaeolemur edwardsi), carnivores (Cryptoprocta spelea), the aardvark-like Plesiorycteropus sp., and giant ground cuckoos (Coua). Many of these represent considerable range extensions. Extant species that were extirpated from the region (e.g., Prolemur simus) are also present. Calibrated radiocarbon ages for 10 bones from extinct primates span the last three millennia. The largely undisturbed taphonomy of bone deposits supports the interpretation that many specimens fell in from a rock ledge above the entrance. Some primates and other mammals may have been prey items of avian predators, but human predation is also evident. Strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) suggest that fossils were local to the area. Pottery sherds and bones of extinct and extant vertebrates with cut and chop marks indicate human activity in previous centuries. Scarcity of charcoal and human artifacts suggests only occasional visitation to the site by humans. The fossil assemblage from this site is unusual in that, while it contains many sloth lemurs, it lacks ratites, hippopotami, and crocodiles typical of nearly all other Holocene subfossil sites on Madagascar.

SNP in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene is associated with risk of lower respiratory infections. The influence of genetic variation in the vitamin D pathway resulting in susceptibility to upper respiratory infections (URI) has not been investigated. We evaluated the influence of thirty-three SNP in eleven vitamin D pathway genes (DBP, DHCR7, RXRA, CYP2R1, CYP27B1, CYP24A1, CYP3A4, CYP27A1, LRP2, CUBN and VDR) resulting in URI risk in 725 adults in London, UK, using an additive model with adjustment for potential confounders and correction for multiple comparisons. Significant associations in this cohort were investigated in a validation cohort of 737 children in Manchester, UK. In all, three SNP in VDR (rs4334089, rs11568820 and rs7970314) and one SNP in CYP3A4 (rs2740574) were associated with risk of URI in the discovery cohort after adjusting for potential confounders and correcting for multiple comparisons (adjusted incidence rate ratio per additional minor allele ≥1·15, Pfor trend ≤0·030). This association was replicated for rs4334089 in the validation cohort (Pfor trend=0·048) but not for rs11568820, rs7970314 or rs2740574. Carriage of the minor allele of the rs4334089 SNP in VDR was associated with increased susceptibility to URI in children and adult cohorts in the United Kingdom.

Sheep systems on upland permanent pastures sown with Lolium perenne/Trifolium repens, have typically been relatively intensively managed, relying on inorganic fertilizers to maintain or increase animal output. However changes in the Common Agricultural Policy have resulted in the development of agri-environment schemes to deliver environmental goals from grasslands. These schemes encourage more extensive grazing systems, and change the emphasis from animal output to issues such as increasing biodiversity. Lower stocking densities provide increased opportunities for diet selection, the development of a heterogeneous habitat and associated changes in species composition. However, will more extensive management increase botanical diversity in upland sown swards? The experiment reported here describes the effect of more extensive management combining cessation of fertilizer and lower grazing intensity on vegetation change, stocking density and lamb output over 14 years.

We describe the performance of the Boolardy Engineering Test Array, the prototype for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. Boolardy Engineering Test Array is the first aperture synthesis radio telescope to use phased array feed technology, giving it the ability to electronically form up to nine dual-polarisation beams. We report the methods developed for forming and measuring the beams, and the adaptations that have been made to the traditional calibration and imaging procedures in order to allow BETA to function as a multi-beam aperture synthesis telescope. We describe the commissioning of the instrument and present details of Boolardy Engineering Test Array’s performance: sensitivity, beam characteristics, polarimetric properties, and image quality. We summarise the astronomical science that it has produced and draw lessons from operating Boolardy Engineering Test Array that will be relevant to the commissioning and operation of the final Australian Square Kilometre Array Path telescope.

This study tested whether accurate dating by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon wiggle-matching of short tree-ring series (~30 annual rings) in the Medieval period could be achieved. Scientific dating plays a central role in the conservation of historic buildings in England. Precise dating helps assess the significance of particular buildings or elements of their fabric, thus allowing us to make informed decisions about their repair and protection. Consequently, considerable weight, both financial and legal, can be attached to the precision and accuracy of this dating. Dendrochronology is the method of choice, but in a proportion of cases this is unable to provide calendar dates. Hence, we would like to be able to use 14C wiggle-matching to provide a comparable level of precision and reliability, particularly on shorter tree-ring sequences (~30 annual growth rings) that up until now would not routinely be sampled. We present the results of AMS wiggle-matching five oak tree-ring sequences, spanning the period covered by the vast majority of surviving Medieval buildings in England (about AD 1180–1540) when currently we have only decadal and bidecadal calibration data.

