Researchers studying the Shroud of Turin, the cloth believed to have been used to wrap the body of Jesus Christ, learned that it had been contaminated with food over time.
Their findings published on bioRxiv in March were based on the analysis of DNA traces collected from the relic in 1978, Fox News reported.
According to the researchers, 30.9 percent of the analyzed DNA were of carrots and 11.6 percent of wheat. There were smaller traces of DNA from maize, rye, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, melons, cucumbers, peanuts, ryegrass, bluegrass, fescue, oats, clover, banana, almond, walnut, sweet orange, fig, pistachio, apple, pear, hazelnut and grapevine.
Meanwhile, a microbiologist baked a very good loaf of sourdough bread using ancient yeast.
Mohamed Sarhan of Eurac Research’s Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano, Italy published the baking experiment he conducted in the Microbiome journal on 3 June. The yeast was part of a microbiome that survived sub-zero temperatures for 5,300 years, or since the Copper Age, Reuters reports.
It was inside the gut of a mummy named Oetzi, which hikers found in the Italian alps in 1991.
Because the body was entombed in a glacial condition, it was extremely well-preserved, including the microbes and gut bacteria that yielded the yeast.
Sarhan said his team plans to next use the Oetzi yeast to brew beer.