New Hominid Find Probed With Powerful X-ray Technology

Posted on April 13, 2010

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France is probing a skull of the recently discovered Australopithecus sediba hominid using a high-power X-ray. The ESRF's Dr Paul Tafforeau told the BBC that they hominid's teeth are "very beautiful."

"The teeth are very beautiful especially the third molars, the non-erupted teeth; and given the quality of the scans we will have no problem virtually extracting them to study them," said the ESRF's Dr Paul Tafforeau.
"What we want to know is the real age at death and not just the developmental age, or modern-equivalent age, because what we want to track is how, during the evolution of hominids, the life stories slowed down - to go from a pattern that is rapid like apes to one which is slow like modern humans," he told BBC News.

The scans provide resolution at over 100 times that of a hospital x-ray. Some remnants of brain tissue have discovered with the technology. Fossilized insect eggs whose larvae may have eaten the hominid's flesh were also discovered. Take a look:

ARCHAEOLOGY