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gawdonblue [soylentnews.org] writes:

Scientists were hoping to use ancient Roman sunken cargo to find out how the the universe works.

This story [abc.net.au], from Australia's national broadcaster, details how scientists were keen to use old lead from a ship that sunk in Roman times to shield modern instruments from stray radiation.

Ancient lead is particularly useful for this purpose as the metal can take hundreds of years after being mined to lose appreciable amounts of radiation from Lead-210 decay.

But using archeological salvage has its own issues. Should we be using and losing ancient artifacts for modern purposes, or is it better to keep the items intact for future study? Or perhaps there is an acceptable middle-ground...

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