This may look like your last bad trip, but you’re actually looking at a sample of damaged blood cells over 5000 years old. Taken from Ötzi, the iceman met his demise on the Schnalstal glacier in the Alps, the dark areas on the cells in this microscope image show bruising that happened during his death.
Scientists have long been confident that Ötzi died of serious injuries obtained in hand-to-hand combat — but these new images from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy, suggest he received a blow to the forehead. In turn, that caused his brain to knock against the back of his skull, bruising blood cells in the process. [Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences via New Scientist]