Paleontology in 3D

This is kind of an old story from the BBC (link), on a new method of visualizing organisms fossilized in amber. In the past, only insects in transparent amber could be studied, but these fossils exist in pieces of opaque amber from 100 million years ago.

Using highly accurate X-ray techniques, scientists can now see inside pieces of amber which once held their secrets in the dark:
What's even better is, once the data are collected (in extraordinary detail), 3-D printers can then be used to create larger-than-life models for study:

"In some ways it is better than having the real animal...If you think about it, the real wasp is 4mm and to see it you would need a microscope; and if it's in opaque amber you need a synchrotron. Once it's done as a plastic print, you can see what you want." - Dr Paul Tafforeau

A couple of months ago I attended a talk at the local chapter of the GNSI, where the presenter was demonstrating various methods of casting and molding. She showed, and I wish I had a picture of it, a large 3D printing made of an Emerald Ash Borer beetle, which is a parasite of some concern in this region. From this very detailed plastic model (which I think was about a foot and a half long), they had made multiple plaster copies which were painted and made into educational displays.

3D printing also has other useful applications in paleontology. As demonstrated by the University of Texas High-ResolutionX-ray CT Facility (link), printouts can not only be made of the actual bones:
But also endocasts, that show the form of the interior of the bone. In the case of the cranium this gives an impression of the shape of the brain.
The 3D Museum, a site maintained by the Vertebrate Paleobiology Lab of the University of California, Davis, contains interactive models of fossils that the viewer can rotate and zoom in on.


Their fossil models were created using a high-speed, high-accuracy laser scanner. Their library may be small, but I have hopes that this sort of interactive 3D reference will become more common. (Also see the Virtual Reality Brain Project, an especially useful reference for medical artists stuck with yet another neurology assignment).

The implications of 3D viewing and printing for scientific illustrators are very intriguing. I look forward to the day when 3D printing is common and affordable to the point where I can print out my own reference models to view and light from whatever angle. I think there is value in the tactile qualities of an object; to be able to hold it in your hands and turn it and get a sense of it in a way you never could with an on-screen interactive model. Although I do somewhat fear the day when the 3D printers start printing copies of themselves, evolving, and eventually trying to take over the world.

Weekend Art: Mattis Park

This is a bit off-topic, but I finally bought myself an easel yesterday, so I took it to Mattis Park a couple hours ago and did a quick landscape:
I can barely remember the last time I used actual paint! It was nice to get away from the Wacom tablet and Photoshop for a change.

Weekend Poetry: "Missing Link"

I'm going to start something new here. Every weekend I'll post a poem about evolution. Most of them will probably come from Darwin is My Hero: Poems about Science and Superstition by Craig Gosling (who I mentioned in a previous entry), but I'll try to dig up others. Or if you readers know of any, send them my way!

So here we go!

Missing Link

When looking for the missing link,
it's never where we usually think.
I'm told it looks something like me
and something like a chimpanzee.

I've heard it often has been found
by paleontologists, in the ground.
But, when its missing place is filled,
those who found it still are grilled
about the links before and after
that still are missing. What disaster!

Tracing far back our family tree
a primate lived who gave rise to me.
She lived so many years ago,
her true birthday we'll never know.

But, I'm so glad that she stayed alive,
to begat enough that did survive,
so I could arrive upon the scene,
a hundred percent human-being.

- Craig Gosling

Dinosaur Supertree

I think this is my first time posting twice in one day, but I simply couldn't wait until tomorrow to share the dinosaur evolutionary tree that was just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (The "B" is for "Biological Sciences").

click for really, really big

In the New Scientist article, paleontologist Graeme Lloyd of the University of Bristol explains how they used existing dinosaur cladograms from the literature to compile 440 of the 600 known species into a single diagram, in order to look for larger patterns of diversification.

What they concluded was that dinosaur diversity did not expand as actively as previously thought and that the main bursts of diversification happened in the first fifty million years of dinosaur evolution. Unfortunately, the diagram itself doesn't include an intersecting timeline to show when each of the diversification events occurred--I suppose either to save space or perhaps due to conflicting or missing information within the clades that were gathered to build this one.

The height of each major branch is dependent not on the relative time in which it branched off, but rather the number of branching events within the branch itself. (Did I say "branch" enough there? *sigh*) So although it's an awesome tree, and probably totally useful as a reference, I'm not sure how it shows the patterns of diversification they report to see. But perhaps I'm missing something. Perhaps I'm simply still mesmerized by the pretty colors. So pretty...

edit: I swapped the .jpg-artifact-riddled image from the news report with a cleaner one I made from the original pdf file. If you want the full version (to print out or whatever), I've uploaded the pdf here. Which I originally found here, on Physorg.com's article.

Linkfest

Good news for those of you who had trouble viewing Julian's animation on Microevolution--it is now being hosted on the U of T Biomedical Communications' site. He updated the original post with the new link, but since not everyone's going to be hanging out in my archives, I figured I'd let you all know with a new post. Unless you are hanging out in my archives... why would you do that?

Also, if you like beetles, and who the hell doesn't, here is an amazing collection of beetle photographs by Poul Beckmann called Living Jewels. I wish I knew how he got them all so perfect; they don't even have pins through them! (Found the site through Bug Girl's Blog a while back).

And finally, since three is a nice round number, here's an older article from NewScientist on Six 'uniquely' human traits now found in animals. They are: culture, mind reading (deception), tool use, morality, emotions, and personality.

Amazing Dinosaur Puppetry

My new dream job is working in the studio for "Walking With Dinosaurs Live:"

'Massospondylus' by Andrew Swift

Last year as part of my graduate program I went to the student exchange at the Johns Hopkins program in Baltimore. There I presented my master's project on the ontogeny and locomotion of the dinosaur Massospondylus (look for it in the sidebar). Later, at another talk, I noticed Andrew Swift (from the Medical College of Georgia's Dept. of Medical Illustration) doing a lovely sketch of my second favorite dino:
Either I forgot to email him about it, or he sent it and it got lost in my junk box, because I never got it and then I kind of forgot all about it. But when I saw him at AMI last week I remembered and asked him to send it to me again, not realizing he had completed a full color version:Click for big. Isn't that awesome? My favorite part about Andrew Swift's work is the amazing textures he's able to pull out of Photoshop. So thanks, Andrew... Also, how in the heck did you get that amazing skin texture? Is that a filter? I must know.