Scientists are proving you can judge a “book” without ever cracking open the cover.

And by book, we mean a 2,000-year-old scroll buried after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

Over 260 years ago, archaeologists discovered hundreds of ancient scrolls left behind in an ancient library in Herculaneum, which was covered in volcanic material after the infamous eruption in 79 A.D. Unfortunately, these charred scrolls are next to impossible to open without destroying them, leaving their contents largely a mystery. But a new imaging technique allows researchers to see what’s written inside, without ever opening the delicate artifacts.

In the 18^th Century, Charles the Bourbon King of Naples sent an archeological team to Pompeii and Herculaneum to dig up artifacts after scattered discoveries by well diggers and treasure hunters. In 1752, this team discovered their first scrolls, and by 1754 they had discovered an entire library filled with scrolls inside an ancient villa.

Finding the scrolls was well and good, but, of course, people wanted to know what was written. Over the centuries, various techniques were devised to unroll the scrolls, but they usually ended up destroying the brittle papyrus. So, archaeologists gave up on opening the texts to spare the culturally important artifacts. That is, until now.

For years, researchers have used X-ray technology to get a deeper look at anything from molecules to ancient tombs. Basically, you blast an object with X-rays, and different elements in the object reflect those X-ray beams back at different patterns. However, the Herculaneum scrolls presented a unique challenge: The scrolls were scorched and sealed, and the text was written with black, carbon-based ink. The current X-ray techniques weren’t enough detect the pattern variations between the ink and the papyrus, so researchers tried something new.

Their new approach, called X-ray phase-contrast tomography (XPCT), builds a higher-definition image by detecting the slight relief between the letters and the papyrus. The letters rise just one hundred microns above the papyrus, but that’s enough to build a clearer picture than any other technique.

We’re sorry, but it’s still going to be a while before the scrolls are completely interpreted. However, researchers’ new technique is an encouraging start. Using XPCT, researchers examined two scrolls and could clearly see letters that formed short phrases such as “would fall” or “to deny,” but not much more.

The scrolls’ small sizes and numerous folds make it difficult to focus on every letter or gauge the letter’s orientation. But what’s important is that researchers proved that you could peek inside these ancient scrolls without destroying them. They published their findings this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers have their work cut out for them if they want to get a complete read on the rest of the scrolls, but at least they have the right tool to do it.

  

Source : discovermagazine.com

A NASA spacecraft en-route to the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter returned its sharpest images yet of its target, the dwarf planet Ceres.

The Dawn spacecraft, which previously spent 14 months exploring Vesta, a protoplanet and second-largest body in the main asteroid belt, is due to put itself into orbit around Ceres on March 6.

VIDEO: Ceres May Be A Dwarf Planet, But It’s Still Amazing

On Tuesday, with less than 150 million miles to go, NASA released new images of Ceres taken by Dawn, which now has a sharper view of its target than the Hubble Space Telescope.

The pictures, taken on Sunday, show several dark areas in Ceres’ southern hemisphere that may be craters, said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator for the mission.

“Ceres is showing us tantalizing features that are whetting our appetite for the detailed exploration to come,” Raymond said in a NASA press release accompanying the images.

NEWS: Tantalizing Detail Seen on Mysterious Dwarf Planet

With a diameter of about 590 miles, Ceres is the largest body in the main asteroid belt. Scientists suspect it had an underground ocean at some point in its past and may still have liquid water beneath its icy surface.

Analysis of early images also suggest Ceres might have at least one large extended structure.

“If it is tectonic, it should provide insight into the interior processes of this small planet,” Mark Sykes, with the Planetary Science Institute and a mission co-investigator, said in a statement.

Discovered in 1801, Ceres was once known as a planet, then reclassified as an asteroid. It was recast as a dwarf planet, like Pluto, in 2006.

source : news.discovery.com

Gemstones are a reflection of a person’s status in life. The more rare that it gets, the more desirable it becomes. That is why those seemingly innocuous stones and minerals can actually command millions of dollars. On the dark side, it can also be a cause for exploitation and even war.

