The truth about Pompeii.

• Position: NEWS & TRENDS - Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, Italy - Brief article

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Scientists have long thought that those who died at Pompeii in 79 A.D. from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius had suffocated from fast-moving volcanic ash. But a new study of the ancient ash--and a computer simulation of the eruption--tell a different story. The Roman victims (preserved in plaster casts, like the one above) were "frozen in suspended actions" when temperatures in Pompeii, six miles from Vesuvius, soared to 570[degrees]F. That's "enough...