Enlarge / A red paint sample taken from a 1, 000-year-old mask excavated through a Sicán tomb in Peru contains human blood and bird egg proteins, in addition to a red cinnabar pigment. (credit: Adapted from E. Pires et al., JPR, 2021) Ever since a 1, 000-year-old gold mask was excavated from a tomb in […]
Enlarge / These might look like your standard leather-bound texts, but they are actually bound in human skin—a practice known as “anthropodermic bibliopegy.” All five are housed in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. (credit: Mütter Museum/College of Physicians of Philadelphia)) There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So […]
Enlarge / Ophelia (1852) by John Everett Millais, inspired by the character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who goes mad and drowns in a brook. It can be challenging for forensic scientists to determine how long a dead body has been submerged in water. There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our […]