3-D technology used to safely reveal the diet of 'Chaucer's children'
3-D technology used to safely reveal the diet of 'Chaucer's children'
February 25, 2016 by Sandy Fleming
Biological anthropologists have discovered a new way of examining the fragile teeth of children who lived between the 11th and 15th centuries without damaging them.
By using 3D microscopic imaging, researchers from the universities of Kent (UK) and Indianapolis (USA) have been able to safely reconstruct the diet of children who would have lived next door to Canterbury Cathedral when Chaucer was writing his famous Tales.
The 3D technology—known as dental microwear texture analysis—involved measuring microscopic changes in the surface topography of the teeth.This is the first time that this technology has been applied to children's teeth.
By using this technology Kent's Dr Patrick Mahoney, biological anthropologist, (School of Anthropology and Conservation), and colleagues, who included a historian, were able to learn more about how diet varied among children from poor and wealthy families in medieval Canterbury. Dietary reconstructions from ancient teeth are often destructive, but this technology offers a new way to access this information without damaging fragile teeth.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-d-technology-safely-reveal-diet.html#jCp
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Believe me as an activist for low income families, I have been on this for almost 30 years. The biggest dip came after Welfare Reform (we call it 'Welfare DEFormed). President Clinton signed it into law in 1996 ~ and HRC eagerly supported it. On its 10th anniversary in 2006 and when she was a senator, HRC went around the country crowing about how "wonderful" Welfare DEFormed was with of all disgusting people, Lieberman.
We tried to warn of the consequences for this terrible bill, but were ridiculed ~ often by our supposedly "progressive allies."
Unfortunately all we predicted has come to fruition ~ and worse. 
Cat in Seattle
