How can you read a letter without opening it? The answer is with x-ray scanners! Scientists recently deciphered the contents of a 300-year old sealed letter from the Netherlands by virtually “unfolding” it with the help of a high-resolution x-ray scanner and a computer algorithm. Surprisingly, scientists were able to translate most of the letter, which was originally written in French. The correspondence in the letter, which was dated July 31, 1697, was revealed to be a request for a death certificate from Jacques Sennacques to his cousin Pierre Le Pers, a French merchant. The success of this…