The iconic glazed-brick edifice, which King Nebuchadnezzar II ordered to be built and decorated with wild bulls and mušhuššu-dragons while ruling the Babylonian empire from 605 to 562 B.C., was constructed in three phases and served as the entrance to the ancient city of Babylon, located in southern Mesopotamia. However, the exact dates of each construction phase have long been up for debate, according to a study published Wednesday (Jan. 17) in the journal PLOS One.

While it's known that Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the first phase, as these bricks are inscribed with his name, it was less clear if some time had passed before the second and third phases were completed, according to the study. Some researchers even wondered if Nebuchadnezzar II had died before the gate's completion.

To set the record straight, archaeologists collected tiny samples from five of the fired mud bricks from the Ishtar Gate (now reconstructed at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) spread across the three phases and measured the geomagnetic fields of each one in a process known as archaeomagnetism.

Related: Cuneiform inscription from last king of Babylon discovered in Saudi Arabia

Archaeomagnetism measures the effect of Earth's magnetic field that's preserved in the archaeological record of an object, according to the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It offers an even more accurate time stamp than radiocarbon dating, the most common method of archaeological measurement.

This new analysis determined that there were no "significant chronological gaps" between each construction phase and that the "gate complex was constructed some time after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem" that took place in 586 B.C. During the conquest of Jerusalem, the Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple; burned down the city; and exiled the Jews to southern Mesopotamia, also known as Babylonia.

The researchers concluded that because all of the magnetic-field measurements in the five bricks were similar, the reconstructions were executed around the same time: 583 B.C., according to the study.

"The age is based on the period of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, during which the order to build the gate was given," the team wrote in the study, indicating that the king was alive at the gate's completion.

The finding suggests that the Ishtar Gate didn't change style through the construction process but rather that "phases II and III are related to the original design of the gate and reflect the construction process rather than later additions, detached from the original construction of phase I," the authors wrote.

The researchers hope to perform similar archaeomagnetic analyses on other ancient structures in Mesopotamia, since fired mud bricks have proved to be reliable sources for this technique and were a common building material during that era.

Nearby, construction vehicles that had been working for weeks to build large earthen dams and berms in an attempt to divert the lava's flow had to pull back.

Humans have tried many ways to stop lava in the past, from attempting to freeze it in place by cooling it with sea water, to using explosives to disrupt its supply, to building earthen barriers.

It's too soon to say if Iceland's earthworks will succeed in saving Grindavík, a town of about 3,500 residents, and a nearby geothermal power plant. As a volcanologist, I follow these methods. The most successful attempts to stop or reroute lava have involved diversions like Iceland's.

Why lava is so hard to stop

Lava is a sluggish, viscous fluid that behaves somewhat like tar. It is subject to gravity, so like other fluids, it will flow downslope along a path of steepest descent.

With the temperature of its molten rock often well above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 Celsius), not much can stand in its way.

Freezing lava in its tracks

In 1973, Icelanders attempted the most famous "lava freezing" experiment. They used water hoses from a flotilla of small boats and fishing vessels to protect the small island community of Heimaey from the Eldfell volcano's lava.

The lava flows were threatening to close off the harbor, which is critical to the region's fishing industry and a lifeline to the Icelandic mainland. The eruption ended before the success of the strategy could be properly evaluated, but the harbor survived.

Fighting lava with explosives

Hawaiians used explosives dropped from planes in 1935 and 1942 to try to disrupt lava flows from Mauna Loa volcano that were threatening the town of Hilo on the Big Island.

The idea was to disrupt the channels or lava tubes in the volcano that were supplying lava to the surface. Neither attempt was successful. The explosions created new channels, but the newly formed lava flows soon rejoined the original lava channel.

Lava barriers and diversions

Most recent efforts have focused instead on a third strategy: building dams or ditches in an attempt to divert the lava's flow toward a different path of steepest descent, into a different "lavashed," a concept similar to a watershed but where lava would naturally flow.

Results have been mixed, but diversion can be successful if the lava flow can be clearly diverted into a distinct area where lava would naturally flow — without threatening a different community in the process.

Many attempts to divert lava have failed, however. Barriers built in Italy to stop Mt. Etna's lava flows in 1992 slowed the flow, but the lava eventually overtopped each one.

