DOI: Physics of Fluids, 2026. 10.1103/tnxb-ckr5 (About DOIs).
Tracking Roman shipwreck repairs
Credit: Adriboats © L. Damelet, CNRS/CCJ
Credit: Adriboats © L. Damelet, CNRS/CCJ
In 2016, archaeologists discovered a shipwreck from the Roman Republic, the Ilovik-Paržine 1. The wreck has been the subject of many studies of the royal ship, allowing scientists to determine that it was built in what is now Brindisi, on the southeastern coast of Italy. More recently, analysis of pollen trapped in the ship’s waterproofing layers has provided a better understanding of repairs carried out successively elsewhere in the Adriatic Sea, according to a study paper published in the journal Frontiers in Materials.
According to the authors, previous research had largely ignored the study of non-wood materials, such as seawater-resistant coatings, so they used mass spectrometry and similar methods to examine the molecular composition of ten coating samples. The results showed that pine resin or tar was the main component. But one sample was a combination of beeswax and tar, a mixture unique to Greek shipbuilders known as in zop. The combination makes the coating easier to apply when heated and also makes the tar adhesive more flexible.
Because the adhesive nature of tar easily traps and preserves pollen, the researchers were also able to identify which plants were present when the coating was applied, so they could in turn identify the regions where the tar had been produced. They found pollen from a wide range of environments, such as oak forests, pine trees and scrublands, all typical of the Mediterranean and Adriatic coastal regions. Other samples contained alder and ash, more common in rivers, as well as spruce and beech, more typical of the mountainous regions of Istria and Dalmatia. This provides concrete evidence of the ship’s mid-voyage repairs.
DOI: Frontiers in Materials, 2026. 10.3389/fmats.2026.1758862 (About DOIs).
Crush soda cans for science
Who doesn’t love watching those YouTube videos of people using hydraulics to crush a variety of objects? That includes physicists at the University of Manchester, who were intrigued by the difference between crushing an empty soda can and one that’s full of liquid. An empty can immediately collapsed; A full can gradually collapses into a series of circular rings. The Manchester physicists wanted to know why a full can behaves this way. They investigated using a combination of mathematical modeling and laboratory crushing experiments, and described their findings in a paper published in the journal Communications Physics.
