Dirt: the filthy reality of everyday life

From the Guardian

"Dirt, the Wellcome Collection's riveting new show, opens with a shocker: a window so filthy not an inch of glass is visible beneath the grime, a thick brown substance that twinkles repulsively in the gallery lights. It is gutter dirt, pavement dirt, the dirt of cities blown with dust and litter. It causes immediate recoil."

• Photo gallery - exploring the visual history of our complex relationship with dirt and disease includes a fascinating selection of 19th and 20th century poster and advertising campaigns

History of drugs: Narcotics antiquitus

From the Indy

"The illegal drug business is, we know, colossal, gigantic, oceanic.

After arms and oil, it's the biggest money-spinning market on the planet, pulling in £200bn every year. And soon we'll be celebrating, if that's the word, 50 years of its illegality. It was in 1961 that the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, and we can see how successful that well-meaning organisation has been. But does anyone think that the phenomenon of people getting off their heads goes back only as far as the early 1960s?Try this for size. It's the report of a dope-fest that took place on the Bay of Biscay in the 1670s, recorded by one Thomas Bowrey, an English sea captain. He and his friends watched with interest the weird reaction of the locals to a liquid called bhang, made from crushed cannabis pods mixed with milk, and thought they'd try it themselves. They each bought a pint (for the equivalent of sixpence), locked themselves in a house and knocked it back."

Cancer caused by modern man as it was virtually non-existent in ancient world

From the Telegraph

"Cancer is a modern man-made disease caused by the excesses of modern life, a new study suggests.

Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.

The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition."

Ancient brewers tapped antibiotic secrets

From Emory University

"A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago."