Metals are a major class of legacy pollutants that end up in marine ecosystems, posing a significant threat to marine biota, including sea anemones. The current review critically synthesises studies published over the last 50years on the uptake, tissue distribution, and biological effects of 20 metals across 18 sea anemone species in both field and laboratory settings, including interactions with climate change stressors (salinity and pH). Field studies have focused on bioaccumulation and report the high capacity of sea anemones to accumulate metals, mainly iron and barium, primarily in the pedal disk. Laboratory exposure studies reveal a dose- and time-dependent accumulation and highlight that symbionts take up and store essential metals (Cu, Fe, and Mn) due to their key biological roles. Available data point to Exaiptasia pallida as a promising model for metal ecotoxicology. Across studies, metals elicit alterations at molecular to behavioural/morphological levels, including transcriptome reprogramming, oxidative stress, and detoxification failures, as well as genotoxicity, cellular injury, immune dysfunction, metabolic and morphological disruption, reproductive impairment, and bleaching, which are generally amplified by climate change stressors. Ultimately, this review identifies key knowledge gaps and outlines future research directions on metal ecotoxicity in sea anemones. Collectively, these insights position sea anemones as informative sentinels of metal contamination in marine ecosystems.

While environment and biology play important roles, the complexity and variability of human life today depends in many ways on special cultural processes. Terminologies differ, but the key insight is that these processes are required to enable and to produce copies of behavior or artifacts that otherwise lie fully or partly beyond individual reach. Such “know-how copying” has proven rare in the animal kingdom, and is nearly or fully absent in contemporary apes, suggesting an evolution in hominins. It has been claimed that the earliest widely accepted instances of shaped stone artifacts – handaxes, which appear with the Acheulean (c. 1.9–1.6 Mya) – must have required know-how copying. The argument holds that the knowledge of how to shape (shaping know-how) handaxes is beyond individual reach in principle. If true, handaxes would be a valid marker for the presence of know-how copying. We tested this specific claim in two complementary studies using the “puppet method,” a new methodology that experimentally disentangles knapping know-how and shaping know-how. Knapping-naïve “puppeteers” were tasked with replicating target shapes by directing the flake removals of an expert “puppet” knapper, who was not shown the target shapes. As a validation of the puppet method, we first tested if knapping-naïve puppeteers could shape glass blanks into novel, non-archaeological shapes (Arbitrary Shape Study). Two types of analyses, a sorting task and geometric morphometric analyses, confirmed that they could. We then tested whether knapping-naïve puppeteers could replicate an Acheulean handaxe target shape in stone by directing the puppet knapper (Handaxe Study). Three expert lithic archaeologists independently classified the outcomes and confirmed that naïve participants successfully created handaxe shapes. Across both studies, our findings indicate that not all shaping know-how requires direct access to cultural models, and this also holds true for handaxe shaping per se . This conclusion aligns with recent calls for a reorientation in the search for the origins of know-how copying in the hominin lineage. • The novel puppet method disentangles knowledge of how to knap from how to shape stone. • This method can test whether knapping-naïve individuals can learn how to shape stone. • Naïve humans learned how to shape novel arbitrary shapes and handaxe shapes. • Handaxes per se cannot pinpoint a necessity for copying model's shaping know-how.

• Six robust solar cookers made of concrete were tested side by side. • Four were equipped with good-quality mirrors, while two had degraded mirrors. • An enhanced performance evaluation method was adopted. • Non linear curves for efficiency and performance data were determined. • Additional tests were conducted to assess the reproducibility of results. The Pucca solar cooker is a domestic funnel-type cooker, constructed of concrete and silvered glass mirrors. Its robust construction allows it to be kept outside permanently, in all weather conditions. However, its reflectors may gradually degrade over time, leading to diminished performance. To assess this issue, six Pucca cookers were tested side by side using a water load of 2 kg in each cooker. Two of the cookers had new mirrors, two had minimally degraded mirrors, and two had badly degraded mirrors. Non-linear efficiency curves were determined by a suitable enhanced evaluation method. Small differences were noted between the efficiency curves of the four cookers with the least degraded reflectors. By contrast, the points of maximum efficiency for the two cookers with badly degraded reflectors amounted to only about 70% of the value seen in the other cookers. The impact of this degradation on performance is illustrated by the figures predicted using the enhanced procedure, where the measured temperature data were fitted to a second-order polynomial with a time-dependent exponential term to derive nonlinear efficiency curves. The best performing cooker is expected to boil 2 kg of water in about three hours when the ambient temperature is 20 °C and the solar irradiance is 700 Wm −2 , and in only 1.4 h when the ambient temperature is 30 °C and solar irradiance is 1000 Wm −2 . The two cookers with badly degraded mirrors could not boil 2 kg of water at all under either of those conditions. The enhanced method is reliable.

The chicken embryo has long been a pivotal model system to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving amniote embryo development. Its easy access for in vivo experimentation, together with the development of ex ovo culture techniques, has made it a choice model system for elaborate experimental manipulations. Temporal progression of chick embryo development is classically categorized using the Hamburger and Hamilton staging system (Hamburger, V., & Hamilton, 1951). However, this offers limited temporal resolution when comparing embryos within the same developmental stage and may further be hindered by experimental conditions that directly impact the morphological structures used for stage identification. Here, we performed time-lapse imaging of early chick embryonic stages HH4 to HH10 and obtained quantitative elongation data of multiple embryonic portions, yielding two valuable and freely accessible data resources for the chick research community. We identified length measurements capable of describing developmental time, thus enabling the alignment of independent embryos with temporal resolution. Notably, the head-fold (C-HF) showed a strong time correlation, even though it elongates above the primary embryonic axis. A morphometric characterization of HH stages further showed that C-HF length can discriminate HH stages of development, albeit with limited resolution. Finally, we present ChEEQ: Chicken Embryo Elongation Quantification (https://colab.research.google.com/github/EmbryoClock/ChickElong/blob/main/ChEEQ/ChEEQ.ipynb), a new morphometric tool describing HH4-HH10 embryo elongation, that allows the comparison of user-input data with our reference dataset and is capable of inferring quantitative alterations to embryo developmental time using length measurements alone. Together, these resources open new avenues for investigating vertebrate embryo elongation and quantitatively assessing the effects of experimental interventions on development.