History

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has been tasked with a new job - patrolling the ancient ruins of Pompeii. The robot will be used to inspect the site for safety issues and record structural changes over time to better manage the historic ruins.

To aid research into the history of human writing, DeepMind has now turned its AI technology to the task of restoring incomplete ancient texts, where it has performed with an impressive degree of accuracy.

The wreck of one of the most famous exploration ships in history has been located. Using a robotic submersible, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust has found Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, which was crushed in the Antarctic pack ice in 1915.

In 1952, Britain won the race to put the world's first jet airliner into service, but it turned out to be a hollow victory. Disasters, delays, and an unlikely American rival upended British ambitions and reshaped the early years of the Jet Age.

A set of lengthy silver and gold tubes dug up from a famous grave in the the Caucuses has been found to represent the oldest surviving drinking straws, with the scientists behind the discovery believing they were used for communal beer consumption.

New research published in the journal Antiquity suggests an ancient South American civilization spiked a beer-like drink with psychoactive drugs as a way of maintaining social cohesion and forging new bonds with surrounding communities.

While archeologists can learn a lot from studying ancient Egyptian mummified bodies, unwrapping those bodies may damage their valuable coverings. With that problem in mind, scientists have now "digitally unwrapped" a mummy via CT scanning technology.

A research team has begun an €11-million (US$12.9-million) project with the hopes of collecting the oldest continuous ice core in Antarctica, providing a record of the climate spanning some 1.5 million years.

Encompassing thousands of years of human history the stunning 2021 Historic Photographer of the Year awards span everything from an ancient Greek temple to the only structure still standing from the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Intel's 4004 processor, the first commercially available microprocessor built on a single chip. Originally designed for a Japanese desk calculator, it helped spark the personal computer revolution.

Fifty years ago this weekend, NASA's Mariner 9 probe went into orbit around Mars. This pioneering mission revolutionized our ideas about Mars and, with humans looking to head that way, is a timely reminder of just how utterly inhospitable a place it is.

A landmark study is reporting the discovery of nearly 500 ancient monuments in Mexico using airborne laser mapping. The newly discovered sites are thought to date back at least 2,500 years, in between the Olmec and Maya civilizations.