When Mount Vesuvius blasted hot ash through Roman cities at a temperature of 950 degrees Fahrenheit, the cloud killed residents as soon as it hit them.
In one individual, the one-two punch of extreme heat and cooling ash deposits appears to have liquified and then rapidly cooled their brain tissue, leaving a thin glassy smear across the inside of their skull. The material preserved various brain and hair proteins, and is one of the first preserved ancient brains researchers have found.
A team of investigators describe these obsidian-colored streaks, and their contents, in a letter published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The official name for this glass-production process, called vitrification, is exceedingly rare, says paper co-author Pierpaolo Petrone, a forensic osteologist with the University of Naples Federico II. “To date, vitrified remains of the brain have never been found, neither human nor animal, neither in the ...
