ἀνθρώποισι πᾶσι μέτεστι γινώσκειν ἑωυτοὺς καὶ σωφρονεῖν.
You’d expect excessive athletic training to make the body tired, but can it make the brain tired too? A new study reported in the journal Current Biology on September 26 suggests that the answer is “yes.” Continue reading “Can excessive athletic training make your brain tired? New study says yes”
The Bronze Age was the first long period in human history when widespread trade networks connected Europe and the wider Eurasian continent, defining a pre-modern era of globalization, or, ‘bronzization’. One of the driving forces behind the inter-regional trade was the constant need for metals, and other raw materials and goods available only in certain parts of Europe. Continue reading “Metal sources and Trade networks in Bronze Age Europe”
Science tells us that a lot of good things happen in our brains while we sleep — learning and memories are consolidated and waste is removed, among other things. New research shows for the first time that important immune cells called microglia — which play an important role in reorganizing the connections between nerve cells, fighting infections, and repairing damage — are also primarily active while we sleep. Continue reading “The night gardeners: Immune cells rewire, repair brain while we sleep”
The study of the Byzantine medical texts reveals a great number of references about dental drugs. This frequency indicates that problems of oral health were common and part of the epidemiology of those times. Continue reading “Dental drugs in the Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) Empire”
Asthma is derived from the Greek verb aazein, meaning shortdrawn breath or panting. Continue reading “The first clinical description of asthma by Aretaeus of Cappadocia (1st century A.D.)”
There were many reasons for Near Easterners to be in Byzantium. Some were taken there against their wishes; some went there willingly to trade, to negotiate, or to die. Some entered the Christian Empire only once, while others paid frequent visits; some had a very fleeting glimpse of Byzantium while others settled there. Conversely, Byzantines went to the Near East for many of the same reasons, and they travelled under similar conditions. Continue reading “The Cilician frontier in the ninth and tenth centuries”
Novo Scriptorium 