How Studying Mummies Could Cure Modern Diseases

Ancient Remains This mummy was once Amenhotep III, King Tut's grandfather. Getty Images/Kenneth Garrett Earlier this year, scientists published a study of whole-body CT scans of 137 mummies: ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, ancestral Puebloans of southwest America, and Unangan hunter-gatherers of the Aleutian Islands. They reported signs of athero­sclerosis--a dangerous artery hardening that can lead to heart attacks or stroke--in 34 percent of them. What struck the research team, led by Randal...