During 1990 we surveyed the southern sky using a multi-beam receiver at frequencies of 4850 and 843 MHz. The half-power beamwidths were 4 and 25 arcmin respectively. The finished surveys cover the declination range between +10 and −90 degrees declination, essentially complete in right ascension, an area of 7.30 steradians. Preliminary analysis of the 4850 MHz data indicates that we will achieve a five sigma flux density limit of about 30 mJy. We estimate that we will find between 80 000 and 90 000 new sources above this limit. This is a revised version of the paper presented at the Regional Meeting by the first four authors; the surveys now have been completed.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

It was inevitable that somebody should suggest a Koine Eirene in the year 346 B.C. True, no ancient document or author records one. But these two words were much in the mouths of Greek statesmen in the 4th century, and much valuable work has been done on the subject in recent years. Indeed it is an interesting comment on the history of our own times that it has been reserved for the present generation of historical writers to reconstruct and understand the chapter in Greek experience which these words represent. It is probably true to say that few Greeks in the 5th century (or even earlier) regarded war as anything but a bad thing; but on the Greeks of the 4th century the greatest war of their history had left its mark without leaving an immunity from further visitations of the same disease, and as a result responsible statesmen (and not merely ordinary men and women) were now agreed that war was a very bad thing, to be preferred, in fact, only to a worse thing still, namely (for small states) to loss of autonomy, and (for the great states) to a fatal loss of prestige. The visible outcome of these feelings was a new kind of peace, Koine Eirene.

The future of centimetre and metre-wave astronomy lies with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a telescope under development by a consortium of 17 countries that will be 50 times more sensitive than any existing radio facility. Most of the key science for the SKA will be addressed through large-area imaging of the Universe at frequencies from a few hundred MHz to a few GHz. The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a technology demonstrator aimed in the mid-frequency range, and achieves instantaneous wide-area imaging through the development and deployment of phased-array feed systems on parabolic reflectors. The large field-of-view makes ASKAP an unprecedented synoptic telescope that will make substantial advances in SKA key science. ASKAP will be located at the Murchison Radio Observatory in inland Western Australia, one of the most radio-quiet locations on the Earth and one of two sites selected by the international community as a potential location for the SKA. In this paper, we outline an ambitious science program for ASKAP, examining key science such as understanding the evolution, formation and population of galaxies including our own, understanding the magnetic Universe, revealing the transient radio sky and searching for gravitational waves.

In early summer of the year 334, only a few weeks after his crossing into Asia Minor and perhaps only a week or two after his first victory in Asia at the river Granicus, Alexander was in Sardes making arrangements for the future government of the satrapy of Lydia, the second of the Persian satrapies to be annexed in this way. Besides appointing in each case a Macedonian to be satrap in place of the former Persian official, and besides making certain special arrangements in each province, at Sardes he appointed a (probably) Greek officer Nicias to be in charge of the financial administration of Lydia. This appointment has always been recognized as a particularly interesting one, because it provides the earliest evidence suggesting an administrative experiment undertaken by Alexander, if it is true, as is usually thought, that he was introducing here something new into the government of the empire in Asia, something which is usually described as ‘the separation of the financial administration from the jurisdiction of the satraps’, or words to that effect. The object of considering it here again (it has been often considered already) is to try to make sure whether this really was an innovation; and if so, what light it throws on Alexander as an administrator in general.

A survey of the Milky Way disk and the Magellanic System at the wavelengths of the 21-cm atomic hydrogen (H i) line and three 18-cm lines of the OH molecule will be carried out with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. The survey will study the distribution of H i emission and absorption with unprecedented angular and velocity resolution, as well as molecular line thermal emission, absorption, and maser lines. The area to be covered includes the Galactic plane (|b| < 10°) at all declinations south of δ = +40°, spanning longitudes 167° through 360°to 79° at b = 0°, plus the entire area of the Magellanic Stream and Clouds, a total of 13 020 deg2. The brightness temperature sensitivity will be very good, typically σT≃ 1 K at resolution 30 arcsec and 1 km s−1. The survey has a wide spectrum of scientific goals, from studies of galaxy evolution to star formation, with particular contributions to understanding stellar wind kinematics, the thermal phases of the interstellar medium, the interaction between gas in the disk and halo, and the dynamical and thermal states of gas at various positions along the Magellanic Stream.

The action of the Roman government in 201 B.C. has probably attracted the notice of every student of ancient history. Within a few months of the treaty of peace with Carthage, the Senate decided that a new war was necessary, a war overseas in the East against an enemy who was not dangerous to Rome at that moment, and who, as is clear to us now, could hardly have become dangerous in the future. Such is the bare statement of the event; and if we knew everything that happened both at Rome and in the East in this critical year the event, no doubt, would no longer be surprising. But, as it is, our knowledge is defective, and perhaps fatally so. One knows that at Rome the charges of the new war made it impossible for the Treasury to pay the interest on the public debt, and that the Roman people was anxious for peace and voted against the first proposal for a war with Macedonia, facts which are in no way surprising when they are regarded as natural consequences of the long war against Carthage; but when they are considered in relation to the new war against Macedonia, they increase our bewilderment rather than diminish it. And the difficulty that is felt by modern historians is not one of modern creation.