Ramiro Barberena

Reduction of bacterial colonization on buckling-induced wrinkled surfaces under fluid shear - Nature Communications Microbial colonization and biofilm formation drive persistent infections on medical devices, often under fluid flow. Here, the authors engineer buckling-induced wrinkled and folded patterns with preci...

From shark skin to dragonfly wings… to the reduction of hospital-acquired infections. A striking example of how basic research can inspire innovative solutions to modern problems.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧬 Two pathogens, one disease.
Leprosy cannot be understood as a single-pathogen disease.
Understanding this duality is critical for modern case detection, surveillance, and long-term control strategies.

A commentary with @nrascovan.bsky.social and @avanzich.bsky.social

#Leprosy #OneHealth #aDNA

No quedó mucho para elegir. Nunca estuve tan poco optimista

Sharing the commentary we wrote with @marialopopolo.bsky.social and @avanzich.bsky.social

👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

in which we discuss the biomedical implications on Leprosy of our recent article on M. lepromatosis in the Americas: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@pasteur.fr

Pre-European contact leprosy in the Americas and its current persistence Leprosy, primarily caused by Mycobacterium leprae, is considered a disease introduced into the Americas during European colonization. However, the recent discovery of a second pathogen causing leprosy...

Did leprosy exist in the Americas before European invasion? Our lab #aDNA study at @institutpasteur.bsky.social supervised by @nrascovan.bsky.social in collab with @avanzich.bsky.social (CSU) finds M.lepromatosis in pre-colonial Ancestors from North and South America www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I will need! I’ll get in touch’

Woow, that looks great

Save the dates! Two South American 14C-related conferences will be held in June–July 2026. Visit radiocarbon.org/meetings-news
30 June–3 July 2026: 11th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Conference in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6–10 July 2026: 4th 14C & Diet plus CLARa3 Conference in Santiago, Chile

Rock engravings of a human and several animals, including a ~42m-long snake.

Happy #SnakeDay! This is probably the largest engraving of a snake in the world 🐍

Measuring ~42m long, it would have been visible from a great distance, suggesting it was a prehistoric territorial marker.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

The surprisingly big health benefits of just a little exercise Nature - ‘Exercise snacks’ and other forms of everyday movement can greatly reduce the risk of heart disease and death.

How much exercise do you actually need?

go.nature.com/49Mi2ju

Second Circular- Radiocarbon and Diet & CLARa (Santiago - July 2026).
Deadline submission: 15th of March 2026.
See you in Chile this winter !
@lorenabecval.bsky.social @ramiro-arqueo.bsky.social @14cjournal.bsky.social

@nationalgeographic.bsky.social 1st Explorer Festival in Africa. Landscapes, conservation, languages, communities. It blew my mind

🤣🤣🤣

Eight millennia of continuity of a previously unknown lineage in Argentina - Nature A previously unsampled deep lineage in central Argentina was discovered that had distinctive genetic drift by 8,500 bp and persisted as the main Native American ancestry component in the reg...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper led by Javier Maravall on a time transect from ancient Argentina.

Original paper: bsky.app/profile/iosi...

Mystery group lived in central Argentina for millennia, ancient DNA reveals New study fills major gap in genetic map of ancient human migrations

Ancient DNA studies usually link changes in lifestyle and language in the past to population movements. But not always! A new study in @nature.com reveals a South American ancestry that stayed steady for 8,500 years, despite major cultural and linguistic shifts. @science.org 🏺 🧬

‘Dragon Man’ skull belongs to mysterious human relative At long last, scientists have a nearly complete cranium from hominins known as Denisovans

DNA from 146,00-year-old tooth plaque helped Chinese researchers identify the "Dragon Man" as a Denisovan, an archaic species of human: www.science.org/content/arti... @science.org

Ancient DNA reveals new clues about the incredible journey of dogs in A major new study led by Dr Aurélie Manin from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford has traced the incredible journey of humankind’s best friend across the Americas, showing how dogs

📰 Ancient DNA traces how dogs spread across the Americas alongside early farming societies

#ArchaeologyNews via ‪@ox.ac.uk‬ @unioxarchaeology.bsky.social‬

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-06...

Judge rules against NIH grant cuts — and calls them discriminatory The decision means that the US biomedical agency has to restore funding to hundreds of research projects, but the government will likely appeal.

A US judge has ordered hundreds of terminated research projects at the US National Institutes of Health to be reinstated, calling the processes that led to their cancellation “bereft of reasoning”.

https://go.nature.com/4kOmXDy

Multivariate analyses of Aurignacian and Gravettian personal ornaments support cultural continuity in the Early Upper Palaeolithic Traditionally, lithic artefacts have served as the principal proxy for the definition of archaeological cultures in the Upper Paleolithic. However, the culture-historical framework in use, constructed...

