The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. A multidisciplinary international team demonstrated through botanical examination, phytochemical investigation, and genetic deoxyribonucleic acid analysis by polymerase chain reaction that this material contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, its oxidative degradation product, cannabinol, other metabolites, and its synthetic enzyme, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, as well as a novel genetic variant with two single nucleotide polymorphisms. The cannabis was presumably employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent, and contribute to the medical and archaeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.

RNA detection has become an integral part of current biomedical research. Up to now, the reverse transcription-PCR has been the most practical method to detect mRNA targets. However, RNA detection by reverse transcription-PCR requires sophisticated equipment and it is highly sensitive to contamination with genomic DNA. Here we report a new isothermal reaction to simultaneously amplify and detect RNA, based on cleavage by DNAzyme and signal amplification. Cleavage-based signal amplification of RNA cannot be contaminated by genomic DNA and is suitable for the detection of both mRNA and microRNA targets, with high specificity and sensitivity. Moreover, the detection results can be reported in a colorimetric or real-time fluorometric way for different detection purposes.

Five new 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromone derivatives, qinanones A-E (1-5), together with eight known 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromone derivatives (6-13), were isolated from the Et2O extract of high-quality Chinese agarwood "Qi-Nan" originating from Aquilaria sinensis. The structures of the new 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones were elucidated by spectroscopic techniques (UV, IR, 1D and 2D NMR) and MS analyses. In the bioassay for acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, compounds 1-6, 10, and 12 exhibited weak inhibitory activities (inhibition percentage ranged from 10 % to 24 % at the concentration of 50 µg/mL). Compared with other agarwoods, "Qi-Nan" was different in containing 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones with unsubstituted chromone rings.