Ancient Rome was so polluted with lead people's IQs dropped

From the Wall Street Journal: "Lead pollution in ancient Rome was so high that it dropped the population’s IQ by around 3 points, if not more. Elites were exposed to lead through water pipes, cooking pots, bath tubs, cosmetics and the syrups that sweetened their wine. But the most widespread exposure for Romans came from industrial pollution caused by the mining and smelting of metals used to make money. Romans melted down galena, a lead-rich ore, to extract the silver needed for coins, and lead was a major byproduct of the process. McConnell and his colleagues examined airborne lead that drifted north from ancient Rome and was preserved in ice cores extracted from Greenland. The samples dated between 2,500 and 1,400 years ago—an era that included the rise and fall of the empire.The researchers matched the chemical fingerprint of the lead found in the cores to lead sources in the empire, according to McConnell."

The Heslington Brain is a human specimen that is more than 2,600 years old

From Wikipedia: "The Heslington Brain is a 2,600-year-old human brain found inside a skull buried in a pit in Yorkshire by York Archaeological Trust in 2008. It is the oldest preserved brain ever found in Eurasia, and is believed to be the best-preserved ancient brain in the world. The skull was discovered during an archaeological dig commissioned by the University of York on the site of its new campus on the outskirts of the city of York. The area was found to have been the site of well-developed permanent habitation between 2,000–3,000 years before the present day. A number of possibly ritualistic objects were found to have been deposited in several pits, including the skull, which had belonged to a man probably in his 30s. He had been hanged before being decapitated with a knife and his skull appears to have been buried immediately. The rest of the body was missing. Although it is not known why he was killed, it is possible that it may have been a human sacrifice or ritual murder."

In this Indian state the deceased have to stick together to regain their lives

From Now I Know: "In many parts of Uttar Pradesh, farmland is at a premium.  Combine these two ingredients – crime and a shortage of agricultural land – throw in a large chunk of greed, mix in some family rivalry and you come up with an ingenious scam. Just head for the nearest Land Registry Office, bribe an official, declare the owner dead and transfer the land to your name. And in 1975, at the age of 19, Bihari became a victim of such a scam. His uncle had paid someone to declare Bihari dead, and then “inherited” the land of his officially deceased nephew. Bihari held a funeral for himself, hoping his presence as a still-living person would convince officials that he was alive. (It didn’t.) His wife applied for benefits as a widow. He tried to get arrested; he even ran for parliament in hopes that would make a difference, but he ended up losing the election. Ultimately, the wheels of justice turned slowly and in his favor; in 1994, the courts established that the man before them was, in fact, alive."

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

What it's like to work as a "tombarolo" or archaeological grave robber

From The Art Newspaper: "It is easy to like the man we shall call Antonio Induno. He is a softly spoken man in his mid-forties who smiles often. His manner is friendly and direct and he speaks candidly and enthusiastically about his work. Mr Induno is a tomb-robber. For the last 30 years he has plundered the tombs of the ancient Etruscan city of Veii. By his estimate, he has smashed his way into several hundred ancient burial chambers to recover vases, statuettes, mirrors, ornaments, jewellery, and other objects in gold, bronze, and terracotta. Mr Induno has fed these items to middlemen who, in turn, have sold them to buyers in the US and Europe. Over the years he has risen through the ranks of the tombaroli. As a boy, he learnt the trade from his father."

Scientists detected an ultra-powerful neutrino moving through the earth at the speed of light

From the Washington Post: "An international team of scientists announced Wednesday the detection of an extraordinary, elusive neutrino — a tiny, subatomic particle that flitted at close to the speed of light toward an undersea detector off the coast of Sicily carrying about 30,000 times the energy generated by the largest particle accelerator on the planet. The observation revealed the highest-energy neutrino ever detected, sparking speculation about the astrophysical cataclysm that may have shot it across Earth’s bow.Just as astronomers use telescopes that observe the light from stars to explore and explain the universe, scientists have set up massive telescopes deep in water and ice to measure neutrinos. These cosmic messengers can travel undisturbed over vast distances, carrying information about mysterious high-energy events that generate them."

This engineer designed an omnidirectional motorcycle with balls instead of wheels

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy's Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova's The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com