Ancient

Jewish herbalism is experiencing a revival as educators like Naomi Spector uncover centuries of plant knowledge preserved through the diaspora. Blending the wisdom of Maimonides, Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, and remedies passed from generation to generation, this forgotten ecological heritage reveals how Jewish communities adapted to new landscapes while keeping their cultural identity rooted in the natural world.

The 364-day calendar did not disappear entirely. Instead, it may have survived as an ideal: a memory of perfect time at Creation and perhaps a calendar to be restored in the End of Days.

NuCicer has developed Nuchi, a new class of chickpea with 50% more protein and 25% less fat than conventional varieties. Co-founder Kathryn Cook explains how wild chickpea genetics, AI-guided breeding, and centuries-old biodiversity could transform the future of sustainable protein.

Artificial intelligence is opening a new chapter in Dead Sea Scrolls research. By combining machine learning with chemical analysis, scientists hope to uncover where the ancient manuscripts were produced, identify connections between scribes, and reveal hidden patterns across more than 25,000 fragments that have remained unsolved for decades.

Scientists have uncovered evidence of an Iron Age funerary tradition involving the deliberate removal of human brains and the fashioning of long bones into sharp tools.

Most people in the West have never heard of the Sidr tree. That's strange when you think about it. This tough, thorny desert tree has fed people, bees, birds, and camels for thousands of years. It appears in Islamic tradition. Its honey sells for astonishing prices.

Why is wombat poop cubed? Plus great photos.

16,000 boxes of archaeological finds are stored in the Valkhof Museum at Nijmegen, the Netherlands. They contain a wealth of Roman artifacts left undisturbed...

In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.

Two thousand years ago, someone scratched a web of lines into stone in a Roman settlement on the empire’s northern edge. Soldiers, traders, or locals passing time in Coriovallum—now Heerlen in the Netherlands, moved small counters across those lines in a tactical duel of blockade and entrapment.

Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.

Flying centuries-old trees across continents via specialized cargo burns enormous fossil fuels. Replanting them in a desert climate—no matter how advanced the irrigation or “heritage preservation techniques”—places immense stress on organisms that evolved for Mediterranean seasons, soils, and rainfall patterns. And we've seen that the UAE is not capable of taking care of trees so survival rates are uncertain.

Environmental activists in Iran often face significant personal risk when speaking out about illegal land grabs, deforestation, or the destruction of protected areas. In recent years, several high-profile environmentalists have been detained, interrogated, or imprisoned on broad national-security charges, sometimes without transparent legal proceedings.

It's full of rare and endemic species, and it's a UNESCO heritage site. Iran's natural treasure, a 1000-kilometer forest, the Hyrcanian forest has been on fire for several days. It stretches from the Caspian Sea and into neighboring Azerbaijan and is home to more than 3,200 kinds of plants. 

Two thousand years ago, all roads led to Rome. Now, thanks to modern data science, they finally do again — this time in high...