 |
|
Scientist brings 50 million year old spider 'back to life'
October 30, 2007A 50-million-year-old fossilised spider has been brought back to life in stunning 3D by a scientist at The University of Manchester.
In a paper published in the latest issue of the Zootaxa journal, Dr David Penney and co-authors from Ghent University in Belgium report on the use of a technique called 'Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography' (VHR-CT) to 'digitally dissect' tiny fossils and reveal the preservation of internal organs.
Dr Penney, from The School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (SEAES), specialises in studying spiders trapped and preserved in amber tens of millions of years ago.
The male spider studied in his latest paper is a new species named Cenotextricella simoni. It is around 53-million years old and was found preserved in amber in an area of France known as the Paris Basin.
This is the first time the VHR-CT technique has been used to digitally dissect a fossil in amber - and Dr Penney says it has the potential to 'revolutionise' their study.
The VHR-CT technique was originally developed for medical diagnostic purposes.
Dr Penney said: "This technique essentially generates full 3D reconstructions of minute fossils and permits digital dissection of the specimen to reveal the preservation of internal organs.
"Up until recently the only place to do such scans was at The University of Texas, although they never achieved results like these.
"My colleagues in the department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics at Ghent University in Belgium have significantly increased the resolution of the technology, bringing some quite amazing results.
"This is definitely the way forward for the study of amber fossils.
"Amber provides a unique window into past forest ecosystems. It retains an incredible amount of information, not just about the spiders themselves, but also about the environment in which they lived."
Dr Penney is currently spending an indefinite period in the African jungle in a 'living laboratory' studying spiders.
Earlier this year, a species of spider which dates back more than 20 million years was named after Dr Penney. The amber-encased spider which was discovered deep in a Mexican mine is thought to have lived long before the first humans.
It was found by a Mexican researcher who earned the right to name the species and he chose the name 'Episinus penneyi' in honour of his former colleague.
University of Manchester
The male spider studied in his latest paper is a new species named Cenotextricella simoni. It is around 53-million years old and was found preserved in amber in an area of France known as the Paris Basin.
This is the first time the VHR-CT technique has been used to digitally dissect a fossil in amber - and Dr Penney says it has the potential to 'revolutionise' their study.
The VHR-CT technique was originally developed for medical diagnostic purposes.
Dr Penney said: "This technique essentially generates full 3D reconstructions of minute fossils and permits digital dissection of the specimen to reveal the preservation of internal organs.
"Up until recently the only place to do such scans was at The University of Texas, although they never achieved results like these.
"My colleagues in the department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics at Ghent University in Belgium have significantly increased the resolution of the technology, bringing some quite amazing results.
"This is definitely the way forward for the study of amber fossils.
"Amber provides a unique window into past forest ecosystems. It retains an incredible amount of information, not just about the spiders themselves, but also about the environment in which they lived."
Dr Penney is currently spending an indefinite period in the African jungle in a 'living laboratory' studying spiders.
Earlier this year, a species of spider which dates back more than 20 million years was named after Dr Penney. The amber-encased spider which was discovered deep in a Mexican mine is thought to have lived long before the first humans.
It was found by a Mexican researcher who earned the right to name the species and he chose the name 'Episinus penneyi' in honour of his former colleague.
University of Manchester
Fossil Current Events and Fossil News RSSGene expression in alligators suggests birds have 'thumbs'
The latest breakthrough in a 120 year-old debate on the evolution of the bird wing was published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
Thinking it through: Scientists call for policy to guide biofuels industry toward sustainability
As the United States and other nations commit to the path of biofuels production, a group of scientists is calling for sustainable practices in an industry that will, as MBL scientist Jerry Mellilo says, "reshape the Earth's landscape in a significant way."
Emissions rising faster this decade than last
The latest figures on the global carbon budget to be released in Washington and Paris today indicate a four-fold increase in growth rate of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions since 2000.
Are we trading energy conservation for toxic air emissions?
A team of Yale scientists has found that certain countries and some U.S. states stand to benefit from the use of compact fluorescent lighting more than others in the fight against global warming. Some places may even produce more mercury emissions by switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lighting.
Carbon sinks: Issues, markets, policy
With reducing carbon emissions on the national agenda, a group of expert panelists will discuss methods, markets, testing and policy issues on how carbon sinks or carbon sequestration may be used to reduce atmospheric CO2.
CO2 emissions booming, shifting east, researchers report
Despite widespread concern about climate change, annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement have grown 38 percent since 1992, from 6.1 billion tons of carbon to 8.5 billion tons in 2007.
