Scroll charred by eruption of Vesuvius finally reveals secrets
The scroll was found in the remains of one of the most opulent villas in the Roman town of Herculaneum, about 12 miles from Pompeii. When Vesuvius erupted, the building was buried under layers of volcanic ash and mud. The papyrus, along with hundreds of others, was 'carbonised'.
Heated to extreme temperatures in the absence of oxygen, it came to resemble a badly burnt sausage, black and too brittle ever to be unrolled.
The title of the carbonised scroll, with transcribed letters overlaid, was deciphered by two graduate students at the University of Wurzburg
VESUVIUS CHALLENGE
Yet researchers have now been able to use powerful x-ray imaging and artificial intelligence to peer at some of its innermost layers. Without having to unfurl
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Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Archaeologists in Peru unveil 3,500-year-old city that linked coast and Andes
LIMA, July 3 (Reuters) - Archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a 3,500-year-old city in Peru that likely served as a trading hub linking Pacific coast cultures with those in the Andes and Amazon, flourishing around the same time as early civilizations in the Middle East and Asia. Drone footage released by researchers shows the city center is marked by a circular structure on a hillside terrace, with remains of stone and mud buildings constructed some 600 meters (1,970 feet) above sea level. The urban center, named Peñico, is located in the northern Barranca province and was founded between 1,800 and 1,500 BC. It is close to where the Caral civilization, the oldest in the Americas, developed 5,000 years ago. Caral, comprised of 32 monumental structures, is considered a contemporary of civilizations in Egypt, India, Sumeria and China. However, unlike them, it developed in complete isolation, according to researchers. Ruth Shady, the archaeologist who led the research into Peñico, said the newly unveiled city is key because experts believe it emerged after the Caral civilization was devastated by climate change. "They were situated in a strategic location for trade, for exchange with societies from the coast, the highlands and the jungle," Shady said. Archaeologist Marco Machacuay, a researcher with the Ministry of Culture, said at a news conference that Peñico's importance lies in it being the continuation of the Caral society. After eight years of studies, researchers have identified up to 18 structures in Penico, including ceremonial temples and residential complexes. The walls of a central plaza stand out for their sculptural reliefs and depictions of the pututu, a conch shell trumpet whose sound carries over long distances. In other buildings, researchers found clay sculptures of human and animal figures, ceremonial objects and necklaces made from beads and seashells, they added. Peru is a center of ancient cultures and home to archaeological sites such as the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Cusco and the mysterious Nazca lines located in the desert region along the country's central coast.
Medical News Today
3 hours ago
- Medical News Today
Could a single brain scan predict the risk of age-related conditions like dementia?
People age at different rates, partly due to genetics but largely because of lifestyle.A person's rate of aging can indicate how likely they are to develop age-related disorders, such as researchers have developed a method based on a single brain scan in middle age that could predict how fast a person is likely to suggest that their method, which can predict the aging rate of both brain and body, may detect who should implement lifestyle changes to reduce their risk of age-related people appear to age more slowly than others. This is partly due to genetics, which studies suggest accounts for around 25% of the variation in longevity but is largely due to lifestyle and the in lifestyle, such as following a healthy diet, exercising regularly, getting adequate sleep, not smoking, and not drinking alcohol to excess, can help slow a person's rate of aging and delay or prevent age-related disorders.A person's rate of aging is often referred to as their biological age — how old their cells are — which can vary greatly from their chronological age, or the number of years since their birth. Measuring this can be a group of researchers from Duke, Harvard, and the University of Otago, New Zealand, have developed a method of predicting how fast a person will age, based on a single brain scan performed around the age of 45. In their study, which is published in Nature Aging, the researchers suggest that the Dunedin Pace of Aging Calculated from NeuroImaging (DunedinPACNI) could help researchers determine how aging affects health, and help them evaluate the effectiveness of anti-aging strategies.'The study developed and validated a new MRI-based biomarker called DunedinPACNI which shows not only a score for brain age, i.e. how old the brain looks, but also shows connections to cognitive decline and other health measures, allowing to perhaps predict how quickly a person ages and how their health will evolve later in life,' Madalina Tivarus, PhD, associate professor of Imaging Sciences and Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, not involved in the study, told Medical News scan can predict biological aging'The idea of using a routine MRI brain scan to do a 'aging check-up' is very interesting and exciting,' Tivarus told study builds on the Dunedin Study, previous research conducted in the same cohort of participants. This study, which followed a group of 1,037 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972–'73, looked at age-related changes in gene methylation to create an epigenetic the Dunedin Study, researchers regularly tested participants' blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), glucose (blood sugar) and cholesterol levels, lung and kidney function, and even gum recession and tooth almost 20 years, they used the overall pattern of change across these health markers to