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Archaeologists have been doing a molecular analysis of a protein found to survive in the bones of unfortunate victims of the Mount Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii. Despite the searing heat that killed inhabitants of nearby Herculaneum, Oliver Craig of York University has been able to examine the different isotopes in amino acids still recoverable from their bones. This helped him identify what types of food they ate during their tragically foreshortened lifetimes. (Image: Skeletal remains from Herculaneum after tragedy of eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Italy, Credit: siete_vidas / Getty Images.)