A man who died 2,000 years ago in southern Spain had his ashes infused in white wine, probably as part of some sort of ritual to assist him in his journey through the afterlife. Amazingly, the urn containing his booze-drenched remains has managed to keep the ancient plonk from deteriorating, making it the oldest surviving wine in liquid form ever discovered.The urn was initially retrieved in 2019 when excavation work in the city of Carmona revealed an underground Roman mausoleum that is thought to have been constructed for a wealthy local family. Within the chamber, researchers discovered six ash-filled urns, each belonging to a different person.One of these urns – which contained the cremated remains of a male individual – was also “filled to the brim with a reddish liquid,” explain the authors of a new study. Based on the excellent state of preservation within the subterranean tomb and the fact that all the other urns remained bone dry, the researchers immediately ruled out leakage as an explanation for this strange fluid, suspecting instead that it may have been Roman-era wine.Seeking clarification, the study authors analyzed the liquid’s chemical composition and compared it to that of modern wines from nearby vineyards in places like Jerez, Montilla-Moriles, and Sanlúcar.“The mineral profile of the reddish liquid is comparable to that of current sherry wines from Jerez, fino wines from Condado de Huelva, and fino wines from Montilla-Moriles − a designation of origin not far from Carmona,” they write.To reliably identify the ancient substance, the researchers inspected it for key biomarkers known as polyphenols. In doing so, they discovered that the two most concentrated flavonoids present in the liquid were quercetin and apigenin, which matches up well with modern wines.Overall, the authors identified seven polyphenols that are also present in wines from Montilla-Moriles, Jerez, and Sanlúcar, while the absence of syringic acid indicated that the wine was in fact white – in spite of the reddish hue it has acquired over the years.“The results obtained in this work strongly suggest that the reddish liquid in the ash urn was originally wine that decayed with time, and that it was about 2000 years old, and hence the oldest wine found to date,” they conclude.And while little is currently known about the identity of those housed within the mausoleum, engravings on two of the six urns indicate that the long-dead group includes a pair named Hispanae and Senicio. As for the purpose of the ancient booze, meanwhile, the researchers explain that “the urn must have been filled with wine in a sort of libation ritual in the burial ceremony or as part of the burial rite to help the deceased in their transition to a better world.”The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

From your computer to maglev trains, from power tools to MRI scanners, rare Earth permanent magnets are all around us. Modern life without them is difficult so their importance can’t be overstated. However, extracting the rare Earth elements that make them is often laborious and energy-consuming. Scientists have been looking for a better way – and thanks to a machine learning algorithm, they might have found it.Company Materials Nexus, together with researchers at the Henry Royce Institute and the University of Sheffield, have developed MagNex. This is a permanent magnet that is free of rare earth elements. The MagNex is reported to have been produced with materials that cost one-fifth of regular permanent magnets. The new magnet also saw a reduction of 70 percent in carbon emissions (in terms of kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of material) compared to rare-Earth permanent magnets.That in itself is pretty awesome but there’s a wider reason why it is exciting. The permanent magnets that we have were developed from alloys of rare-Earth elements in the 1970s and 80s. Searching for these materials with the right properties was a long undertaking, with a lot of trial and error. MagNex’s development from design to testing was 200 times faster."We’re really excited that our first interaction with Materials Nexus has yielded such a hugely positive outcome,” Professor Iain Todd FREng, Professor of Metallurgy and Materials Processing at the University of Sheffield, said in a statement. “The combination of Materials Nexus’s approach of using AI [artificial intelligence] for materials discovery and the world-class facilities we have for manufacture of advanced alloys in the Henry Royce Institute here at Sheffield has allowed a novel magnetic material to be developed with breathtaking speed. This achievement showcases the bright future of materials and manufacturing. The next generation of materials, unlocked through the power of AI, is highly promising for research, industry, and our planet.”The AI system identifies and analyzes the composition of over 100 million potential alloys that would have the right properties to be a permanent magnet, be free of rare-earth elements, and meet the requirements of affordability and sustainability. The potential of this approach for the creation of new materials is enormous.“This is a ground-breaking discovery using innovative machine learning software, and its development has been enabled by Innovate UK funding,” said Bruce Adderley, Director for Make & Use – Net-Zero at Innovate UK. “This could have a significant future impact on our net-zero ambitions, through renewable energy and low-carbon transport, by removing the need for rare earth elements in high-performance permanent magnets.”Computers have already helped enormously in allowing us to find new substances. And it seems that thanks to machine learning algorithms, this and similar approaches are being used in labs as well, such as the self-driving lab developed at the University of Toronto. 

For weeks now, The Washington Post has been plagued by internal turmoil over some top new hires. It started with new publisher Will Lewis, a former Rupert Murdoch employee who quickly attracted “opposition research” from NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, a man who reports incessantly on Murdoch like the mogul’s a James Bond villain -- at taxpayer expense. This caused a predictable ruckus among leftists, both inside the Post and outside. Since the paper is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Posties treat the newspaper like a charity and not a business. They don’t seem to care that the Post lost $77 million over the past year and had to offer buyouts to several hundred staffers to address the losses.   The subscribers were in revolt in a web chat with Post media blogger Erik Wemple. Wrote one: “What's the best way for subscribers to let Jeff Bezos know we don't like how he's hiring so many men from Rupert Murdoch's empire to be in charge of The Washington Post? Many people are simply canceling their subscriptions, but I'm wondering if we have better options.” And this one: “What is a meaningful reaction to Will Lewis as Washington Post's CEO and publisher, given the allegations of his spiking news stories as well as his choice of two White men to co-lead The Post news operations?”  Too many Caucasian chefs in the kitchen? This was only matched in intensity by grumpy liberals demanding to know from Wemple why the Post passed on that epic saga of the Alito family house flags. Folkenflik and other party-line enforcers of leftist ideology in news rooms – including the old CNN crew of Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, as well as Washington Post veteran Margaret Sullivan – have been agitating to get these new staffers removed (some before they start) because they were ruining staff morale. They’re treating Lewis & Co. like New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet, who was deposed by a “news room” revolt because he published a guest essay by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.  But Bezos put out a memo that suggested no one is going anywhere and pledged to maintain "the quality, ethics, and standards we all believe in." For his part, Politico media writer Jack Shafer wasn’t buying the panic that the Post could soon become a “right-wing tablet.” He said “douse that thought with flame retardant. None of the new Lewis crew seem to tilt that way.” But everyone can get territorial in mass communications, just as the Left tore their collective hair out over Elon Musk taking over Twitter. It’s simply implausible that the Post will stop reading like a partisan rag, always highlighting scandalous Republicans and aggressively downplaying anything damaging or divisive to Democrats. The Post under the new publisher recently described an explicitly pro-Hamas protest surrounding the White House as “largely peaceful,” despite the smoke bombs and vandalism of statues. This is still the media outlet that splashes a colorful feature across the top of the Style section on how “Jill Biden works the senior circuit.” Reporter Kara Voght touted Jill on the campaign trail with her “singsongy voice honed from decades of teaching” and “sinewy calves” from “pounding the pavement in trendy On Cloud running shoes.” Voght didn’t score an interview with the First Lady, so instead she ran a pile of gushy quotes from Biden voters. "To see her be a pillar of her family is inspiring," said one fan in Green Bay.  At the Post, that translates into maintaining "the quality, ethics, and standards" of a promotional Democratic Party broadsheet. 

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