Every athlete - be they football hero or SCA knight - knows the value of pickles and pickle juice as a "secret weapon" to balance electrolytes during intense exercise, especially in hot weather. Now a new study from Brigham Young University validates the folk remedy.

An international team of researchers has reconstructed the genetic code of the Black Death using DNA extracted from the teeth of medieval corpses buried in a graveyard in London's East Smithfield. Their research has been published in the science journal Nature.

Over two thousand years ago, a Roman ship sank off the coast of Italy, near the island of Elba. Among the items on the ship was an ancient medical kit containing a mortar and pestle set, medicine spatulas, and pills and tablets that are surprisingly similar to our modern ones.

Friar Galen of Ockham announces the formation of Marginalia: An "Invisible College" for Natural Philosophers of the Knowne World of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State Univerity has issued a call for papers for its 18th Annual ACMRS Conference. The topic is: Erotica and the Erotic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Deadline for papers will be October 16, 2011.  

The annual undergraduate conference of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies will convene February 16-19, 2012 in Tempe Arizona. The topic of this year's conference is: Erotica and the Erotic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

 The type of bacteria which caused the European "Black Death" plague in the mid-1300s has been identified as Yersina pestis, according to a news report on CNN.com.  That particular strain of bacteria no longer seems to exist, although a different form still affects people in a number of countries.

A lack of "great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites" has led The Black Death in London author Barney Sloane to conclude that the rodents were not the cause of plague in 14th century England. "The evidence just isn't there to support it," he said.

Medical historians and students of illuminated manuscripts will want to take a look at the Wellcome Library's Arabic manuscript collection, which includes some of its most important texts of Arabic medicine.

How did Christopher Columbus really change history? Not by the "discovery" of the New world, but by ecological convulsion, the exchange of plants, animals and diseases between the two continents. Such is the premise of Charles C. Mann's new book 1493.

In the early 16th century, Gottfried “Götz” von Berlichingen, a knight  - and rogue - of the Holy Roman Empire, found his hand ripped off by a cannonball during the Siege of Landshut. This did not stop the staunch German, however, who had an iron prosthetic crafted to replace the appendage. PG-13 for language.

Long before grills and gold caps, Vikings used tooth decoration as a way to intimidate their enemies. Evidence can be seen in the intricate horizontal patterns filed into the teeth of Viking warriors found buried in Dorset.

Bring on the Pennsic chocolate milk! New studies by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have shown that a chocolate milkshake after a hard workout might be more beneficial than water or an isotonic sports drink.

European academics are concerned about the amount of violent brain traumas in the popular Asterix comics series, most dealt out by Asterix and Obelix themselves.

Master Phillip the Pilgrim has written an article explaining how to keep your CPAP machine or other electrical neccessities running at Pennsic.

For centuries, people have dreaded the diagnosis of the STD Syphilis, but where did the name originate? Acording the the website Science Friday, Syphilus was the name of the hero of a epic poem written by Hieronymus Fracastorius in 1530.

The scull of a leper who died fighting is one of several interesting burials identified at an Italian cemetery used between 500 and 700 CE. The cemetery likely contains remains of Germanic Lombards or Avars.

A team of researchers, based at the University of Mainz in Germany, have confirmed that fleas were responsible for spreading the plague that wiped out over half of the population of 14th century Europe.

According to a new study, multiple miscarriages and dramatic personality transformation may be linked to a genetic condition related to the blood group carried by King Henry VIII of England.

The myth of Irish giants such as Fionn Mac Cumhail may contain a grain of truth, according to a recent genetic study. DNA may show that a strain of gigantism ran through five families in the northern part of the country.

Mistress Christianna MacGrain reports on the formation of the Modern Humours Yahoo Group, a discussion forum "open to all persons interested in historical reenactment while dealing with food sensitivities."

A new study of the 1510 influenza pandemic by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases may help modern doctors plan for preventing, controlling and treating such diseases.

Corrective lenses have a long history. Glasses filled with water and gems were used by Romans in the 1st century, while the Chinese developed spectacles in the 13th. In an article for the Telegraph, Victoria Ward looks at the history of eyeglasses.

Several new studies of the Bubonic Plague, which devasted Europe in the Middle Ages and the 17th century, have led researchers to the conclusion that the disease originated in China and was carried west over the Silk Road.

Examining bodily fluids to determine ailments is a practice with roots going back to ancient times, as described in an article by Cristina Luiggi in The Scientist magazine.

Archaeologists working at the site of a former Leper Hospital at St Mary Magdalen in Winchester, England believe the hospital may date to the 11th century, making it the earliest known hospital in Britain.

An international group of scientists has produced a new study establishing Yersinia pestis as "the etiologic agent of modern plague." The study is especially interested in the second pandemic or the "Black Death" which ravaged Europe from 1347 until 1750.

"Interestingly it was the peasant class, whose diet would class today as healthy," said Dr Iona McCleery, a lecturer in medieval history at Leeds University, who heads a program which uses history to encourage children to eat better.

For the past nine years, archaeologists have been excavating what they believe is Iceland's oldest hospital, dating to the early 16th century. The building, located near Skriduklaustur in east Iceland, was part of a monastery.

The South Yorkshire town of Bawtry, England, became a center of archaeological interest recently when excavation of a disused car part revealed a dozen skeletons dating to the 14th century.