Ever wondered what a synchrotron was for. Well apparently, amongst other things, it can be used for reading ancient manuscripts. The Archimedes Palimpsest is the earliest transcription of the theories of the legendary Greek mathematician, and the original text detailed his method of mechanical theorems.

In 12th century material for writing on was expensive, and the parchment containing the manuscript was scraped clean and reused for the production of a prayer book. The problem was further compounded by 20th century forgers reusing the parchment once again to make fake medieval art, as per the image to the right.

Scientists at Stanford Radiation Laboratory used the synchrotron to cause the iron in the original ink to fluoresce enabling the original writing to be seen.