Age of Enlightenment

Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven died, a team of researchers has managed to sequence the German composer’s genome from locks of his hair, revealing surprising details of his health and genealogical history. Chief among them: Beethoven had inherited genetic risk factors for liver diseases and was infected with hepatitis B; taken alongside the composer’s alcohol consumption, these likely contributed to his death at age 56. The team’s research is published today in Current Biology.“Our primary goal was to shed…

A team of engineers studying the 500-year-old, backwardwritings of Leonardo da Vinci have found evidence that the Italian polymath was working out gravity a century before its foundations were established by Galileo Galilei.The team’s findings come from a revisit of the Codex Arundel, a compilation of documents written by da Vinci that detail various experiments and personal notes taken down in the latter 40 years of his life. The codex is freely accessible online courtesy of the British Museum. The team’s research is…

If we looked at natural resources the way we look at money, we’d be far more alert, more alarmed. The rare earth metals account is fast depleting; food is still seeing deposits but withdrawals remain too high; the groundwater account is in crisis; fossil fuels aren’t just crashing, they’re dragging other accounts down with them. If the planet were an investment bank, there’d have been a freeze on all activity decades ago, and emergency bailout plans would be in place. Instead, Earth’s resources are being managed only in…