Iceland's diversion efforts

Icelandic authorities evacuated Grindavík's residents in November 2023 after swarms of earthquakes indicated a reactivation of the nearby volcanic system.

Shortly afterward, construction began on protective barriers for the town and some nearby critical infrastructure — notably, the Svartsengi geothermal power station. Construction had to be put on hold in mid-December, when a first volcanic eruption occurred about 2.5 miles northeast of Grindavík, but work resumed in January. Work was still underway when magma reached the surface again on Jan. 14.

Diverting lava in this region is difficult, in part because the land around Grindavík is relatively flat. That makes it harder to identify a clear alternative path of steepest descent for redirecting the lava.

Icelandic officials reported on Jan. 15 that most of the lava from the main fissure had flowed along the outside the barrier, however a new fissure had also opened inside the perimeter, sending lava into a neighborhood. Unfortunately, that implies that Grindavík remains at risk.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The mammoth, whose name Élmayuujey'eh translates to "hella lookin" in the aboriginal Kaska language, was likely killed by early Beringian hunter-gatherers when she was 20 years old. Her existence is known thanks to a complete tusk discovered at Swan Point, one of the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas.

Élmayuujey'eh, or Elma for short, was born toward the end of the last ice age in what is now the Canadian province of the Yukon, where she likely stayed for the first decade of her life. A new analysis of the mammoth's tusk suggests she then set off across the frozen landscape, covering roughly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) in under three years. 

"That's a huge amount of movement for a single mammoth," study co-author Hendrik Poinar, a professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Canada and the director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Center, said in a video released by the university. Elma trekked all the way into Alaska and eventually slowed down, Poinar said.

Her remains indicate she was closely related to both a juvenile and a newborn woolly mammoth whose bones were also unearthed at Swan Point. The trio may have belonged to one of two matriarchal herds that roamed an area within 6.2 miles (10 km) of Swan Point, according to the study, published Wednesday (Jan. 17) in the journal Science Advances.

Related: Huge mammoth jaw at least 10,000 years old pulled up from Florida river

To piece Elma's life together, researchers split her tusk lengthwise and examined thin layers of ivory that formed like the rings of a tree trunk throughout her years. The proportion of different versions of chemical elements, or isotopes, in these layers contained valuable information about the mammoth's diet and location, enabling the team to retrace her steps.

The researchers also analyzed ancient DNA in Elma's tusk and compared it with the remains of eight other woolly mammoths found in and around Swan Point, including the two youngsters. Their results revealed the mammoths belonged to at least two distinct herds that may have gathered in the region along with other mammoth herds — a congregation that would have attracted humans.

"Indigenous hunters clearly saw that the mammoths were using this as a really important location for feeding," Poinar said in the video. "The data to me suggest that these were Indigenous people that appreciated, looked at, loved these phenomenal beasts walking on this landscape. But it would make sense too, that in times of need, that you would kill them — a mammoth like that could provide food for a huge number of people over a long period of time." 

Elma's remains indicate she was in the prime of early adulthood and well nourished at the time of her death. She likely died in late summer or early autumn, which coincides with when humans would have set up their seasonal hunting camp at Swan Point and suggests she died at the hands of hunters, according to the study.

Very little is known about the geographic movements and behaviors of woolly mammoths — or about how these animals interacted with early Americans — but stories like Elma's can paint us a picture.

"This analysis of lifetime movements can really help with our understanding of how people and mammoths lived in these areas," co-author Tyler Murchie, a postdoctoral researcher and former member of the MacMaster Ancient DNA Center, said in a statement. "We can continue to significantly expand our genetic understanding of the past, and to address more nuanced questions of how mammoths moved, how they were related to one another and how that all connects to ancient people." 

Different animals carry contrasting numbers of neurons in their brains, ranging from hundreds in worms to tens of billions in humans. Neurons form connections with each other, called synapses, that enable information to pass from one region of the brain to another in the form of electrical signals. Together, these connections form a network that enables animals to function and process information about the world. 

This network is flexible; it is always changing and rearranging. Some of the connections between neurons are fairly weak and thus easily broken and replaced, while a small group are super strong. These strong links are known as "heavy-tailed" connections because, on a graph of connection density in the brain from low to high, they're the outliers plotted at the dense end of the scale — like the tail of an animal. 

