Humans

The physics in this meandering but engrossing novel adds flavour rather than substance, with the focus more on mental health

Humans

1 June 2022

By Anna Demming

The Red Arrow takes place on a train – with the odd metaphysical detourSephirot17/Getty Images
The Red Arrow
William Brewer
John Murray

DAYDREAMERS often love train journeys. When it comes to navigating a maze of fancy and reflection while hurtling at high speed from A to B, few do it with such deft eloquence as William Brewer’s introspective protagonist in The Red Arrow.
The novel is named after the train Frecciarossa, on which the protagonist is travelling for the whole course of the novel, although most of the time his mind is … More

Many ancient Romans died when the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by hot volcanic ash, but the high temperatures didn’t destroy proteins in their skeletons

Humans

27 May 2022

By Colin Barras
The Archaeological Park of Herculaneum in Pompei, ItalyIvan Romano/Getty Images
Baked human bones recovered from an ancient volcanic disaster still contain traces of their original proteins. The discovery could point the way to new forensic tools for analysing bodies recovered after fires or similar incidents.
In AD 79, the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum in what is now Italy were entombed in hot ash when Mount Vesuvius, a nearby volcano, erupted.
The ash is thought to have been particularly hot at Herculaneum. Estimates suggest it baked the town at temperatures of 500°C and killed some residents instantly, before vaporising their flesh in a matter of tens of minutes. The ash at Pompeii is thought to have been cooler, at around 250°C.Advertisement
Pier Paolo Petrone at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and his colleagues extracted small samples of bone from seven human skeletons recovered from Pompeii and five recovered from Herculaneum. They found that they could isolate traces of ancient protein from all of the samples.
“This is the first work aimed at the detection of [proteins] in people exposed to high temperatures,” says Petrone.

Surprisingly, he says, bones from Herculaneum contained a greater diversity of proteins than those from Pompeii, even though they endured higher temperatures.
This may be because the bones at the two sites have experienced a different fate since the disaster. The volcanic ash at Herculaneum is thought to have remained waterlogged for most of the last 2000 years, which might have limited the breakdown of proteins in the bones by microbes. Fluctuations in the local water table mean the ash at Pompeii periodically dried out, says Petrone, probably allowing for more microbial-driven decomposition.
The fact that proteins in human bone can survive high temperatures could inspire further investigation, the researchers say. For instance, it may lead to research exploring which of the 1000 or so proteins generally found in human bone degrade at particular temperatures.
This could allow forensic scientists to establish the typical “proteome” of bone exposed to various temperatures, says Petrone. Forensic investigators could use such a dataset to estimate the temperature of a fire based on the recovered human remains.
For now, though, Petrone says the work shows there are still new discoveries to be made among the “priceless heritage of archaeological treasures” at Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-12042-6
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The ancient town of Pompeii was buried under hot volcanic ash in AD 79, but DNA still survives in the bones of the people who died in the disaster

Humans

26 May 2022

By Colin Barras
The two individuals found in the Casa del Fabbro in PompeiiNotizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1934, p. 286, fig. 10
The hot volcanic ash that buried the ancient Roman town of Pompeii killed many of the town’s inhabitants – but it didn’t destroy their DNA. The first complete genome from Pompeii reveals genetic markers that haven’t been seen before in ancient Roman DNA.
Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy is the only active volcano in mainland Europe. It erupted to devastating effect in AD 79, burying several Roman settlements including Herculaneum to the west of Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii to the southeast.
The volcanic ash that covered Pompeii is estimated to have been at least 250°C – hot enough to kill people instantly and, presumably, cause significant damage to their internal tissues and DNA.Advertisement
“There was the expectation that the high temperatures would make our effort in DNA sequencing in Pompeii fruitless,” says Gabriele Scorrano at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. “Cremated bodies, for example, show no sign of DNA preservation according to multiple studies.”
But Scorrano and his colleagues decided to look for ancient DNA anyway. They focused on the skeletal remains of two people discovered in a building called the Casa del Fabbro, which translates to House of the Craftsman. The pair – a man in his 30s and a woman who was at least 50 years old – seem to have been lying on a low couch in what may have been a dining room at the moment they died.

