DNA from a type of “chewing gum” used by teenagers in Sweden 10,000 years ago is shedding new light on the Stone Age diet and oral health, researchers said Tuesday.

The wads of gum are made of pieces of birch bark pitch, a tar-like black resin, and are combined with saliva, with teeth marks clearly visible.

They were found 30 years ago next to bones at the 9,700-year-old Huseby Klev archaeological site north of Sweden’s western city of Gothenburg, one of the country’s oldest sites for human fossils.

The hunter-gatherers most likely chewed the resin “to be used as glue” to assemble tools and weapons, said Anders Gotherstrom, co-author of a study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“This is a most likely hypothesis — they could of course have been chewed just because they liked them or because they thought that they had some medicinal purpose,” he told AFP.

The gum was typically chewed by both male and female adolescents.

“There were several chewing gum (samples) and both males and females chewed them. Most of them seem to have been chewed by teenagers,” Gotherstrom said. “There was some kind of age to it.”

A previous 2019 study of the wads of gum mapped the genetic profile of the individuals who had chewed it.

This time, Gotherstrom and his team of paleontologists at Stockholm University were able to determine, again from the DNA found in the gum, that the teenagers’ Stone Age diet included deer, trout and hazelnuts.

Traces of apple, duck and fox were also detected.

“If we do a human bone then we’ll get human DNA. We can do teeth and then we’ll get a little bit more. But here we’ll get DNA from what they had been chewing previously,” Gotherstrom said. “You cannot get that in any other way.”  

Identifying the different species mixed in the DNA was challenging, according to Dr. Andrés Aravena, a scientist at Istanbul University who spent a lot of time on the computer analyzing the data.

“We had to apply several computational heavy analytical tools to single out the different species and organisms. All the tools we needed were not ready to be applied to ancient DNA; but much of our time was spent on adjusting them so that we could apply them”, Aravena said in a statement.

The scientists also found at least one of the teens had serious oral health issues. In one piece chewed by a teenage girl, researchers found “a number of bacteria indicating a severe case of periodontitis,” a severe gum infection.

“She would probably start to lose her teeth shortly after chewing this chewing gum. It must have hurt as well,” said Gotherstrom.

“You have the imprint from the teenager’s mouth who chewed it thousands of years ago. If you want to put some kind of a philosophical layer into it, for us it connects artefacts, the DNA and humans,” he said.

In 2019, scientists constructed an image of a woman based on the DNA extracted from 5,700-year-old chewing gum. She likely had dark skin, brown hair and blue eyes, and hailed from Syltholm on Lolland, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. Researchers nicknamed the woman “Lola.”

Researchers at the time said it was the first time an entire ancient human genome had been obtained from anything other than human bone.  

Sophie Lewis contributed to this report.

At the last Senate meeting of the year, Senator Michael Bennet took the podium and, addressing a nearly empty chamber, called on Congress to strengthen support for Ukraine.

“Understand what’s at stake!” – he said.

During an emotional, nearly hour-long speech, the Colorado Democrat urged senators to view the nearly two-year conflict as a decisive clash between authoritarianism and democracy.

The legislator asked his colleagues to think about what it means “to fight on this frosty front line, not knowing whether we will solve the issue with ammunition.”

However, Congress went on recess and will return to work only in two weeks, while aid to Ukraine is almost exhausted.

The Biden administration plans to send another relief package before the New Year, but says it will be the last unless Congress approves more funds.

With support in Congress waning and conflict and unrest eroding global security, the United States is once again trying to assert its role in the world.

But under the influence of former President Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers are increasingly skeptical of American intervention abroad, especially when it comes to aid to Ukraine.

Support for Ukraine’s defense was once considered one of the themes that united lawmakers from both parties.

But now the fate of some $61 billion in funding is tied up in delicate negotiations over changes to border security and immigration policy.

“We live in a time when all sorts of forces are attacking democracy, here and abroad,” Bennett said.

The White House’s strategy of including Republican priority issues such as aid to Israel and border security in the package also raised questions among Democrats.

Progressive lawmakers critical of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has killed thousands of civilians, have called for humanitarian conditions to be placed on the money being given to Israel.

And Hispanic lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have also been critical of asylum restrictions.

Any package faces great uncertainty in the House of Representatives, where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson maintains tenuous control over the closely divided chamber. Before becoming speaker in October, Johnson repeatedly voted against aid to Ukraine.

Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives have repeatedly tried to stop more US aid from being sent to Ukraine.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a close ally of the former president, said Republicans should not have even pushed for changes to border security policy. In her opinion, this could “give the Biden administration some political victories on the election field.”

White House staff and Senate delegates plan to work on the border security bill over the next two weeks in hopes of having it ready when Congress returns from recess.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told The Associated Press that he “has hope” but he “wouldn’t go so far as to say confidence.”

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–$MASTEK #AIfirst–Mastek (NSE: MASTEK; BSE: 523704), a trusted digital engineering and cloud transformation partner, announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft. The collaboration is focused on pioneering innovative solutions that harness the capabilities of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Services—especially for the retail, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, and public sector industries—through the integration of generative AI capabilities.

Recently, Mastek has signed a flagship deal in the banking sector, which involves generative AI capabilities to transform its customers’ marketing and service domains. Mastek is gaining further traction with customers by enriching its end-user experience through Azure OpenAI Service, which provides enterprise-grade access to OpenAI generative AI services.

