All posts tagged: reconstruct

Archaeologists at Pompeii Use AI to Reconstruct the Face of a Man Killed in the Volcano’s Eruption

Archaeologists at Pompeii Use AI to Reconstruct the Face of a Man Killed in the Volcano’s Eruption

ROME (AP) — Archaeologists and researchers at the ancient Roman site of Pompeii have used artificial intelligence for the first time to digitally reconstruct the face of a man killed in the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that smothered the city, offering a new way to understand one of history’s most famous natural disasters. The digital portrait represents a man whose remains, along with those of another person, were discovered as they attempted to flee the city toward the coast of what is now Italy during the volcanic eruption. Researchers believe the man died early in the disaster, during a heavy fall of volcanic debris. The reconstruction was developed by the Pompeii Archaeological Park, which announced on its website that it was done in collaboration with the University of Padua and based on archaeological survey data from excavations near the Porta Stabia necropolis, just outside the walls of the ancient city. The announcement shows the AI-generated illustration of what the man could have looked like. He is shown running along a rough, debris-covered road, …

‘Space archaeologists’ use oxygen map to reconstruct a galaxy’s 12-billion-year past

‘Space archaeologists’ use oxygen map to reconstruct a galaxy’s 12-billion-year past

The oxygen in a galaxy does not sit still. It spreads, thins out, piles up, and leaves behind a record of where stars formed, where gas moved, and when smaller galaxies crashed in. In the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1365, astronomers have now read that record in unusual detail, using oxygen as a kind of fossil trail. That work, published in Nature Astronomy, marks what the researchers describe as the first use of galactic archaeology beyond the Milky Way at this level of precision. The team, led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian, calls the approach “extragalactic archaeology,” a way to reconstruct how a distant galaxy grew by studying the chemical fingerprints in its gas. “This is the first time that a chemical archaeology method has been used with such fine detail outside our own galaxy,” said Lisa Kewley, lead author, Harvard professor, and director of the Center for Astrophysics. “We want to understand how we got here. How did our own Milky Way form, and how did we end up breathing …