Two recent issues of “Physics Today”, a physics journal published by the American Institute of Physics, highlights the work of three local scientists, Drs. Daniel Altschuler, Sixto González and Víctor Blanco.

The text is available in Spanish.

Archaeological starch grains consistent with those produced and stored in modern cojoba (Anadenanthera peregrina) seeds were identified, for the first time in the West Indies, in a coral milling base recovered in a small precolonial habitation site of Eastern Puerto Rico, in a context dated to A.D. 115–1250. Ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and previous archaeological data on cojoba from the West Indies and South America were surveyed in order to form plausible sociocultural interpretations of the findings.

The scaly-naped pigeon (Patagioenas squamosa) is threatened by hunting in the Caribbean. At present, the pigeon is abundant in Puerto Rico, but overharvesting is a major concern; therefore, the development of a sustainable harvest strategy is a management priority. The management objective of the harvest strategy is to maximize hunting opportunity while keeping the population above an abundance threshold (NT) of 260,000 pigeons.