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Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” was one of the first songs I learned to play on the violin.
I will never forget the joy I felt playing the fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony with my fellow orchestra members.
But every loose musical moment has its side, and Beethoven poured his despair into his final symphony.
Beethoven started experiencing hearing loss in his 20s and was deaf in his 30s – but that didn’t stop him from writing some of his greatest and most enduring pieces.
It was the wish of the classical composer that his health issues would be understood and brought to the public. Doctors’ notes are lost in time, scientists Beethoven’s genome sequenced from a lock of his hair last year.
Now, researchers are one step closer to understanding the troubled genius’s mysterious ailments.
Hulton Archive / Getty Images
It features an 1805 portrait of the German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven.
A new analysis of Beethoven’s hair has revealed that the composer suffered from lead poisoning towards the end of his life. He died in 1827 at the age of 56.
Experiments turned out to be incredible Elevated lead levelsas well as arsenic and mercury, in his two locks, probably from drinking sweet wine with lead.
Researchers don’t believe lead poisoning was enough to kill him, but it may have contributed to the composer’s well-known gastrointestinal problems and deafness.
Unlocking the causes of Beethoven’s death from kidney and liver disease may also shed light on how the composer turned his illness into music.
“People say, ‘The music is the music, why do we need to know about anything?’ They say. But in Beethoven’s life, there is a connection between his pain and his music,” says Beethoven scholar William Meredith.
Spectacular auroras may be visible across parts of southern Alabama this weekend due to an unusual spike in solar activity.
Scientists at the Space Weather Forecast Center have observed numerous flares and coronal mass ejections. Large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and fluctuating magnetic fields are erupting from a cluster of sunspots measuring 16 times the diameter of Earth.
The predicted solar storm has the potential to disrupt power grids and communications on Earth, but experts agree that people don’t need to take extraordinary steps to prepare for space weather.
However, you may want to take photos of the sky with your phone since your camera can record. The dancing lights of the Aurora Borealis.
Green Arabia project
Saudi Arabian researchers have studied Umm Jirsan, the region’s longest lava tube system.
Millions of years ago, lava flows on Earth created a network of giant underground tunnels called lava tubes, which provided a perfect place for our Neolithic ancestors to beat the heat.
During the Stone Age, 7,000 years ago, the caves sheltered shepherds and their cattle from the constant heat and wind of the Arabian Peninsula.
Researchers in Saudi Arabia found the images People who stick with animals like dogs and sheep On the walls of Umm Girsan. Archaeologists have helped uncover the history of the people who took refuge in the lava tubes, as well as how they adapted to the arid environments.
Strange creatures began to appear on Earth 500 million years ago – and scientists now believe that this is because the Earth’s protective magnetic field is about to collapse.
The first forms of life were single-celled microorganisms. But about 591 million years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field weakened significantly, allowing oxygen to increase in the atmosphere.
After this event, with animals Amazingly unusual fan, donut and tube shapes It appeared in fossils representing the first complex animals on the planet.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
A turtle swims on the bleached coral in a lagoon on Lady Elliot Island, south of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, in February.
A rare event is changing the Great Barrier Reef and reef systems around the world. Silent sea tombs.
It is the fourth mass coral bleaching event driven by ocean warming since the late 1990s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Ocean heat waves stress corals, causing them to excrete algae and lose their color, and the risk of extinction is occurring at an unprecedented rate, experts say.
“What’s happening in our oceans right now is like an underwater wildfire,” said Kate Quigley, principal research scientist at the Mindoro Foundation in Australia. “We’re going to be so hot that we’re going to the bottom line and we’re not going to come back.”
Take time to explore these new discoveries:
– When attacked by predators, the dice snake fakes its own death as a defensive measure – uses Gory special effects to produce a convincing theatrical display.
– The Dark Energy Camera captured a stunning image of cosmic behavior. The “hand of God” that seems to find a defenseless galaxy – but it’s actually a rare celestial phenomenon.
– Boeing’s Starling space shuttle’s historic first flight test has been rescheduled for May 17. A faulty valve stopped the start attempt on Monday.
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