Famous fossil Lucy scanned at the University of Texas...(for this work. Scientists at the fac...)

Scientists at the facility have scanned thousands of delicate fossils and biological specimens, including irreplaceable items such as the brain case of Archaeopteryx (one of the oldest and most primitive birds known). Because CT allows scientists to see inside fossils without doing any harm, it has become one of the most powerful tools for studying precious, one-of-a-kind specimens.

"We have more experience scanning natural history objects and dealing with the issues that can arise in scanning natural material than any other lab in the world," Ketcham said. "The equipment is constantly updated and we've created a large, specialized toolkit to process the scan data and to extract the maximum amount of information from it. There's no other place the Ethiopian government could have sent Lucy to get better imagery or to acquire it more safely."

For 10 days the university team worked around the clock to scan all 80 pieces of Lucy's skeleton. The scientists created custom-built foam mounts to safely hold the specimens in the scanner. And each piece was carefully examined before and after scanning to ensure that no damage occurred during the project.

The successful completion of Lucy's scan means that the specimen is now safely archived in digital format, another of the reasons behind the scanning.

"These scans will ensure that future generations are familiar with Lucy," said Jara Mariam, director general of Ethiopia's Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, "and will know of Ethiopia's central contribution to the study of human evolution. A virtual Lucy will be able to visit every classroom on the planet."

"In some ways, scanning Lucy was the easy part," Ketcham said. For the next several months, the research team, consisting of scientists from all around the country, will be reviewing and processing the data and generating images to analyze Lucy's skeleton and begin to answer im
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