Science Information

17/10/2023 11:01

AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time

Machine-learning technique reveals Greek words in CT scans of rolled-up papyrus.

17/07/2023 09:08

Oldest genetic data from a human relative found in 2-million-year-old teeth

Ancient protein sequences identify the sex of Paranthropus robustus fossils and hint at evolutionary relationships.

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31/03/2023 10:20

Scientists gain insights into Old Master artists’ use of egg in oil paintings

Researchers believe egg was used by likes of Botticelli and Da Vinci for fine-tuning of oil paint properties

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13/02/2023 15:57

Ancient stone tools suggest early humans dined on hippo

Fossils and artefacts unearthed in Kenya suggest our ancestors used stone stools to feed on large animals in the distant past.

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15/06/2022 10:03

Previously unknown crocodile species lived in Asia 39 million years ago

Researchers from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen have identified fossils of a previously unknown crocodile species in Vietnam. The nearly four-meter-long, almost completely preserved skeleton from the Na Duong site is part of the group of long-snouted crocodiles from the gharial family. The fossil, which is between 35 and 39 million years old, provides new information about the spread of these crocodiles from their origins in North Africa and Western Europe to Southeast Asia. The study has been published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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29/11/2021 21:28

Muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy study of Roman coins reveals thriving empires

A study of gold coins from different moments of the Roman Empire has revealed the thriving economy at the time of minting.

1710

07/10/2021 11:46

Ink analysis reveals Marie Antoinette’s letters’ hidden words and who censored them

The analysis reveals whether the doomed French queen spilled state secrets or bon mots

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04/10/2021 12:47

'Connection with the past': AI to find and preserve Europe's historical smells

There's no sense quite like smell to trigger an emotional response. One whiff of a damp basement, a dusty blanket, a ripe strawberry, or a steaming bowl of pasta can instantly evoke feelings and memories that have their roots in the distant past. Yet when it comes to learning about bygone times, we barely give a thought to the vapors that once prevailed—galleries and museums are the domain of artworks that appeal to our sense of sight, rarely reminding us of how things smelled—fragrant or foul—when our forebears walked the earth.

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24/09/2021 15:04

Radiocarbon-dating an early minting site: the emergence of standardised coinage in China

Abstract:
The origins of metal coinage and the monetisation of ancient economies have long been a research focus in both archaeology and economic history. Recent excavations of an Eastern Zhou period (c. 770–220 BC) bronze foundry at Guanzhuang in Henan Province, China, have yielded clay moulds for casting spade coins. The technical characteristics of the moulds demonstrate that the site functioned as a mint for producing standardised coins. Systematic AMS radiocarbon-dating indicates that well-organised minting developed c. 640–550 BC, making Guanzhuang the world's oldest-known, securely dated minting site. This discovery provides important new data for exploring the origin of monetisation in ancient China.

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23/07/2021 15:04

Museums are in a race against time to keep plastic art from falling apart

Leanne Tonkin still remembers the ruined coats. She was doing a fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in the mid-2010s when she saw a red mackintosh from the 1960s. The raincoat was so rigid it could stand up on its own, as though inhabited by a ghost. Another mackintosh was hardly recognizable as clothing. “You could make out a button on it, but it was completely melted,” she says.

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Bảo tàng lịch sử Quốc gia

Vietnam National Museum of History