Did lead poisoning contribute to the fall of the Roman Empire? It’s a question historians have long debated, since the Romans sweetened their wine with lead acetate and sipped tap water that flowed ...

Silver fueled the rise of the Roman Empire. But the ancient process of mining and extracting silver was also making the air ...

Exposure to lead from mining probably lowered I.Q. levels in the empire, research has found. It might be the world’s first ...

Scientists are exploring the role of lead pollution in the decline of the Roman Empire, proposing that chronic lead exposure ...

Some have even argued that lead poisoning played a role in the downfall of the Roman empire. Most of those arguments have focused on ancient writings and archeology that provide hints about lead’s ...

The new research adds context to a long-standing debate about the role lead pollution and poisoning may have played in the collapse of the Roman Empire. Some historians have argued that Roman ...

Arctic ice cores uncover how Roman lead pollution led to widespread IQ declines over 2,000 years ago, revealing impacts on ...

Atmospheric lead pollution likely caused cognitive decline among citizens of the Roman Empire, according to research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"A 2 to 3 points lower IQ doesn't sound like much, but when you apply that to the entire European population, it's quite a lot." ...

The presence of lead in things like gasoline and paint up until the 1970s presented a bevy of problems for Americans, not the ...