Introduction

Today you’ll learn about how archaeologists have found evidence of brain surgery from the Bronze era in the Middle East, how 3D-printed hearts are becoming closer to a reality than ever before, and the recent discovery of how a black hole is eating a dust cloud in space. 

Ancient Brain Surgery

• “Archaeologists uncover early evidence of brain surgery in Ancient Near East” by Brown University
  • https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230222141115.htm
• “Cranial trephination and infectious disease in the Eastern Mediterranean: The evidence from two elite brothers from Late Bronze Megiddo, Israel” by Rachel Kalisher et al.
  • https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281020
• “Ancient Legacy of Cranial Surgery” by Mohammad Ghannaee Arani, Esmaeil Fakharian, and Fahimeh Sarbandi
  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876527/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20French%20physician,mentally%20ill%20people%20(4).
• “Clues to Bronze Age cranial surgery revealed in ancient bones” by Ari Daniel
  • https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/02/22/1158721573/clues-to-bronze-age-cranial-surgery-revealed-in-ancient-bones
• “Curiosities of medical history: Trepanation” by Maria Cohut
  • https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326281

3D Heart  

• “Custom, 3D-printed heart replicas look and pump just like the real thing” by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230222141222.htm
• “Soft robotic patient-specific hydrodynamic model of aortic stenosis and ventricular remodeling” by LUCA ROSALIA et al.
  • https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ade2184

Supermassive Black Hole 

• “A mysterious object is being dragged into the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center” by Holly Ober
  • https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/X7-debris-cloud-near-supermassive-black-hole
• “The Swansong of the Galactic Center Source X7: An Extreme Example of Tidal Evolution near the Supermassive Black Hole” by Anna Ciurlo et al.
  • https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acb344
• “A black hole is destroying this object. Scientists are watching its last days.” by Mark Kaufman
  • https://mashable.com/article/black-hole-destroying-object-milky-way-galaxy

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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/ancient-brain-surgery-3d-heart-supermassive-black-hole

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