Painite

In 2005, The Guinness Book of World Records called painite the world's rarest gemstone mineral. First discovered in Myanmar by British mineralogist Arthur C. D. Pain in the 1950s, for decades there were only two known crystals of the hexagonal mineral on Earth; by 2005, there were still fewer than 25 known specimens.
Colors may vary from brown to red and pink. It is also pleochroic, meaning it can emit different hues depending on the angle you are coming from. When placed under short wave ultraviolet light, this rare stone will emit and fluoresce a strong green color.

Black Opal

Black Opal is a greenish type of opal with black mottling and gold flecks. Usually found in ancient hot springs, the gem is usually tumbled smooth and cut cabochon.The Black Opal differs from other Opal as it is formed on a darker (black) quartz-like layer that enables greater refraction/reflection of the light to the top of the opal, especially the reds and pinks.
Up to 20.000 $ per carat.

Musgravite

Named after the Musgrave Ranges, Australia, where it was first discovered.  Its hardness is 8 to 8.5 on the Mohs scale.  Only eight specimens of this gem have been identified. Musgravite, however, is very similar to another gem called taaffeite, so it is possible that some taaffeites have just been misidentified. Up to $35.000 per carat.

Alexandrite

Alexandrite is a genuinely incredible gemstone, The alexandrite variety displays a color change (alexandrite effect) dependent upon the nature of ambient lighting. Alexandrite effect is the phenomenon of an observed color change from greenish to reddish with a change in source illumination. To be clear: this color change is independent of your viewing angle; a gemstone that shifts colors when you rotate it in your hand, is said to be pleochroic, and while alexandriteis strongly pleochroic, it can also change colors independently of viewing angle when viewed under an artificial light source.A variety of Chrysoberyl, alexandrite belongs to the same family of gemstones as emerald. up to 100.000$ per carat.

Poudretteite

Poudretteite is an extremely rare mineral and gemstone that was first discovered as minute crystals in Mont St. Hilaire, Quebec,Canada, during the 1960s. It was initially thought to be extremely rare, but several of this gemstone was discovered in Myanmar in 2003.

Grandidierite

Grandidierite is an extremely rare mineral and gem that was first discovered in 1902 in southern Madagascar. Like alexandrite and tanzinite, grandidierite is pleochroic, and can transmit blue, green, and white light.This mineral is sometimes mistaken for serendibite.

Benitoite

It was first described in 1907 by George D. Louderback, who named it benitoite for its occurrence near the headwaters of the San Benito River in San Benito County, California. It has a strong blue color and emits dispersion similar to that of a diamond. Under ultraviolet light, it radiates an intense blue-white color. Benitoites usually come less than a carat, though the largest ever found weighed 15.42 carats.

Jeremejevite

Jeremejevite is a rare aluminium borate mineral with variable fluoride and hydroxide ions. It was named after Russian mineralogist Pavel Vladimirovich Eremeev (Jeremejev, German). It occurs as a late hydrothermal phase in granitic pegmatites in association with albite, tourmaline, quartz and rarely gypsum.

Serendibite

Serendibite is an extremely rare boron-bearing mineral that is only rarely found as facet grade material. There appear to be only two sources for gem quality serendibite, the Ratanapura area in Sri Lanka, and the Mogok stone tract in Northern Myanmar.

Red Beryl

It was first described in 1904 for an occurrence, its type locality, at Maynard's Claim (Pismire Knolls), Thomas Range, Juab County, Utah. Red beryl is very rare and has only been reported from a handful of locations including: Wah Wah Mountains, Beaver County, Utah; Paramount Canyon andRound Mountain, Sierra County, New Mexico. Prices for top quality natural red beryl can be as high as $10,000 per carat for finished stones.

The mummy rests frozen in sleep at the High Country Archaeological Museum in Salta, Argentina. Scroll down for her pictures!

This is a mummy of an Inca girl who sits frozen since 500 years in a museum in Argentina.

Archaeologists carry the 500-year-old mummies of three Inca children down Argentina's Llullaillaco volcano in 1999. They were wrapped in layers of plastic, snow, and foam insulation to keep them cold and maintain their exquisite preservation.

The museum is displaying the mummy in a refrigerated, low-oxygen environment to reproduce the high-altitude conditions for it's natural preservation while the other two children remain for further study.

"The Best Preserved Mummy" called by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Johan Reinhard.

 nationalgeographic