Growth in the global carbon budget
Today the new Global Carbon Budget was launched simultaneously by Global Carbon Project co-chair Michael Raupach in France at the Paris Observatory, and in the USA at Capitol Hill, Washington by GCP Executive Director Pep Canadell.
Modest CO2 cutbacks may be too little, too late for coral reefs
How much carbon dioxide is too much? According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) greenhouse gases in the atmosphere need to be stabilized at levels low enough to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." But scientists have come to realize that an even more acute danger than climate change is lurking in the world's oceans-one that is likely to be triggered by CO2 levels that are modest by climate standards.
Long-term study shows effect of climate change on animal diversity
Two species of giraffe, several rhinos and five elephant relatives, along with multitudes of rodents, bush pigs, horses, antelope and apes, once inhabited what is now northern Pakistan.
IMPACTS: On the Threshold of Abrupt Climate Changes
Abrupt climate change is a potential menace that hasn't received much attention. That's about to change. Through its Climate Change Prediction Program, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) recently launched IMPACTS - Investigation of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Abrupt Climate Transitions - a program led by William Collins of Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division (ESD) that brings together six national laboratories to attack the problem of abrupt climate change, or ACC.
More Fossil Current Events and Fossil News Articles
 | National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils (National Audubon Society Field Guides) by Ida Thompson This, the first all-photographic field guide to cover fossils found throughout North America north of Mexico, includes nearly 500 full-color photographs identifying corals, trilobites, shells, teeth, bones, as well as fossil-bearing rocks and outcrop formations. The descriptive text includes information on size, geological period, geographical distribution, and ecology of the animal or plant... |
 | Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald R. Prothero Over the past twenty years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and seals from land mammals and the origins of elephants, horses, and rhinos. Today there exists an amazing diversity of fossil humans, suggesting we walked upright long before we acquired large brains, and new evidence from molecules that enable... |
 | Beyond Fossil Fools: The Roadmap to Energy Independence by 2040 by Joe Shuster If the U.S. solves only its own energy problem, but the world does not, then everyone still loses. Pollution knows no borders and a sinking ship takes down everyone on board. That is why all countries must do what they can to affect a global transition to all-renewable, clean energy by 2040. That means a coordinated global effort with global scope. That means leadership from the United States,... |
 | Fossils (Smithsonian Handbooks) by David Ward |
 | The Ghost of Fossil Glen by Cynthia Defelice Allie Nichols is being pursued by a ghost. Her friend Karen calls Allie a liar and doesn't want to hear "stuff like that." But her old pal, Dub, listens eagerly as Allie tells him about the voice that guides her down a steep cliff side, the girl she imagines who begs, "Help me," and a terrible nightmare in which that girl falls to her death. Who is that girl? Is she the ghost? And what does the... |
 | Fossils Tell of Long Ago (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) What is a fossil?Sometimes it's the imprint of an ancient leaf in a rock. Sometimes it's a woolly mammoth, frozen for thousands of years in the icy ground. Sometimes it's the skeleton of a stegosaurus that has turned to stone.A fossil is anything that has been preserved, one way or another, that tells about life on Earth. But you can make a fossil, too--something to be discovered a million years... |
 | Bringing Fossils To Life: An Introduction To Paleobiology by Donald R. Prothero This is the first text to combine both paleontology and paleobiology. Traditional textbooks treat these separately, despite the recent trend to combine them in teaching. It bridges the gap between purely theoretical paleobiology and purely descriptive invertebrate paleontology books. The text is targeted at undergraduate geology and biology majors, with the emphasis on organisms, rather than dead... |
 | Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway: An Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000-Mile Paleo Road Trip by Kirk Johnson “Would make anyone want to go on a fossil hunt.”—True West Cruisin'the Fossil Freeway follows the most unusual travels of a paleontologist and artist as they drive across the West in search of fossils, encountering “paleonerds” like themselves and evidence of everything from suburban T. rexes to ancient fossilized... |
 | Fossil (DK Eyewitness Books) by Paul Taylor New Look! Relaunched with new jackets and 8 pages of new text! Here is an original and exciting new look at fossils - the remains of long-vanished animals and plants. Stunning real-life photographs of the spectacular remains of ancient lives offer a unique "eyewitness" view of what fossils are, how they were formed, and how they lived millions of years ago. See pearls that are 50 million... |
 | Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by Xiaoming Wang, Richard H. Tedford -- Lars Werdelin, Swedish Museum of Natural... |
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |