Scientists solve mystery of vitrified Roman brain
The only known case of a human brain being turned to glass, that of a man caught in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius at the Roman town of Herculaneum near Pompeii, has been solved, CE Report quotes ANSA.
The man's brain turned to glass due to the extremely rapid cooling that ensued after a white-hot cloud of ash engulfed him, according to a study by an Italo-German research group led by volcanologist Guido Giordano of the University of Roma Tre and published in Scientific Reports.
Years ago, at the Collegium Augustalium site in Herculaneum, vitrified organic material was discovered inside the skull of one of the bodies, a previously unseen oddity - the only example of its kind known in the world - whose formation had so far been an enigma.
"To understand the vitrification process, we conducted experimental analyses by reporting the brain fragments to the temperatures at which they transformed into glass with heating and cooling cycles at variable speeds with very sophisticated equipment," said Pier Paolo Petrone, of the University Federico II of Naples, one of the authors of the study that also involved the Institute of Science, Technology and Sustainability for the Development of Ceramic Materials of the National Research Council and the Clausthal Polytechnic in Germany.
"The analyses have thus allowed us to reconstruct what happened that day in 79 AD, on August 24 or October 24, after the first pyroclastic flows began, a sort of cloud of gas and incandescent materials at the ground level, which destroyed Herculaneum.
"The first of them - explained Giordano - reached the city only with its part of a cloud of diluted but very hot ash, well over 510 degrees Celsius.
"It left a few centimeters of very fine ash on the ground, but the thermal impact was terrible and deadly, even if brief enough to leave brain remains still intact".
The cloud then disappeared very quickly, allowing the remains to cool rapidly, a lightning fast dive in temperatures that triggered the vitrification process, Giordano said.