These heavy-tailed connections play a bigger role in controlling major cognitive processes, such as learning and memory, compared with the weaker connections that far outnumber them in the brain. However, it was unknown whether these strong links formed via simple, known principles of network organization or via mechanisms that were species-specific, according to the authors of the new study, published Wednesday (Jan. 17) in the journal Nature Physics. 

Related: 3D map plots human brain-cell 'antennae' in exquisite detail

"It has been known for some time that the number of neurons that a neuron is connected to varies widely with some neurons in the network being highly-connected hubs," Marcus Kaiser, a professor of neuroinformatics at Nottingham University in the U.K., who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email. 

"However, across species, the distribution of weights [strengths] of a connection also varies widely," he said. The team wanted to see if this variation might stem from differences in how each species' brain comes to be wired. 

The authors analyzed maps of the wiring between neurons, called connectomes, based on the brains of mice, fruit flies and two worm species. They created these maps by analyzing tissue samples with specialized imaging techniques. 

To deduce how heavy-tail connections may form, they used the data from the connectomes to develop a mathematical model based on a principle of neuronal self-organization known as Hebbian plasticity. This principle can be summed up with the phrase "neurons that fire together, wire together." In other words, when one neuron repeatedly activates another via chemical messages, the connection between the two cells gets stronger. This basic principle underlies how we learn and form memories. 

However, some previous research has suggested that Hebbian dynamics alone may not completely explain animals' ability to rewire their synapses and strengthen connections between neurons. 

The authors' model confirmed that Hebbian plasticity explained the formation of heavy-tail connections in all of the animals they studied, without the need for additional mechanisms specific to each species. In addition to explaining heavy-tailed connections, this principle likely guides neurons' tendency to cluster together and form tightly knit groups depending on their activity levels, the researchers said. 

To make their model better resemble a real brain, the authors ensured it accounted for some randomness in its network organization, they said in a statement. They assumed that neurons would typically rearrange and connect due to their activity, as in Hebbian dynamics, or randomly, with synapses sometimes disconnecting or forming without clear reason, Christopher Lynn, first author of the new study and an assistant professor of physics at Yale University, said in another statement. 

"Overall, this is a promising first step to explain the variation in synaptic weight [the strength of connections between neurons] across biological neural networks," Kaiser said. 

However, a limitation of the article may be that the authors only compared a few features in their model to real neuronal networks, he said. For example, they tested clustering with their model but not other features you'd expect to see in brain networks with heavy-tail connections, he said. These include modules — densely connected regions of neurons — and short overall path lengths, meaning the distance between the cells. 

The authors didn't study human brains in the work, but they think that studying this seemingly universal principle of network development could help scientists better understand the structure and function of the brain in many animals, including humans. 

Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website!

The James Webb Space Telescope, whose cameras enable it to look back in time to our universe's beginnings, spotted the supermassive black hole at the center of the infant galaxy GN-z11 just 440 million years after the universe began.

And the space-time rupture isn't alone, it's one of countless black holes that gorged themselves to terrifying scales during the cosmic dawn — the period about 100 million years after the Big Bang when the young universe began glowing for a billion years. 

How the cosmic whirlpools ballooned in scale so rapidly after the universe began isn't clear. But looking for an answer could help explain how today's supermassive black holes — which anchor entire galaxies including our Milky Way — grew to such mind-boggling sizes. The researchers published their findings Jan. 17 in the journal Nature.

Black holes in the early universe "can't grow quietly and gently as many black holes do in the local [present-day] universe," lead-author Roberto Maiolino, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science. "They must experience some peculiar birth or formation, and some peculiar growth."

Closer to the present-day, astronomers believe black holes are born from the collapse of giant stars. But however they come to be, they grow by ceaselessly gorging on gas, dust, stars and other black holes. As they feast, friction causes the material spiraling into the black holes' maws to heat up, and they emit light that can be detected by telescopes — turning them into so-called active galactic nuclei (AGN).

Related: Object mistaken as a galaxy is actually a black hole pointed directly at Earth 

The most extreme AGN are quasars, supermassive black holes that are billions of times heavier than the sun and shed their gaseous cocoons with light blasts trillions of times more luminous than the brightest stars.

