PhysOrg.com [USA], August 25, 2011
You wouldn't expect studying fossils to be a part of engineering
research, but a team in the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering is applying computer engineering ingenuity to find a new
method for digitizing, studying and sharing microfossil samples.
Professor Dileepan Joseph, PhD candidate Adam Harrison, and master's of
science student Cindy Wong have developed a new way to digitally capture
and display microfossils and other specimens, called Virtual
Reflected-Light Microscopy. The process is achieved by capturing a
series of digital images of a microfossil through a microscope. Each
image is taken with a light source shifted at different points around
the sample, which creates different shadows on its surface. This allows
the team to extract a three-dimensional map of the sample, which
computer software can further interpret.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-fossils.html
Ancient harvestmen revealed in 3-D models
PhysOrg.com [USA], August 23, 2011
Two ancient types of harvestmen, or 'daddy long legs,' which skittered
around forests more than 300 million years ago, are revealed in new
three-dimensional virtual fossil models published today in the journal
Nature Communications. An international team, led by researchers from
Imperial College London, have created 3D models of two fossilised
species of harvestmen, from the Dyspnoi and Eupnoi suborders. The
ancient creatures lived on Earth before the dinosaurs, in the
Carboniferous period. The 3D models are providing fresh insights into
how these ancient eight-legged creatures, whose 1cm bodies were the size
of small buttons, survived in the Earth's ancient forests and how
harvestmen as a group have evolved.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-ancient-harvestmen-revealed-d.html
Rocks and clocks help unravel the mysteries of ancient Earth
PhysOrg.com [USA], August 25, 2011
Research into the dating techniques used to identify the origins of the
living world has found the way in which fossils are used to calibrate
the Earth's evolutionary clock is of critical importance. The findings
could help us better understand the gaps in the evolutionary timeline.
The study, led by academics at the University of Bristol and published
in Biology Letters, analysed how the "molecular clock" and fossil record
align to determine how the Earth's environment and living world have
co-evolved.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-clocks-unravel-mysteries-ancient-earth.html
Discovery of a 160-million-year-old fossil represents a new milestone in
early mammal evolution
PhysOrg.com [USA], August 24, 2011
A remarkably well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China
provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today's
mammal species -- the placental mammals. According to a paper published
August 25 in the prestigious journal Nature, this fossil represents a
new milestone in mammal evolution that was reached 35 million years
earlier than previously thought, filling an important gap in the fossil
record and helping to calibrate modern, DNA-based methods of dating the
evolution. The paper, by a team of scientists led by Carnegie Museum of
Natural History paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo, describes Juramaia sinensis,
a small shrew-like mammal that lived in China 160 million years ago
during the Jurassic. Juramaia is the earliest known fossil of eutherians
-- the group that evolved to include all placental mammals, which
provide nourishment to unborn young via a placenta.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-discovery-million-year-old-fossil-milestone-early.html
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