News by Subject Social & Behavior

The shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, the most important pilgrimage destination in medieval England - visited for hundreds of years by pilgrims seeking miraculous healing - has been digitally reconstructed for the public, according to how experts believe it appeared before its destruction.

The first underwater Aboriginal archaeological sites have been discovered off northwest Australia dating back thousands of years ago when the current seabed was dry land. Aboriginal artefacts discovered off the Plibara coast in Western Australia were discovered through a series of archaeological and geophysical surveys in the Dampier Archipelago, as part of the Deep History of Sea Country Project, funded through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Project Scheme.

Voter ID laws are becoming more common and more strict, and the stakes for American democracy are high and growing higher by the year. New research from the University of California San Diego provides evidence that voter ID laws disproportionately reduce voter turnout in more racially diverse areas.

An international team of scientists and historians has found evidence connecting an unexplained period of extreme cold in ancient Rome with an unlikely source: a massive eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano, located on the opposite side of the Earth. A new study uses an analysis of tephra (volcanic ash) found in Arctic ice cores to link this period of extreme climate in the Mediterranean with the caldera-forming eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano in 43 BCE.

New from Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project collaborators: 1) A study led by the J. Craig Venter Institute of microbial settlers on old paintings and sculptures, charting a potential path for preserving, restoring, and confirming the geographic origin of some of humanity's greatest treasures. 2) Two studies by David S. Thaler, University of Basel, of Leonardo's keen visual acuity -- e.g. he could see more 'frames per second' than most people -- and how that was reflected in his observations and art.

Archaeologists and geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, have shed new light on the earliest periods of Ireland's human history. Among their incredible findings is the discovery that the genome of an adult male buried in the heart of the Newgrange passage tomb points to first-degree incest, implying he was among a ruling social elite akin to the similarly inbred Inca god-kings and Egyptian pharaohs.