Because light travels at a fixed speed through the vacuum of space, the deeper that scientists look into the universe, the more remote light they intercept and the further back in time they see. To spot the black hole in the new study, the astronomers scanned the sky with two infrared cameras — the JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and Near Infrared Camera — and used the cameras' built-in spectrographs to break down the light into its component frequencies. 

By deconstructing these faint glimmers from the universe's earliest years, they found an unexpected spike among the frequencies contained within the light — a key sign that the hot material around a black hole was beaming out faint traces of light across the universe.

The most popular explanations for how these early black holes grew so fast are that they formed from the sudden collapse of giant gas clouds or that they came from many mergers between clumps of stars and black holes. 

Nonetheless, astronomers haven't ruled out that some of these black holes could have been seeded by hypothesized "primordial" black holes, thought to be created moments after — and in some theories even before — the universe began.

"It's not so clear that [direct collapse] is the only way to make a black hole, because you need some special circumstances for it to happen," Maiolino said. "You need it to be a pristine cloud, yet to be enriched by heavy elements made by the first stars, and one that is fairly massive — from 10,000 to up to a million solar masses."

To prevent such a cloud from cooling too quickly and collapsing into massive stars first, it must also be beamed with ultraviolet light, likely from a nearby galaxy or black hole.

"So you need this peculiar condition where the cloud is not getting enriched [by absorbing exploded star material], but is also next to another galaxy which is producing a lot of photons," Maiolino said. "So we're not necessarily looking for a single scenario, actually two or more of them could be at play."

The cemetery, found ahead of construction work for a solar energy project in the town of Tuscania, may have been associated with a hotel-like villa that served as a way station for important travelers, such as provincial officials.

"The jewels, but also the glass, pottery, the footwear, the numerous coins, give us an image of people who enjoyed a certain well-being and could afford some small luxuries," Emanuele Giannini of the archaeology firm Eos Arc and the lead archaeologist at the site, told Live Science in an email.

Most of the tombs were in the so-called "cappuccina" style — a common burial type in which the deceased were covered with stone or ceramic tiles arranged in an A-frame shape. However, the archaeologists also found simple graves with no such covering, as well as skeletons contained in large ceramic vessels and evidence of some cremations.

Related: Elite Roman man buried with sword may have been 'restrained' in death

Dated to the height of the Roman Empire, to between the second and fourth centuries A.D., the necropolis was likely associated with a way station called a "mansio." There, dignitaries and other officials could stop for rest and refreshments while on government business. Giannini said that historical sources mention a mansio called Tabellaria along the via Aurelia, an ancient road which ran roughly from Pisa to Rome; the location of this mansio is just 1,640 feet (500 meters) from the cemetery, suggesting a connection.

So far, archaeologists have made only basic assessments of the newfound skeletons in terms of sex and age-at-death, and they suggest that the people lived in an urban context. "Discovering who they were is part of my research," Giannini said.

He and his team plan to undertake genetic studies to learn more about the 67 people who were buried in the necropolis, including trying to figure out whether the tombs that contained more than one person held the remains of family members.

In addition, the artifacts found in the excavation are being studied and restored, Giannini said, and when that is complete, they will be exhibited in a local museum. "We have already done a lot, but much still remains to be done," he said.

Using the latest technology, Giannini and his team hope to extend their research by reconstructing the lives of the ancient population of the area in as detailed a manner as possible. The project is "ambitious but realistic," according to Giannini, but key to better understanding how people lived during the time of the Roman Empire.

According to a translated statement from the Iceland Met Office (IMO), magma is accumulating below the surface, as was the case before the previous eruptions on Dec. 18 and again in Jan. 14. "When a magma vent forms near the surface, the earth's crust is strained and land sinks over the center of the magma vent," IMO representatives wrote. "Furthermore, the earth's crust pushes up on either side of it." 

If magma accumulation had stopped, the land around Svartsengi should have started to subside. "This is not the case, and it is therefore clear that magma is accumulating as before," the statement noted.

In Grindavík, the ground is continuing to deform, with new cracks appearing while existing ones are getting wider, according to the IMO statement. 

