DNA from strands of Beethoven’s hair is helping to uncover what may have caused his death, researchers say. The composer was plagued with health issues for most of his life. On March 26, 1827 ...

A genetic study conducted on locks of Ludwig van Beethoven's hair revealed more details about the composer's death at a relatively young age in March 1827. The University of Cambridge biological ...

Researchers used locks of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair to sequence the composer’s genome for the first time. They uncovered some of Beethoven’s medical and family history along the way while ...

Ludwig van Beethoven is just as famous for his music — and his hair — in death as he was in life. Beethoven died 196 years ago, almost to the day, at the age of 56 A team of scientists ...

When Beethoven took his final earthly bow in 1827, friends performed what was then a perfectly normal encore—they reached for scissors and snipped locks of his legendary hair. Luckily, the DNA ...

Several of Beethoven’s friends kept locks of his hair, which was common practice at that time. The researchers extracted DNA from eight preserved locks thought to have come from the composer’s ...

NEW YORK — Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that afflicted him.

Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest composers in history, left behind a legacy not only of music but of mystery. Recent DNA analysis of his preserved hair samples has revealed startling ...

Because the DNA in the strands of hair was degraded, the scientists were able to reconstruct only about two-thirds of Beethoven’s genome. When they scoured that DNA looking for purely hereditary ...

DNA testing on strands of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair—including the famous Hiller lock—led to some unexpected findings. Photo: William Meredith/Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies ...

Generally, the best DNA sources from human remains include teeth and the petrous bone in the skull, but none of Beethoven’s bones or teeth were available to us. What was available was hair.

Stands of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven have revealed what may have led to the classical music composer's death, a new study published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Current Biology claim ...