Mastek has developed InfoGENious, a generative AI-based accelerator to answer user queries based on the published articles, policies, and structured data. It offers 24/7 secured access to information with role-based controls and multi-language support. The accelerator is intended to improve user experience and productivity while reducing the need for manual interventions.

Mastek will simplify generative AI for its clients through its #Decomplex Generative AI services. The services include the following offerings:

• Plan.ai: Assess generative AI maturity and roadmap.
• Create.ai: Modernize data for a foundational data model preparation.
• Orchestrate.ai: Enhance stakeholder experiences with generative AI applications.
• Transform.ai: Fine-tune and pre-train large language models for vertical solutions.
• Deliver.ai: Integrate AI copilots for code development, testing, and deployment.

Through Mastek’s collaboration with Microsoft, Mastek is embarking on a transformative journey, embracing generative AI as a driving force across our core service domains. This strategic alliance is set to transform digital engineering, data cloud modernization, and customer experience.

Hiral Chandrana, Global CEO, Mastek stated, “By integrating -generative AI into Mastek’s core services, we are reshaping digital engineering, data cloud modernization, and customer experience transformation. Our collaboration with Microsoft underscores our unwavering dedication to innovation and excellence. Through the power of -generative AI, we lead businesses on a path of continuous evolution, unlocking unprecedented opportunities and driving true digital transformation.”

Sangita Singh, General Manager IT & ITES, at Microsoft India said, “We are thrilled to join forces with Mastek to reshape the landscapes of the retail, healthcare, and financial services sectors. Through our innovative generative AI solutions, we are empowering businesses to elevate operational efficiency, enhance customer experiences, and fuel sustainable growth. This collaboration underscores Mastek’s commitment to pioneering cutting-edge technology, enriching customer interactions, and driving progress in diverse industries worldwide.”

The collaboration between Mastek and Microsoft will provide integrated solutions that harness the power of generative AI, facilitating the transition from a digital-first to an AI-first approach.

About Mastek

Mastek is an enterprise digital and cloud transformation partner that engineers excellence for customers in industries such as healthcare and life sciences, retail & consumer, manufacturing, financial services, and public sector across 40 countries, including the UK, US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Mastek helps enterprises decomplex digital and delivers business outcomes with trust, value, and velocity across the spectrum of services including digital experience & engineering, cloud implementations, data, automation & AI, and cloud managed services. A preferred Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, AWS and Snowflake partner, Mastek has 6000+ employees and delivers right-fit solutions to both medium businesses and global Fortune 1000 clients. For more details, please visit our website, www.mastek.com.

Contacts

Kashmira Chavan | Kashmira.Chavan@mastek.com

Source link

The content is by Business Wire. Headlines of Today Media is not responsible for the content provided or any links related to this content. Headlines of Today Media is not responsible for the correctness, topicality or the quality of the content.

The brother of a terrorist who killed three people in a park in Reading rang police the day before the attack, warning he “could harm himself or others”, an inquest has been told.

Khairi Saadallah stabbed to death three men who were meeting in Forbury Gardens, during a brief relaxation in lockdown rules in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

James Furlong, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails were killed and three others injured during a 30-second rampage on 20 June 2020.

Saadallah, who was handed a whole life tariff in 2021, had viewed material on the September 11 attacks and was heard yelling “Allahu Akbar” [god is great] and “God accept my jihad”.

At an inquest into the deaths, Saadallah’s brother, Aiman, said Saadallah had visited him on the afternoon before the attack and told him he had “left me something to remember him by”.

“He asked if he could have a shower and asked me for a prayer mat. Instead of praying he had a joint,” he said in a statement.

“He told me about a movie scene in which he was surrounded by jihadists with a bomb strapped to his chest. He said he was going to heaven and there were virgins there waiting for him.

“I said it was not funny. I lost patience and went upstairs.”

Later, Aiman, a care worker in his mid-30s, said Saadallah showed an “immediate change to an angry man”, adding: “I had never seen him like this before.” The brothers had lived together for around a year.

Aiman added: “I rang the police and said he could harm himself or others although I did not believe he would hurt others.”

Officers visited Saadallah that evening but he dismissed concerns about him, the inquest heard.

After the attack, Aiman found that Saadallah had used razor blades to shave off his body hair when he had a shower, described by police as part of a “ritual cleansing”.

‘Boy soldier’

Michael Haynes, a counsellor who worked with Saadallah on drug, alcohol and mental health issues, said he had struggled to get help for Saadallah.

He said Saadallah described himself as a “boy soldier” who had fought in the Libyan civil war against Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

In a statement, Mr Haynes told the inquest: “He calls himself a boy soldier. I don’t know how old he was, but probably 15 years old.

“He drove trucks, he saw lots of death, and when Colonel Gaddafi was ousted these people turned out to be Muslim fundamentalists.

“Because Khairi didn’t grow his beard and all the rest of it, they started picking on him. He got an electric shock, tortured and a bloke firing in a darkened room where Khairi was and other stuff.”

Read more on Sky News:
Iran’s supreme leader sends message to Middle East
Ukrainian tennis player investigated over handshake

Saadallah arrived in Britain in around 2015, claiming asylum, and lived initially in Manchester where he suffered from mental health problems, became homeless and got involved with a Somalian gang who attacked him with hammers, leaving scars on his head.

His father was an antiques dealer who was said to be very successful and “had a lot of money” until he fell out with the Gaddafi regime.

His mother was described as a doctor, possibly a psychiatrist, but the couple had split up and lived in different cities in Libya.