Ep. 22: "Not Staying Mum About Mummies!”

While we tend to associate mummies with Halloween, manmade and naturally occurring mummies are one of science’s greatest sources of the genetics of human history, and analyzing parasites and diseases within their preserved bodies can help unwrap (if you will) the layers of yet-untold stories of how mankind got where we are today. In this episode, Mickey is unsealing the entombed secrets of the Incan Ice Mummies, the smoked mummies of the Torres Strait Islands, what paleomicrobiology is, how the paint color “Mummy Brown” got its name, and King Tut's lingering ailments and likely cause of death – though he was not, as Steve Martin suggested, “born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia”.