A 50-million-year-old fossilised spider has been brought back to life …

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… Oh, wait. brought back to life “in stunning 3D by a scientist at The University of Manchester.”I hate those press release writers…This is actually fairly cool despite the fact that no actual spiders were actually brought back to life. Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography (VHR-CT) was used to “digitally dissect” tiny fossils thus revealing very fine detail including internal organs. Here is an example:i-0f8e3dba2482fd3776615ea315eab345-spider_3d_490.jpgView larger imageThe same graphic in a different format can be seen here, and you can get a PDF of the paper here.___________________Penny et al. 2007, ‘First fossil Micropholcommatidae (Araneae), imaged in Eocene Paris amber using X-Ray Computed Tomography’ appears in the current edition of Zootaxa 1623: 47-53

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In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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