
Scientists shed light on how and why some people report "hearing the dead"
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Spiritualist mediums might be more prone to immersive mental activities and unusual auditory experiences early in life, according to new research.
An historical document clearly indicates that the Hosokawa clan of Japan's Kokura Domain stopped producing wine in 1632, the year before the shogunate ordered them to move to the Higo Domain. Researchers believe the reason for halting wine production was directly related to the move and because wine was considered a drink of Christianity, which was harshly suppressed at that time in Japan.
Astronomers have catalogued 126 years of changes to HS Hydra, a rare evolving eclipsing binary star system. Analyzing observations from astro-photographic plates in the late 1800s to TESS observations in 2019, they show that the two stars in HS Hydrae began to eclipse each other around a century ago, peaking in the 1960s. The degree of eclipsing then plummeted over the course of just a half century, and will cease around February 2021.
The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age was apparently accompanied by severe droughts between 1302 and 1307 in Europe. In the journal Climate of the Past, researchers from the Leibniz Institutes for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) and Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) write that the 1302-07 weather patterns display similarities to the 2018 weather anomaly, in which continental Europe experienced exceptional heat and drought.
Phosphorous, calcium and charcoal in spotty patches of fertile soil in the Amazon rainforest suggest that natural processes such as fires and river flooding, not the ingenuity of indigenous populations, created rare sites suitable for agriculture, according to new research.
The history of the Caribbean's original islanders comes into sharper focus in a new Nature study that combines decades of archaeological work with advancements in genetic technology.
Black children are removed from their families at much greater rates than any other race or ethnicity in this country. At the same time the sheer number of all child abuse investigations in the US is staggering: experts estimate that by age 18 one out of three children has been the subject of a child protective services investigation. Yet, many of these investigations and removals are unjustified, says University of Rochester health policy historian and physician Mical Raz.
Researchers from McMaster University have studied and analyzed thousands of weekly records documenting the deaths of smallpox victims in London, England over the span of nearly 300 years. The analysis provides new and rare insights into the ecology of infectious disease, establishing that the time between epidemics, the size of the outbreaks, and even the season when the epidemics occurred, changed over the centuries.
Scientists in Romania used multiple, complementary imaging techniques to non-invasively study the composition of an aged Jewish parchment scroll. The various analyses can determine the types of materials used in the manuscript's manufacturing, providing historical context for objects of mysterious provenance. The research also offers insights into the item's degradation over time, including indications of previous repair attempts. All of this information helps conservators determine how best to restore such antiques to their original condition.
Late 19th century misconceptions about outbreaks of plague in the ancient world led to an ingrained belief that pandemics inherently cause widespread death and change the course of history, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland's National-Socio Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.