🇬🇧 💀 **How the racist study of skulls gripped Victorian Britain’s scientists**
"_In research for my forthcoming book on skull collections, I’ve found that Cambridge’s cranial register includes a skull sent from a former student stationed in India. He had plucked it from a cremation site in Bombay despite the outrage of gathered mourners. Brazen grave-robbing and colonial violence were central to the international network that furnished British universities’ skull rooms._"
#History #Histodons #Science #HistSci #Phrenology #Universities #ScientificRacism #Racism #Medicine #UK #UnitedKingdom @histodons @science
🇺🇸 📚 **The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey**
"_We found marked declines in the proportion of individuals reading for pleasure daily in the US, with decreases of 3% per year (prevalence ratio = 0.97, 95% confidence interval = 0.97, 0.98, p < 0.001)._"
Bone et al., The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey, iScience (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Science #Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Academia @science @bookstodon
**What's the "Geometry" of Colours?**
#Video length: nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds.
🏴 **West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset**
"_Focusing primarily on a sub-adult female from Updown in Kent, the authors explore the societal and cultural contexts in which these individuals lived and died, and the widening geographic links indicated by their presence, pointing back to the Byzantine reconquest of North Africa in AD 533–534._"
Sayer, D. et al. (2025) ‘West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset’, Antiquity, pp. 1–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10139.
#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #DOI #Science #Genetics #Archaeology #Archaeodons #Archaeogenetics #DNA #Africa #Kent #Dorset #UK #UnitedKingdom #Britain #AngloSaxon #England #Medieval #Medievodons #Migration #Academia @archaeodons @medievodons
💧 **What Does It Mean To Be Thirsty?**
"_The effects of insufficient water are felt by every cell in the body, but it’s the brain that manifests our experience of thirst._"
🔗 https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-thirsty-20250811/.
"_The results indicate a dominant contribution of western European silver, pointing to the fate of loot seized by the Vikings during their raids on the Continent in the ninth century. Nonetheless, Islamic silver is also present in several large ingots: silver from the east—the product of long-distance trade networks connecting Scandinavia with the Islamic Caliphate—permeated Viking wealth sources even in the western part of the Viking overseas settlement and should be seen as a significant driver of the Viking phenomenon._"
Kershaw, J., S. Merkel, A. Woods, J. Evans, V. Pashley, and S. Chenery. 2025. “ The Provenance of Silver in the Viking-Age Hoard From Bedale, North Yorkshire.” Archaeometry 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.70031.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Science #Archaeology #Arcaheodons #History #Vikings #Academia #Academics @science @archaeodons
🧬
"_Our results reveal a persisting local gene pool that, during the Middle-Late BA, absorbed additional ancestry from Anatolia and the neighboring Eurasian Steppe. In subsequent periods, we document population growth and increasing genetic diversity, supported by a high rate of individual ancestry outliers, particularly in urban centers of eastern Georgia._"
Skourtanioti et al., The genetic history of the Southern Caucasus from the Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages: 5,000 years of genetic continuity despite high mobility, Cell (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.07.013.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Science #Genetics #Ancient #DNA #Genomics #Archaeogenetics #History #Migration #Caucasus #BronzeAge #MiddleAges #Academia #Academics @science
**Syphilis: Did Christopher Columbus bring the STD to Europe?**
"_The sexually transmitted disease originated in the Americas 8,000 years ago. But there's evidence that 15th-century colonialists spread Syphilis worldwide._"
🔗 https://www.dw.com/en/syphilis-did-christopher-columbus-bring-the-std-to-europe/a-71096335.
#History #Histodons #Science #Syphilis #STD #ChristopherColumbus @histodons @science
**A Symbol of Immortality: Evidence of Honey in Bronze Jars Found in a Paestum Shrine Dating to 530–510 BCE**
"_Our multianalytical approach detected lipids, saccharide decomposition products, hexose sugars, and major royal jelly proteins supporting the hypothesis that the jars once also contained honey/honeycombs._"
Luciana da Costa Carvalho, Elisabete Pires, Kelly Domoney, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, and James S. O. McCullagh Journal of the American Chemical Society Article ASAP DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c04888
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Science #Chemistry #Honey #Academia @science
🎙️ **Summer picks: Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back?**
**Lying increases trust in science**
Hyde, B.V. Lying increases trust in science. Theor Soc (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-025-09635-1.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Ethics #Science #Experts #Trust #Misinformation #Lying #Society #Academia @science
🧬 **Genetic history of Scythia**
"_Using high-quality genomic data generated from 131 ancient individuals from Great Scythia and neighboring regions of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, we established the genetic structure of the Scythians, revealing their diverse origin with major European Bronze Age ancestral components, and genetic traces of migration and invasions._"
Tatiana V. Andreeva et al., Genetic history of Scythia. Sci. Adv.11, eads8179 (2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads8179.
#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Science #History #Genetics #DNA #Scythians #BronzeAge #IronAge #Academia #Academics @science
🇫🇮 **Archaeogenetics reveals fine-scale genetic continuity and patterns of kinship and health in medieval Finland**
"_Using ancient genomic data, contemporary Finnish Biobank data, and identity-by-descent (IBD) analyses, we identified strong regional continuity between the medieval and modern Finnish populations, and evidence for mobility within Finland and between Finland and Scandinavia._"
Nordfors, U., Peltola, S., O’Sullivan, R.J., Valtueña, A.A., Lamnidis, T.C., Majander, K., Traverso, L., Krause, J., Salmela, E., Onkamo, P., Archaeogenetics reveals fine-scale genetic continuity and patterns of kinship and health in medieval Finland, iScience (2025), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113086.
#Ancient #DNA #Bioarchaeology #Archaeology #Archaeodons #Genetics #Science #Medieval #Finland #Scandinavia @science @archaeodons@a.gup.pe
📖 **Galileo’s Lost Star: Rare Book Breaks $1.5M at Auction**
"_Galileo’s rare first book on the 1604 supernova sold for $1.5 million at Christie’s, a stellar result for the scientist who changed how we see the heavens._"
🔗 https://www.antiquetrader.com/galileos-lost-star-rare-book-breaks-1-5m-at-auction.
#History #Science #HistSci #Book #Bookstodon @science@a.gup.pe @bookstodon
**The Ancient Machine That Measured Time With Water**
"_In the 3rd century BCE, in the city of Alexandria, a brilliant Greek inventor named Ctesibius created a water-powered timekeeping device, so precise it remained unmatched for the next 1,800 years, until the invention of the pendulum clock in 1656._"
#Video length: ten minutes and seventeen seconds.
**Further insights into maternal and paternal human histories in southern Iberia**
"_Genetic ancestry among Andalusians seems to be constituted by three foremost continental origins: European, African and Middle Eastern. The examined male group has revealed a noticeable proportion of individuals (over 45%) with a non-correspondence between maternal and paternal haplogroup origins, a signal of different population demographic histories linked to both sexes in the past._"
González-Barrio, M. et al. (2025) ‘Further insights into maternal and paternal human histories in southern Iberia’, Evolutionary Human Sciences, pp. 1–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2025.10006.
#OpenAccess #OA #DOI #Science #Genetics #Genome #Haplogroups #Ancestry #Iberia #Academia #Academics
🔬 **This 300-page mirror life report has scientists terrified**
#Video length: twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds.
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