With magma still accumulating and moving around, the risk of another fissure opening and lava spilling out remains. The geology of the region is highly fractured, so working out exactly where another eruption could take place is not possible, Carmen Solana, associate professor in volcanology and risk communication at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., told Live Science. 

Related: Situation in Grindavík has 'become very bleak' following new eruption

"The area has reactivated," she said, adding that while experts can't be sure whether another eruption will take place, the current signs suggest it is likely. "The fact that it [the ground] hasn't deflated as it should given the volume [of magma] that has come to the surface, it's more likely than not that more magma will come to the surface," she said.

What happens next is unknown, but the situation on the Reykjanes Peninsula is precarious. The three fissures that have appeared so far are all part of the same system beneath the surface. Magma accumulates and tunnels into weak points in the crust, eventually breaking through to the surface. In each of the previous events, lava has stopped flowing within days, then the cycle seems to start again. 

Þorvaldur Þórðarson, professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, told the Iceland Monitor he believes another eruption is coming. "We could be looking at a recurring event," he said. "We fill it [the magma chamber] and drain it and fill it again and drain it again." 

How long this could last will depend on how much magma there is — something scientists don't know. So these eruptive phases could continue, with new fissures appearing at any time. 

If the volcano does erupt for a third time, the magma will ascend through different conduits to the surface, with weaker areas being the most likely points for an eruption, Solana said. The ground beneath Grindavík is highly fractured — but this doesn't mean that is where the next fissure will appear. In November, the town looked to be one of the most likely points for the magma to break through the surface, but then the eruption eventually took place a few miles to the north. 

"Where the magma will come next can shift very quickly depending on where the magma finds the weakest point in the crust," Solana said. "We don't know where the next one is going to happen and we don't know how large it will be. That's the sad part of volcanology — we know that something is going to happen and you know roughly where, but you cannot pinpoint with that precision."

Unlike wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology, which uses electromagnetic radio waves to transmit data, light-fidelity (Li-Fi) uses sources of light and can theoretically reach speeds over 100 times faster. While Li-Fi is a fully networked system and can incorporate infrared or ultraviolet light, VLC is unidirectional and only taps into the visible light spectrum. Some scientists also say Li-Fi is the incorporation of Wi-Fi and VLC, according to the Institute of Physics.

VLC is not widely used because the light source would have to be on all the time, it requires a direct line of sight with a receiver and it cannot be used outdoors. Deploying a VLC system using generic white light also reduces stability and accuracy in the transmission of data due to the interference. 

But now, researchers have mimicked white light by creating a tri-color VLC system — using red, blue and green light — emitted from an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) array, and have reduced interference in the process. They also set up an organic photodiode (OPD) array as a receiver. They described their work in a study published Oct. 19 2023 in the journal Advanced Materials.

Related: Wireless tech could replace Bluetooth at short distances and boost battery life 5-fold

"Our light source, which blends three wavelengths, circumvents interference thereby enhancing stability and accuracy in data transmission," Dae Sung Chung, professor of chemical engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, said in a statement. "We foresee this technology as a potentially beneficial tool for diverse industries, serving as a next-generation wireless communication solution that utilizes conventional lighting systems."

OLEDs use an organic layer to generate light and are commonly used in the display screens of many modern TVs, smartphones and laptops. Compared with LEDs, OLEDs are better for the environment, are more cost-effective and have a more lightweight design. OLEDs are also more suited to being fitted into receivers because they provide greater sensitivity at specific wavelengths.

OPDs operate inversely to OLEDs, utilizing the organic semiconductor element to absorb light and convert it to electric current -– similar to photovoltaic cells in solar panels.

In the new study, the researchers configured OPDs to use a Fabry-Pérot interferometer, which consists of two curved mirrors facing one another. When aligned in such a way, the OPDs detected specific wavelengths of light transmitted from the OLED array.

By sending data from the transmitter to the receiver, the researchers demonstrated that even indoor lighting fixtures could be fitted with the light source to transfer data in a Li-Fi system. Their composite light source also had a lower bit error rate compared with conventional lighting, as it suppressed interference.

