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Much of a Pre-Columbian population in ancient Chile was poisoned by arsenic, say researchers. According to a recent study conducted by Jaime Swift of the Australian National University and colleagues from several other institutions in Australia and Chile, a significant part of a pre-Columbian population in northern Chile suffered from slow poisoning due to the intake of arsenic from water sources. The researchers performed plasma mass spectrometry trace element analysis of human bone and tooth samples from 21 burials excavated at the site of Caleta Vitor on the Pacific coast of northern Chile, a part of the ultra-dry Atacama Desert...

The Metsamor archaeological site is located near the village of Taronik, in the Armavir Province of Armenia, where the oldest trace of human settlement dates from the 4th millennium BC during the Copper Age.In the Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages, the site became an important religious and economic centre, developing into a city with many temples and sanctuaries, fortified by a citadel and cyclopean walls, and an advanced economy based on metallurgical production.Recent excavations have uncovered a sunken chamber framed by large stones, containing the remains of a wooden burial and two skeletons who died at the age of...

A new imaging method has uncovered modern alterations on Iron Age Iranian bronze swords, showing they were tampered with to boost their value in the illicit antiquities market. This discovery, using neutron tomography, highlights the challenge of detecting forgeries in ancient metalworking artifacts, essential for understanding early metallurgical innovation. Credit: Cranfield University Modern tampering on Iron Age Iranian swords was revealed using neutron tomography, complicating efforts to study ancient metalworking techniques. For the first time, an imaging technique has been applied to study Iron Age bronze swords from Iran, uncovering significant modern modifications that prove the weapons that the weapons...

Step-by-step time-lapse video of how to make a Roman sword from what appears to be leaf stock.

Share 3D-printed “superalloy” could make power plants more efficient...Credit: kinwun / Adobe Stock Anew high-performance metal alloy, called a superalloy, could help boost the efficiency of the turbines used in power plants and the aerospace and automotive industries. Created using a 3D printer, the superalloy is composed of a blend of six elements that altogether form a material that’s both lighter and stronger than the standard materials used in conventional turbine machinery. The strong superalloy could help industries cut both costs and carbon emissions — if the approach can be successfully scaled up. The challenge: In the world of materials...

The state-owned Aero-Engine Group of China was created by combining a group of existing aircraft-engine companies, according to local media reports. It has about 50bn yuan ($7.5bn) in registered capital and will develop both military and commercial engines. China already makes its own planes, but has struggled for decades to develop engines that meet global requirements. 'Strategic move' China currently buys its commercial aircraft engines from General Electric and United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney. China's military jets uses Russian-made engines. President Xi Jinping called the new creation of the new company a "strategi

Italian and Egyptian researchers analyzed the metal with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”. They compared the composition to known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite.

Anodizing (Or the beauty of corrosion) Bill describes how metals like aluminum and titanium are made resistant to corrosion by growing an oxide layer into the metals. These is the same process used on many Apple products.

BEIJING: China has built a potent military machine over the past 30 years but is struggling to develop advanced engines that would allow its warplanes to match Western fighters in combat, foreign and Chinese industry sources said. The country's engine technology lags that of United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce, said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. China's Defence Ministry, in a brief statement to Reuters, said there was a "definite gap" between Chinese military technology and some developed countries, adding Beijing would continue to strengthen...

At left, a deformed sample of pure metal; at right, the strong new metal made of magnesium with silicon carbide nanoparticles. Each central micropillar is about 4 micrometers across. Credit: UCLA Scifacturing Laboratory ============================================================================================================= A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to...

Transmittance spectrum of the 54Al2O3-46Ta2O5 glass in the UV/vis region. The inset picture shows the glass sample used for the transmittance experiment. Credit: (c) 2015 Scientific Reports (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep15233 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute has created a type of glass that is stronger than many metals. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers describe how they overcame one of the major hurdles in creating glass imbued with extra amounts of an oxide of aluminum, by using what they call aerodynamic levitation. Glass that does...

Scientists have determined that fragments of artifacts recovered from the Broxmouth Iron Age hill fort in the 1970s were forged from high-carbon steel. The objects, which date to between 490 and 375 B.C., may have been tools or weapons. “The process of manufacturing steel requires extensive knowledge, skill and craftsmanship. It is far from straightforward, which is why such an early example of its production tells us so much about the people who once occupied this hill fort,” said Gerry McDonnell of the University of Bradford. The site featured well-preserved roundhouses, hill fort entrances, and an Iron Age cemetery.

(image courtesy of solidconcepts.com) Let me start out by saying one, very important thing: This is not about desktop 3D Printers. Solid Concepts is a world leader of 3D Printing services, and our ability to 3D Print the world’s first metal gun solidifies our standing. The gun is a classic 1911, a model that is at once timeless and public domain. It functions beautifully: Our resident gun expert has fired 50 successful rounds and hit a few bull’s eyes at over 30 yards. The gun is composed of 30+ 3D Printed components with 17-4 Stainless Steel and Inconel 625...

(Phys.org) —When a molten material cools quickly, parts of it may have enough time to grow into orderly crystals. But if the cooling rate is too fast for the entire melt to crystallize, the remaining material ends up in a non-crystalline state known as a glass, with atoms caught in place essentially as a frozen liquid. Recently, a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) came across an unexpected reversal of this usual sequence of events. After cooling a molten alloy of aluminum, iron, and silicon, they found that glassy nodules of a non-crystalline solid...

The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the 'father' of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin. And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan's visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say...

Here's a link to a page with a nice video from Nova, about Viking swords, for all you Viking history buffs out there... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html

A violation of one of the oldest empirical laws of physics has been observed by scientists at the University of Bristol. Their experiments on purple bronze, a metal with unique one-dimensional electronic properties, indicate that it breaks the Wiedemann-Franz Law. This historic discovery is described in a paper published today in Nature Communications. In 1853, two German physicists, Gustav Wiedemann and Rudolf Franz, studied the thermal conductivity (a measure of a system’s ability to transfer heat) of a number of elemental metals and found that the ratio of the thermal to electrical conductivities was approximately the same for different metals...

Materials scientists at the University of Birmingham have devised a way of making stainless steel surfaces resistant to bacteria in a project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council which culminated this week. By introducing silver or copper into the steel surface (rather than coating it on to the surface), the researchers have developed a technique that not only kills bacteria but is very hard and resistant to wear and tear during cleaning. Bacteria resistant surfaces could be used in hospitals to prevent the spread of superbug infections on stainless steels surfaces, as well as in medical equipment,...

Imagine a material that's stronger than steel, but just as versatile as plastic, able to take on a seemingly endless variety of forms. For decades, materials scientists have been trying to come up with just such an ideal substance, one that could be molded into complex shapes with the same ease and low expense as plastic but without sacrificing the strength and durability of metal Now a team led by Jan Schroers, a materials scientist at Yale University has shown that some recently developed bulk metallic glasses(BMGs)-metal alloys that have randomly arranged atoms as opposed to the orderly, crystalline structure...

Pre-Incan Metallurgy Discovered Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience Thu Apr 19, 9:50 AM ET Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there. These findings illustrate a way that archaeologists can recreate the past even when looters have destroyed the valuable artifacts that would ordinarily be relied upon to reveal historical secrets. For instance, the new research hints at a tax imposed on local villages by ancient Inca rulers to force a switch from production of copper to silver. Pre-Colonial bronze artifacts have previously been found in the central...