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Faithful reader Becca H sent along a note today asking whether there had been any additional information about Paisley Caves since the original publication of the results in April 2008. Paisley Caves, you might recall, is the name of a set of rockshelters in Oregon at which were discovered human coprolites—fossilized feces—that contained mtDNA haplotypes which are associated with the founder population of Native Americans. Further, the organic material within the coprolites produced radiocarbon dates of 12,300 RCYBP, making Paisley Caves a strong candidate for a Preclovis site. Here is an update of what's been happening. In July 2009, several letters debating the identification of mtDNA from a coprolite at Paisley caves were published in Science. All of the letters are (currently at least) open access and can be read online for free here, but in case the OA aspect goes away, here's a brief summary and links to each separate letter. Human coprolite from Paisley Cave 5 r

(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) In early 2008, there was a frightening failure in drug safety processes. In just a few weeks, more than 100 Americans had died after being administered contaminated doses of the common blood thinner heparin. The contaminant, present in heparin manufactured in China and discovered with the help of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was so structurally similar to pure heparin that is was undetectable to all but the most sophisticated detection techniques.