The scientists tested this technology in specific laboratory conditions designed to minimize interference and ensure the accuracy of data. But they're aiming to test it in real-world conditions to better understand how the system works in practice. Here, there will be interference from the local environment such as other sources of light and dust, the researchers noted in the paper. They also want to test whether the Li-Fi system works with a moving receiver, rather than a stationary one.

In the future, a near-infrared (NIR) channel could also further reduce interference issues, which would allow VLC transmitters to extend their operational range. They also want to test whether they can resolve physical barriers, like walls in a house, by using power-line communications.

You could visit thousands of locations to experience totality in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, but make sure you are within the path of totality. Only then will you experience darkness in the middle of the day and be able to see the sun's corona with your own eyes, at all other times precautions must be taken. About 115 miles wide, it will stretch 10,000 miles across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via North America, making land at Mazatlán, Mexico and departing from Newfoundland, Canada.

In between, it will cross parts of 15 U.S. states — and dozens of eclipse-themed place names. "I found a database of every single place name in North America, and I just searched through this database for eclipse-related place names,"  Michael Zeiler, an eclipse cartographer and historian at GreatAmericanEclipse.com, told Space.com. "These were the best ones that I found." Some have a history associated with historic solar eclipses; others are by pure chance.

REMEMBER to NEVER look at the sun directly. To safely view this solar eclipse you must use solar filters at all times. Only during the exact moment of totality, when the sun's disk is 100% blocked by the moon can you look with the naked eye. This is possible only within the path of totality, and only for a few minutes depending on your location within the path. At all other times, precautions must be taken. Observers will need to wear certified solar eclipse glasses, and cameras, telescopes and binoculars must have solar filters placed in front of their lenses. For more information on solar viewing safety check out our how to observe the sun safely guide.

Here are the highlights — and a complete list of all the eclipse-themed locations you could experience totality from on April 8, 2024:

Eclipse Island, Newfoundland

"The best one is Eclipse Island in Newfoundland," said Zeiler. "It got that name because Captain James Cook observed an eclipse from that island." 

An annular solar eclipse — known as a "ring of fire" — occurred on August 5, 1766, though if Cook did see it from Eclipse Island, near Burgeo, then he would have observed it from very close to the central path as an 84% partial solar eclipse.

He recorded the exact times of the beginning and end of the eclipse to help calculate his longitude. At the time, Cook was mapping the coast of Newfoundland and the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River aboard HMS Grenville. Although potentially a fun place to watch the eclipse, this day has been cloudy 78% of the time since 2000, according to Timeanddate.

Shadowland and Sun Valley, Texas

Northern Texas has two eclipse-related place names very close to each other in Red River County, close to the border with Oklahoma. Sun Valley has a population of 69 and is seven miles east of Paris, Texas, where a red cowboy hat sits on top of a 60-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Slightly closer to the centerline of the path of totality is Shadowland, five miles west of Bogata, though it's a name on the map rather than an actual place, with no evidence of any buildings. Don't confuse it with Shadowland Cabin, a luxury log cabin in Wimberley, Texas, already booked up for the eclipse.

Eclipse-related place names in the path of totality:

• Villa Corona, Durango, Mexico
  Local time and duration of totality: 12:09 p.m. MST; 4 minutes, 18 seconds
• Corona del Valle, Durango, Mexico
  Local time and duration of totality: 12:13 p.m. CST; 3 minutes, 33 seconds
• El Sol, Coahuila, Mexico
  Local time and duration of totality: 12:19 p.m. CST; 1 minute, 51 seconds
• Ejido Mota de Corona, Coahuila, Mexico
  Local time and duration of totality: 12:24 p.m. CST; 3 minutes, 25 seconds
• Luna, Texas
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:40 p.m. CDT; 1 minute, 23 seconds
• Shadowland, Texas
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:44 p.m. CDT; 4 minutes, 20 seconds
• Sun Valley, Texas
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:44 p.m. CDT; 4 minutes, 6 seconds
• Moon, Oklahoma
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:45 p.m. CDT; 4 minutes, 16 seconds
• Sun Terrace Cove, Arkansas
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:52 p.m. CDT; 2 minutes, 47 seconds
• Luna, Missouri
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:54 p.m. CDT; 1 minute, 54 seconds
• Corona, Missouri
  Local time and duration of totality: 1:54 p.m. CDT; 4 minutes, 2 seconds
• Sun Valley, Ohio
  Local time and duration of totality: 3:10 p.m. EDT; 2 minutes, 27 seconds
• Luna Pier, Michigan
  Local time and duration of totality: 3:13 p.m. EDT; 6 seconds
• Moon Beach, Sterling, New York
  Local time and duration of totality: 3:21 p.m. EDT; 3 minutes, 29 seconds
• Moon Island, Maine
  Local time and duration of totality: 3:32 p.m. EDT; 1 minute, 55 seconds
• Half Moon Pit, New Brunswick
  Local time and duration of totality: 4:32 p.m. ADT; 3 minutes, 19 seconds
• Eclipse Island, Newfoundland, Canada
  Local time and duration of totality: 5:11 p.m. NDT; 2 minutes, 16 seconds