The researchers managed to obtain genetic material from both skeletons, although only the man’s bones yielded enough DNA to piece together a full genome. Scorrano and his colleagues then compared the man’s genome with those from 1030 ancient people who lived during the last 5000 years or so and 471 present-day people from western Eurasia. This revealed the man from Pompeii had DNA comparable to that recovered from the skeletons of people who lived in Italy at the height of the Roman Empire.
There were also differences. In particular, groups of genes on the man’s Y chromosome and in his mitochondrial DNA were unlike those seen in earlier studies of ancient Romans but similar to sequences carried by some people living today on the Italian island of Sardinia.
“Undoubtedly, there is still a lot to study about genetics of the past peoples in the Italian peninsula,” says Scorrano.
It is only because of improvements in analytical techniques that we can now extract DNA from the skeletons preserved at Pompeii, says Pier Paolo Petrone at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. He says the work shows there are “always new discoveries” to be made even at such world-famous sites.
There were also hints of bacterial DNA in the bone sample collected from the ancient man. These are consistent with existing evidence from the state of his skeleton that he had spinal tuberculosis.
“This pathology causes severe pain, such as lumbago and sciatica,” says Scorrano. This might explain why the man didn’t flee when the eruption began, as many Pompeiians did. Instead, he remained in the town – which proved to be a fateful choice.
Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10899-1
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Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Humans

25 May 2022

Josie Ford
Emissions cuts
Feedback’s recent item on the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s journal pondering the metaphysics of farting – “Is it a thing or an action?” being the chief question – has drawn short shrift from reader Guy Cox. He believes the author should have used that essential method of philosophical inquiry known as “looking it up in a dictionary”. Cox also points out that the subject has previously been expounded on by no less a personage than US writer, inventor and all-round genius Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin wrote an entire essay urging his fellow natural philosophers to investigate whether they could develop food … More

Who were the Anglo-Saxons? Biological anthropologist Alice Roberts’s informed, sophisticated new take digs deep to re-examine their true origins

Humans

25 May 2022

By Michael Marshall

FEW groups of people exert more power on English imagination than the Anglo-Saxons. They first appear in the historical record in the 1st millennium AD, in the wake of the Roman Empire’s retreat from Britain, and historians have seen them as playing a central role in the emergence of medieval English society. But were they a group who invaded Britain … More

Ornette Made In America, USA, 1985. Courtesy of Barbican Centre.
Visit
Journeys across Afro-futurism traces Black futures through the medium of film, featuring Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Nyokabi Gethaiga and others. At the Barbican Centre, London, from 2 to 30 June.

Read
Beyond Measure documents humanity’s attempts to claw dependable truths from a chaotic universe. James Vincent’s gripping story of how and why we measure just about everything, from radiation to happiness, is published on 2 June.
Michael Desmond/Hulu
Watch
The Orville begins its third season. Starring Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson and Seth MacFarlane as Captain Ed Mercer, they’re out to find strange … More

Finding out how acidic or alkaline your soil is means you can select the right plants for it, and maximise their chance of thriving, says Clare Wilson

Humans

25 May 2022

By Clare Wilson
mblickwinkel / Alamy Stock Photo
HAVE you ever wondered why some plants in your garden thrive, while others barely grow no matter how tenderly they are nurtured? It may not come down to your green fingers, but to whether you have chosen the right plant for that spot.
Most people know they need to consider their local climate and how much sunshine any particular site gets. But you should also choose the right plant for your soil type, which depends on your area’s geology and history. You can find maps of soil type online, but gardens can differ at a local level.
A first step … More

This documentary tracks the quest for the oldest human footprints in North America, and what they can tell us about when people first arrived on the continent

Humans

23 May 2022

By Carissa Wong
Ancient footprints in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park.GBH/NOVA/WGBH
Ice Age Footprints
Directed by Bella Falk and David Dugan
On PBS on 25 May at 9PM EST, then streaming at pbs.org/nova
IN January 2020, in a secret location within White Sands Park, New Mexico, geologists Kathleen Springer and Jeffrey Pigati began to dig out a trench in search of ancient human footprints. They hoped to shed light on two long-standing questions about the history of humans in North America: how long ago did people first arrive, and did humans … More