TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

07 April 2026

Scientists are exposing the biological information hidden in ancient parchments without leaving a mark.

By

Marla Broadfoot Marla Broadfoot is a science writer and editor in Wendell, North Carolina.

In May 2006, Tim Stinson travelled to England to tour the libraries of London, Oxford and Cambridge. At the time, he was editing a fourteenth-century poem for his PhD at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and after months of poring over grainy microfilm copies, he was eager to get his hands on an original. During a visit to Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries — a place so magical that scenes from the Harry Potter films were shot there — he was finally handed one of the manuscripts he had travelled all that way to see.…