ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

Historic Indian sword was masterfully crafted Posted: 10 Feb 2015 07:33 AM PST The master craftsmanship behind Indian swords was highlighted when scientists and conservationists from Italy and the UK joined forces to study a curved single-edged sword called a shamsheer. The 75-centimeter-long sword from the Wallace Collection in London was made in India in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The design is of Persian origin, from where it spread across Asia and eventually gave rise to a family of similar weapons called scimitars being forged in various Southeast Asian countries. Two different approaches were used to examine the shamsheer: the classical one (metallography) and a non-destructive technique (neutron diffraction).

Earliest evidence of large-scale human-produced air pollution in South America found Posted: 09 Feb 2015 01:11 PM PST Researchers have uncovered the earliest evidence of widespread, human-produced air pollution in South America -- from the Spanish conquest of the Inca.