For at least 600 years Europeans have used strange and risky treatments to look younger. Today's "vampire facelift" draws blood, spins it in a centrifuge to concentrate platelets, and injects them into the face to stimulate skin renewal. Past fashions were worse. Venetian ceruse, a white face paint made of lead, damaged skin; belladonna drops made eyes look wide but harmed vision; arsenic soaps and complexion wafers poisoned users; and in the 1920s radium-based creams and tonics were sold as health products. Beauty ideals repeatedly outran safety.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.