[lubujackson]

I always love reading the crazy new techniques for extracting text from rotten old paper and papyrus. I distinctly remember reading a few months back an article about someone detecting trace chemicals from an old pocket bible or something, and deduced the owner had liver disease or something equally insane. wish I could find that article!

[klenwell]

I was just about to post the link to this New Yorker article in response to GP's question. I believe this is the one you're referring to:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/do-proteins-ho...

Under the right conditions, proteins can survive for millions of years. In recent years, proteomic studies of art works and archeological remains have yielded biological information of startling clarity, revealing gossamer-thin layers of fish glue on seventeenth-century religious sculptures and identifying children’s milk teeth from pits of previously unrecognizable Neolithic bones.

[lubujackson]

Yes! Thank you, it was somehow impossible to Google this.

[medius]

Sherlock Holmes would be envious of such abilities.