The article highlights the work of three scholars exploring diverse themes in their upcoming 2025 publications. Sebastian Klinger examines the cultural significance and representation of sleep prior to modern sleep science, revealing insomnia's impact on notable literary figures. Jessica Oublié investigates the environmental and health consequences of the insecticide chlordecone in the Caribbean, showcasing the personal narratives of affected families and communities. Meanwhile, Anna Källén wrestles with the challenges of using ancient DNA to explore ancestry, indicating the difficulties of confirming historical connections amidst fragmentary genetic evidence.
Before the first study of electroencephalography was published in 1929, sleep science did not exist. Sleep was a mystery; Sigmund Freud excluded it from his 1899 study of dreams.
Chlordecone is an obsolete insecticide first produced in the United States in 1966... Until 1993, France allowed its use for banana farming in Guadeloupe and Martinique, where it was found in the water, soils and crops.
Through archival records, she traced her ancestry to fourteenth-century Christian mystic Saint Bridget. But it is impossible to confirm their relation, because Bridget's remains only contain a few hundred of the three billion base pairs in the human genome.
When we write history with ancient DNA, we are finders of fact and tellers of stories.
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