Researchers at the University of Texas complete the first high-resolution
CT scan of Lucy, the world's most famous fossil.

HOUSTON, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 6, 2009) (HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE -

It may have taken her just over three million years, but Lucy, the
world's most famous fossil, has finally gone digital. Researchers at the
University of Texas, in Austin, in collaboration with the Ethiopian
government, have completed the first high-resolution CT scan of the ancient
human ancestor, who lived 3.2 million years ago.
For ten days, a scientific team, led by University of Texas Professor
of Anthropology John Kappelman, worked around the clock, painstakingly
scanning all 80 pieces of Lucy's skeleton. The CT scan gives scientists the
first glimpse inside her fossilized bones which comprise about 40 per cent of
her skeleton.
"These scans we've completed at the University of Texas permit us
to look at the internal architecture. How her bones are built through the long
bones, her mandible, also the ends of her bones," Kappelman told
Reuters.
Scientists hope the study of virtual Lucy will offer further clues
about the human ancestor's lifestyle. While there's little doubt she walked
on two legs, there is some debate about whether she spent much time in
trees.
"It's very exciting for the team to be able to bring to bear
brand new data on what's really a long standing question. We're quite certain
this set of studies we're going to be conducting here with the CT data are
going to go some distance to resolving this long standing question of whether
or not there was a compromised set of behaviors here with an animal that could
not only move on the ground, but potentially could also move about in the
trees. Maybe for protection from predators, or maybe that's where much of her
foodstuff was coming from."
The successful completion of the scan means that scientists from all
over the world will now be able to study the specimen. The information will
eventually be released to the public, allowing students to study and compare
the skeleton with that of modern humans, and apes.
"It opens it up to people who instead of having to travel to some
distant museum to see the original, can actually call it up on the
desktop," Kappelman said.
Discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, Lucy is the oldest and most complete
skeleton of any adult, erect-walking human fossil.
"It's going to help us fill us in what was one of the earlier
stages in the ancestry of our evolution to really better understand the
behaviors of an extinct cousin. In some ways it's like the analogy of being
able to tune the time machine back to 3 million years ago, jump in and pop
back and be able to reconstruct what this fossil was doing on a day to day
basis," the Professor said.
Kappelman said although she may be small in stature, about one meter
tall, Lucy had made an enormous contribution to science. "She's arguably
now and I think will be for a long time, the most famous fossil on planet
Earth," he said.
Lucy is currently in the United States as part of a world premiere
exhibit organised by the Houston Museum of Natural Science.