Ingeborg Syllm, later Rapoport, as she looked shortly after she left Nazi Germany for the U.S. in 1938. PHOTO: DR. SUSAN RICHTER
1. Germany’s Oldest Student Awarded PhD Denied by Nazis 77 Years Ago
Ingeborg Rapoport, a 102-year-old, became the world’s oldest person to be awarded a doctorate, 77 years after she wrote her thesis. In 1938 the Nazis denied her PhD at the University of Hamburg because her mother was Jewish. Read more at Al Jazeera.
Watch Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz to learn about the two men who escaped the death camp to tell the world about the Nazi atrocities, a controversial decision at the time.
2. Indigenous Cultures Don’t Have Back Pain
In some areas of the world back pain is nonexistent, even among agricultural workers bent over seven to nine hours a day. Find out why at NPR.
3. Attack at Karnak Temple in Luxor
On Wednesday, Egyptian police foiled a bomb attack against tourists at the ancient temple of Karnak in Luxor, a southern city frequented by millions of foreign and Egyptian tourists every year. One assailant blew himself up with a bomb. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
4. Dinosaur Soft Tissue Recovered from Fossils
Researchers have recovered organic structures from fossilized specimens that are at least 75 million years old and report that new micro- and nano-scale mass spectrometry methods will lead to more tissue recovery. Read more at Smithsonian.com.
5. DNA Deciphers Roots of Modern Europeans
Ancient DNA, extracted from 170 skeletons found in countries from Spain to Russia, indicates that today’s Europeans descend from three groups of people who moved into Europe at different stages of history. Read more at The New York Times.
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