Briefing Chat: Why scientists made papyrus scrolls, then burnt them
Nature Podcast

Briefing Chat: Why scientists made papyrus scrolls, then burnt them

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 25, 202611 min
  • Science

In this episode 00:23 How detecting lead could help researchers read damaged Roman scrolls Nature: Watch scientists decipher burned scrolls without unrolling them 06:42 A biodegradeable, paper-inspired battery Nature: Edible batteries power medical devices in the body Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday. Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or your favourite podcast app. An RSS feed for the...

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0:00

Hi everyone, Benjamin here. Welcome to the Friday edition of the podcast, the briefing show where we talk about some of the stories that have been featured in the Nature Briefing, which is of course, nature's daily email roundup of the latest science news. Joining me this week is Sharmini Bundell. Sharmini, thank you for being here.

0:21

Hello, I've got a question for you today, Ben. Okay. how do you read an ancient scroll that's been turned into basically an unopenable lump by a literal volcano?

0:34

Do you know what? Strong question. Yeah, this is a big problem, particularly if you're a historian who is studying life around the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and you have a whole load of nearly 2,000-year-old scrolls that you tantalisingly can't get into. You can't actually read

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