An ancient volcano victim's brain turned to glass. Scientists now think they know how

The young man was found dead in a small room near the entrance to the Hall of the Augustales, a civic order of freedmen, a bit like a freemason lodge. The ash cloud then dissipated and the brain could cool down quickly to ambient temperature, transforming into glass,” Dr. Guido Giordano, lead author of the new study and adjunct professor in the department of science at Roma Tre University in Rome, told Salon in an email. After demonstrating in the 2020 paper that the glass-like substance found in the guardian’s brain was organic in origin and in fact was vitrified brain tissue, Dr. Pierpaolo Petrone and others used scanning electron microscopy and image processing tools to visualize the man’s actual brain cells, incredibly well-preserved, even as the rest of him was charred to mostly ash. “The ash cloud then dissipated and the brain could cool down quickly to ambient temperature, transforming into glass,” Giordano told Salon. This way, should anyone be caught in a dilute hot ash cloud, was the case of the unfortunate ancient Roman in Herculaneum, there could be a possibility to survive and wait for rescue.” It does sound magical that a human being could turn into glass, but far better if studying the Guardian can prevent vaporizing, volatilization and vitrification — or saponification — of anyone else.