Background: Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease with a risk factor of being female, particularly after the onset of menopause. Objectives: To evaluate the influence of age, anthropometric, and reproductive variables on spinal bone mineral density (BMD) in women with postmenopausal vertebral osteoporosis. Methods: The study was retrospective and included data from 171 patients with postmenopausal vertebral osteoporosis. We performed both simple and multiple regressions considering BMD in spine as the dependent variable. Coefficients of correlation (r), coefficients of determination (r

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During a rescue excavation campaign in 2017, human osteological remains were discovered in the Timișoara -Freidorf archeological site, which based on funeral inventory were attributed to Sarmatian and Gepidic cultures. The main purpose of this paper is to perform an anthropological analysis of the 5 Sarmatian subjects discovered within this archaeological research. Specific morphological aspects were used to determine height, sex, age at death, non-metric traits, musculoskeletal markers or pathologies. It was determined that the subjects are 2 subadults and 3 adults at time of death: 1 male, 2 females and 2 with the sex undetermined due the immature age. Morphologic traits observed on these skeletons such as the septal aperture, Allen's fossa, hyperdorsiflexion facets, Schmorl's nodes, Allen's fossa and Charles' facet, may give a clue of the lifestyle and the intensity of physical activities from the Migration Period.

The common toad (Bufo bufo) is a widespread species in Europe, with accidental occurrence in caves. This study reports the first case of breeding of B. bufo in a natural cave in the Carpathian Mountains. The breeding activity was observed at the end of May and the beginning of June. We identified pairs of common toads in axillary amplexus, egg strings and tadpoles up to a distance of 97 m inside the cave. We hypothesized that there is an active selection of some cave sites as breeding habitat and that the egg deposition is not randomly distributed inside the cave. In 25 sample points, we recorded ten cave environmental features and we assessed the relationship between egg strings presence and environmental features by performing a bias reduction in binomial-response generalized linear model. The results revealed that the strongest ecological factor determining the selection of breeding areas inside the cave was water flow velocity. The presence of light, although an important environmental feature, was not the most determining factor in breeding site selection, as toads successfully entered in completely dark environments to lay eggs in hydrologically favourable places. This study provides new information about the cave breeding of Bufo bufo and highlights the environmental features determining the common toad’s breeding site selection.