Places called 'Eclipse' in the U.S. outside the path of totality:

Away from the path of totality, there are just as many eclipse-related names, of course, with two called Eclipse, one close to Norfolk, Virginia (79% partial solar eclipse) and the other near Houston, Texas (94% partial solar eclipse).

Originally posted on Space.com.

On Sept. 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley twice at close range while feigning to shake his hand at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The first bullet safely ricocheted off a button on the 25th president's jacket but the second entered his abdomen, piercing the front and back walls of his stomach. McKinley was rushed to a nearby hospital where gynecological surgeon Dr. Matthew Mann performed surgery on the president. After initially showing signs of making a full recovery and moving out of the hospital, McKinley's condition suddenly worsened, and he died on Sept. 14, according to PBS. (Czolgosz was later sentenced to death by the electric chair.)

Doctors said the cause of death was pancreatic necrosis, or necrotizing pancreatitis — a complication in which part of the pancreas dies due to chronic infection, damage or lack of blood flow. 

Mann was later criticized by numerous health practitioners for the surgery he performed. Reports indicate he left the bullet inside McKinley and did not properly clean or close the wound, which could have caused an infection that led to the necrosis. 

The fact that McKinley lingered so long before dying sparked widespread rumors at the time, with speculation that Czolgosz had shot McKinley with poison or bacteria-laced bullets. Some conspiracy theorists still believe this today and also think that Czolosz may not have been working alone. 

Related: 20 of the best conspiracy theories 

To downplay these rumors, a "bacteriological examination" was ordered in addition to the standard autopsy. Dr. Herman Matzinger — a leading expert on blood analysis at the time —carried out this extra examination; and he concluded that no poison was used and that the necrosis was likely caused by the initial shooting and not the botched surgery.

On Jan. 9 this year, the Raab Collection — an auction site for historical documents — listed a collection of Matzinger's personal papers relating to the secondary examination, which were recently discovered by the doctor's remaining family. The documents include a notebook, letters, receipts of samples, telegrams, an annotated copy of his original report and an invitation to a memorial service for President McKinley. They have been put on sale for $80,000.

Matzinger's documents mainly show how he came to the conclusions laid out in his original report. But they also include some surprises, including the unexpected pet experiments.

In his notebook, Matzinger described how he grew "whitish" bacteria cultures from swab samples taken from McKinley's wound and then injected them into rabbits and a dog. It is unclear if these animals were his personal pets or laboratory animals, or how he thought they would resolve the question of whether the bullets were laced with poison or bacteria.

The papers don't say what happened to the rabbits. But Matzinger monitored the dog over the next few days, writing that its body temperature was around 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) — which is above average for a dog, according to the American Kennel Club — but that it was "acting well."

The documents also reveal details of how Matzinger examined the weapons and bullets used by Czolgosz and how the doctor analyzed McKinley's blood for signs of poison. 

Letters between Matzinger and Dr. P.M. Rixey, who oversaw the autopsy process, revealed that Rixey tried to hurry Matzinger for his results. However, the physician took his time reaching his conclusions: His final report was sent to Rixey on Oct. 2, 1901, 18 days after McKinley died.

The Matzinger collection provides an extremely rare insight into how autopsies of high-ranking people were carried out in the past. These types of documents are "virtually impossible to find," Raab representatives wrote in the collection's listing. They are "a treasure."