For the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, the idea that the Qur’an is a seventh century text disseminated by Islam’s founder, the Prophet Muhammad, is neither news, nor particularly controversial. But in academia the history of this holy text is much more opaque. For researchers in Islamic studies, historical evidence dating the Qur’an back to Islam’s foundational era […]
The Bakhshali manuscript, an ancient Indian mathematical manuscript written on more than 70 leaves of birch bark, is notable for having a dot representing ‘zero’ in it. The date of the manuscript has intrigued scientists for years, with many believing it dated from the 9th century CE. Now researchers from the University of Oxford and […]
In the 14th century, the Black Death wiped out as much as 60% of the population of Europe, spreading rapidly from the shores of the Black Sea to central Europe. Although historical records first document its appearance in 1346 C.E. in the lower Volga region of Russia, researchers didn’t know whether the highly virulent strain […]
The Dodos were not as stupid as their reputation showed. New research reveals that these extinct, flightless birds are probably as intelligent as modern pigeons and have a better sense of smell. Dodos (Raphus cucullatus) had vanished in 1662, 100 years after their home on the islands of Mauritius became a destination for Dutch […]
The Dodo was a sitting duck. The bird was fat and flightless, clueless and incompetent. In practice, it was a walking evolutionary mistake that was prepared to die. When the Dutch colonized the small island of Dodon at the end of the 16th century, the eccentricity of land entered directly into the waiting arms of […]
The world’s oldest figurative tattoos have been discovered on two 5,000-year-old mummies from Egypt. The upper arm of a female mummy had tattoos depicting a wild bull and a Berber sheep, while the shoulder and upper arm of a female mummy bore “S” – shaped motifs. The findings, whose details are published in the Journal […]