Just out! we challenge the long-standing tradition of defining Upper Paleolithic cultures primarily through stone tool artefacts. Instead, we turn to personal ornaments to explore cultural identities during the past shorturl.at/8mxKe @univbordeaux.bsky.social @cnrsecologie.bsky.social

I'm super proud to share this piece of work, led by @nrascovan.bsky.social, @avanzich.bsky.social and @marialopopolo.bsky.social. See details in Maria's post here:

Ancient DNA reveals a two-clanned matrilineal community in Neolithic China - Nature Analysis of ancient DNA, stable isotope data and archaeological evidence from the Fujia archaeological site in eastern China suggests it was populated by a matrilineal Neolithic community between 2750...

Ancient DNA reveals a two-clanned matrilineal community in Neolithic China www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Leprosy was an American scourge long before Europeans arrived Scientists find DNA from an enigmatic bacterium in 1000-year-old skeletons

Big news in #GlobalHealthHistory today. A species of bacterium that causes leprosy, discovered in 2008 in modern patients, has been proven to have been present in the Americas well before European arrival. More details in 🧵 below: www.science.org/content/arti... #GlobalMiddleAges #histmed #aDNA 🧪

Wonderful research by @marialopopolo.bsky.social @nrascovan.bsky.social and a fantastic team. Congrats!!!

Fig. 1. Contemporary and ancient sample sites in the Americas and synteny plot between genomes of leprosy-causing bacteria. (A) Pie charts indicate the site location or countries from where samples were collected for screening. Charts are color-coded according to the presence or absence of M. lepromatosis and if they are from present-day biopsies or ancient archaeological origin. (B) Illustration of mauve progressive alignments showing possible genome rearrangements and synteny blocks between four leprosy-causing bacterial genomes using pyGenomeViz (35). Species (and strains in parentheses) are indicated in bold on the left. Genome sizes are shown in megabases (Mb) below each genome. The Viridis color palette (Matplotlib) is used to represent genome position along the M. lepromatosis reference genome (NHDP-LPM-385), with a continuous gradient from start to end. Genomes that are fully syntenic with the reference, such as other M. lepromatosis strains, display an almost identical color order, reflecting preserved genomic structure. In contrast, the M. leprae TN genome shows a disrupted color sequence due to differences in genome organization relative to the coordinates of the M. lepromatosis reference. Gray lines connect collinear regions, while orange highlights indicate inverted blocks (on the minus strand) relative to the NHDP-LPM-385 reference.

A new Science study shows that the mycobacterium M. lepromatosis infected humans in the Americas before European contact.

The findings reshape current views of leprosy in the Americas and provide insights into the long-term interactions between humans and infectious diseases. scim.ag/3HuEjGB

Thousands buried in 17th century Italian crypt reveal lives of working poor Remains recovered from beneath a Milan hospital shed light on health, diet, and drug habits during the 1600s

Between 1637 and 1697, people who died at Milan's biggest hospital were dropped into underground vaults. Now their remains (including nearly 3 million bones & preserved brains) are helping archaeologists reconstruct the lives, diet and drug habits of people historians often overlook. @science.org

Ivory sculpture depicting an upright, humanoid figure with the head of a lion.

This is the Löwenmensch (lion person), a ~40,000-year-old mammoth ivory figurine from the cave of Hohlenstein-Stadel. The oldest-known depiction of a being that does not exist, it provides a rare glimpse into the supernatural during the Ice Age. 🏺

📷 Dagmer Hollmann / CC BY-SA 4.0

LIBERTAD - Downeate - Mismas Realidades YouTube video by Downeate

Happy #WorldDownSyndromeDay. It falls on 3/21, because people with Down syndrome have three copies of the twenty-first chromosome. This is the best Down syndrome PSA ever made and I want you to watch and share it. #WDSD2025

Really important, and useful thread. One thing it shows - scientific community needs to organise

Mobility in a medieval industrial city: an isotopic study of skeletal evidence from 13th -14th century Ypres (Belgium) - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences Mobility to and from cities represents an essential aspect of urban development in Flanders (Belgium) during the second half of the Middle Ages (AD 1000 – AD 1500). The city of Ypres was situated in o...

Ypres was one of 13th-century Europe’s economic powerhouses. Bart Lambert’s MOTC project drew on isotopic analyses of human skeletons to reconstruct mobility patterns of its inhabitants. Their new paper discusses evidence of regional, female and children’s mobility.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...