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Virtual Dissection of Fossils

A new technique will allow researches to dissect half-billion year old fossil embryos virtually. A whole new world of detail will be now possible, and researchers at Bristol University in southwestern England said it was pushing back the frontiers of science much as the scanning electron microscope did fifty ago.

Lead researcher Phil Donoghue is excited: "We are looking at the dawn of life. Because of their tiny size and precarious preservation, embryos are the rarest of all fossils. But these fossils are the most precious of all because they contain information about the evolutionary changes that have occurred in embryos over the past 500 million years."

The existing methods of exterior observation or destructive sectioning of fossil embryos, the new technique, synchroton-radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy (SRXTM) leaves the very small fossils untouched but gives graphic details of their structure. Details less than 1,000th of a millimeter in dimension can be seen with the new method. The researches team said their discoveries could roll back the evolutionary history of arthropods such as insects and spiders and bring a great revolution in paleontology.