New Mexico Health Enhancement and Marathon Clinics Research Foundation
ksnyder | June 17, 2011Hair breaks. It singes. It falls out. It might not be the strongest feature of living human bodies, but hair is one of the best-preserved tissues of dead ones, providing a record of diet, age, metabolism, and, sometimes, even the cause of death.
Ferdinand II*
With intense beams of x-rays at Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), a team of researchers is using hair samples collected from the decomposed bodies of two 15th century Italian royalty to determine how they really died.
The subjects: Ferdinand II (1467-1496)* and Isabella (1470-1524) of Aragon, a medieval kingdom…