How did this man's brain turn to glass? Scientists have a theory

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-brain-glass-scientists-theory.html


Through the thinking glass: Scientists have discovered networks of neurons preserved in an ancient Roman's glass brain.

A young man was lying in his bed when a viciously hot cloud of ash swept down from the erupting Mount Vesuvius and turned his brain to glass almost 2,000 years ago.

That is the theory Italian scientists proposed on Thursday to explain the strange case of the ancient Roman's brain, which they said is the only human tissue ever known to have naturally turned to glass.

This unique brain could rewrite the story of one of history's most famous natural disasters—and help protect people against this little-understood phenomenon during future volcanic eruptions, the scientists suggested.

When Mount Vesuvius—near the modern-day Italian city of Naples—erupted in 79 AD, the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried in a fast-moving blanket of rock and ash called a pyroclastic flow.

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