generate a score for how fast each person was the latest study, researchers used a single MRI scan of the brain performed when participants were aged 45, which they correlated with the Dunedin Study aging data. They then developed their DunedinPACNI to estimate rate of aging using only information from the MRI evaluate the Dunedin PACNI as a tool for predicting age-related health outcomes, they analyzed it against datasets from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), UK Biobank, and Latin American Brain Health found that their prediction accuracy was in line with more established epigenetic with faster DunedinPACNI scores had several indicators of more rapid aging, including:worse balance, slower gait, weaker lower and upper body strength, and poorer coordinationself-reported worse health and more physical limitations poorer performance on cognitive function tests greater childhood-to-adulthood cognitive declineolder physical MacSweeney, MD, CEO and consultant Neuroradiologist at Re:Cognition Health, who was not involved in this research, highlighted how important brain imaging could be, telling MNT that:'The researchers observed that individuals with higher DunedinPACNI scores, indicating faster brain aging, were also more likely to experience health deterioration in other organ systems, such as cardiovascular and respiratory health. The fact that brain imaging can reflect systemic aging suggests the brain may serve as a biomarker for overall biological age, offering a non-invasive, accessible measure of aging processes throughout the body.'Novel brain scan better predictive tool than existing MRI measuresTivarus enthused that:'This study is exciting because it shows that MRI scans might be used not just to detect disease, but also to track how the brain is aging long before problems begin. However, it's still early days. While promising, DunedinPACNI still needs to be tested more widely in larger and more diverse populations across different ages, ethnicities, and health backgrounds. It did perform well across multiple large datasets, but more global validation is needed.'The researchers compared the DunedinPACNI with measures of hippocampal and ventricular volume, which are commonly used MRI-based measures of brain aging, using UK Biobank and ADNI found that faster DunedinPACNI was more consistently and strongly associated with poor cognition, poor health, frailty, and risk of dementia, disease and mortality than either of these was impressed by the study structure.'The study methodology has some important strengths such as it is using a robust, decades-long longitudinal dataset, uses sound statistical methods, and has been validated extensively using imaging data from other large studies,' she she also pointed out that there were 'some limitations, such as the specific population data used to train the model (mostly European ancestry, from a specific geographical location), its performance in younger or pediatric populations is untested, [and] it infers dynamic processes from one static image (one MRI snapshot).' 'While I don't think it is ready for clinical use, DunedinPACNI appears to be a promising imaging biomarker of biological aging,' Tivarus told us.'The tool empowers people to take proactive steps'As people are living longer, but not necessarily healthier, lives, the ability to predict who is more likely to develop dementia or other age-related illness is becoming increasingly important. The researchers hope that their tool might eventually help clinicians do that well before symptoms, allowing interventions to reduce the risk of conditions developing.'Identifying accelerated aging in midlife provides a critical window of opportunity for intervention. Knowing one's biological age, as distinct from chronological age, could motivate individuals to adopt healthier habits, such as improved diet, increased physical activity or better sleep. By highlighting risk decades in advance, the tool empowers people to take proactive steps that may slow or even reverse aspects of biological aging.' – Emer MacSweeney, MD
BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
Record breaking season for Utrecht's fish doorbell
Organisers behind the world's first fish doorbell say it's been a record breaking underwater camera was first set up five years ago to help the different fish species that swim in the canals of the Dutch city of Utrecht. Internet users who spot any fish waiting at the lock gate can ring a 'digital doorbell' to help the marine life carry on their year it was rung more than 200,000 times and thirteen different species of fish were popular site is now taking a break until March 2026. What's the latest? The fish doorbell season has been underway for the past 14 weeks, helping a number of aquatic species swim through the canals. Researchers say that the best time to see the fish is either in the morning or at dusk - when they are at their most year there were a record 30 million visits to the site from around the world, with thousands of fish safely helped through the waterway. Experts say that pike, catfish and lots of eels were among them most common types of fish spotted this year - but other species including carp, zander, bleak and river lamprey were also caught on camera! Why do fish need a doorbell? Every spring, fish swim upstream around the Dutch city of Utrecht looking for a place to lay the Netherlands is a country with lots of canals and waterways and, in spring, the lock gates along these canals aren't opened much, which can make it difficult for fish to travel to their breeding why four years ago experts came up with a plan to help the aquatic animals - a digital fish doorbell!An underwater camera was installed at the lock which is live-streamed to a website which people can watch anytime of soon as they spot a fish, viewers can press a digital doorbell on the website to let the lockkeepers know when to open the gates and let the fish through - helping the fish to continue on their route!The keeper checks if there are enough fish there to open the gates and the fish can swim on their merry way.
