New submitter Solandri writes: When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, it destroyed a library of classical works in Herculaneum. The papyrus scrolls weren’t incinerated, but were instead carbonized by the hot gases. The resulting black carbon cylinders have mostly withstood attempts to read their contents since their discovery. Earlier attempts to unfurl the scrolls yielded some readable material, but were judged too destructive. Researchers decided to wait for newer technology to be invented that could read the scrolls without unrolling them. Now, a team led by Dr. Vito Mocella from the National Research Council’s Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy has managed to read individual letters inside one of the scrolls. Using a form of x-ray phase contrast tomography (abstract), they were able to ascertain the height difference (about 0.1mm) between the ink of the letters and the papyrus fibers which they sat upon. Due to the fibrous nature of the papyrus and the carbon-based ink, regular spectral and chemical analysis had thus far been unable to distinguish the ink from the paper. Further complicating the work, the scrolls are not in neat cylinders, but squashed and ruffled as the hot gases vaporized water in the papyrus and distorted the paper. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Interior of Burnt Herculaneum Scroll Read For First Time
TaleSlinger sends this news from Space.com: Astronomers may finally have detected a signal of dark matter, the mysterious and elusive stuff thought to make up most of the material universe. While poring over data collected by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft, a team of researchers spotted an odd spike in X-ray emissions coming from two different celestial objects — the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster. “The signal’s distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter — that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges, ” [assuming that dark matter consists of sterile neutrinos] study co-author Oleg Ruchayskiy, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, said in a statement. “With the goal of verifying our findings, we then looked at data from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and made the same observations, ” added lead author Alexey Boyarsky, of EPFL and Leiden University in the Netherlands. The decay of sterile neutrinos is thought to produce X-rays, so the research team suspects these may be the dark matter particles responsible for the mysterious signal coming from Andromeda and the Perseus cluster.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Get excited! Director Ridley Scott recently told MTV that Harrison Ford absolutely loves the script for the upcoming Blade Runner sequel. So much so that Ford apparently called it the best thing he’s ever read. Let’s hope he’s even half right. Read more… 
You’re looking at some of the most intricate images of live nerve endings ever captured, in which it’s possible to make out individual nerves and touch receptors in unprecedented detail. Read more… 
Windows 8.1 now natively supports the MKV video format , which has been supported by the Xbox One for a little while now. Read more… 
An anonymous reader points out this story at Ars about a new trojan on the scene. Researchers have unearthed highly advanced malware they believe was developed by a wealthy nation-state to spy on a wide range of international targets in diverse industries, including hospitality, energy, airline, and research. Backdoor Regin, as researchers at security firm Symantec are referring to the trojan, bears some resemblance to previously discovered state-sponsored malware, including the espionage trojans known as Flame and Duqu, as well as Stuxnet, the computer worm and trojan that was programmed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. Regin likely required months or years to be completed and contains dozens of individual modules that allowed its operators to tailor the malware to individual targets. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Last month, Mayor De Blasio announced a push to fund green spaces in New York’s poor neighborhoods. This probably isn’t exactly what he meant: Very wealthy power couple Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg have announced plans to fund a giant park in the Hudson River. Read more… 
jenningsthecat writes: DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program has created “the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured.” The Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC), boasts a gain of 9dB — previously unheard of for a monolithic device in this frequency range. Plus, the status of “fastest” has been certified by Guinness — seriously! (‘Cause you might not trust DARPA, but you gotta trust Guinness — right?). In related news, DARPA has also created a micro-machined vacuum power amplifier operating at 850 GHz, or 0.85 THz. Read more of this story at Slashdot.