Performance-practice researchers comb through old instruction books, letters, criticism, pictures, documents of all kinds and annotated scores to glean information on how music was played in the distant past.

For the new study, researchers combed through data on more than 238,000 women taking part in the long-running Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976.

The two researchers combed through various scholars' writings, and compiled an annotated bibliography of those writings.

In 2009-2012, amateur researchers combed various digital archives and came up with examples of earlier usage.

Mr. Sher said that he would like to send researchers to comb through the archives and see what new evidence they can find.

For two years the museum's researchers combed records, mainly in Germany.

For weeks, researchers combed through the photographs and videos, going to great lengths to verify that each was what its donor claimed that it was.

Trampling may also occur when well-meaning volunteers and researchers comb the area for specimens.

Yet researchers have combed more than 90 percent of the human genome and have not been able to find a genetic locus for the disorder.

The researchers also combed whatever medical records they could find.