Science center weddings

Jessica Zabala and John Smith are getting married tomorrow and have been on pins and needles for the past couple of weeks - and not just because they have cold feet, but because they have an uninvited guest. They booked the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural History for their wedding last year, before Lois, the corpse flower upstairs, was predicted to unleash its odiferous bloom at this very time. Blooming is a rare occurrence for the Titan arum, which may do so only once in 15 years. Says the bride, "Lois is our biggest wedding crasher we have to worry about. We were thinking about clothespins for everyone’s nose."

After hearing this story on the news, I wondered about weddings in science centers and found that lots of museums and aquariums (5th image) rent their facilities for weddings and other events. Megan and Phil (1st image) tied the knot at the Santa Barbara Zoo. Jason and Celeste (2nd image) got married at the Orlando Science Center. Carrie and Mark (3rd image) said their vows at the Louisville Science Center. Sarah and Arjay (4th image) walked down the (rather circular) aisle at the Rochester Planetarium.

Jessica and John are hoping the butterfly garden is well-ventilated. Lois bloomed this morning!

Embalming Elvis

You may have heard the news this week - as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, Reuters, BBC, Time, and many other media outlets - that the tools used to autopsy Elvis Presley (1935-1977) are being auctioned off. Quigley here to clarify the terminology for her readers: these are not autopsy tools, but embalming tools - as the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune correctly trumpet in their headlines. The lots to be offered by Chicago's Leslie Hindman Auctioneers (2nd image) include a needle injector, an arterial tube, and aneurysm hooks that would have been used to carry out the arterial embalming of the body at the Memphis Funeral Home before Elvis was casketed (1st image) for a private and public viewing. The items include a toe tag, but not the scalpel, scissors, and saw that would have been necessary to open the body for examination at the autopsy, which was conducted at his father's insistence at the hospital before Elvis' remains were released to the funeral home. The items, retained after their use in 1977 by the senior embalmer at the funeral home, consist of the embalming instruments and a collection of postmortem articles, and are expected to fetch a combined total of $10,000 to $14,000.

Typhoid Mary

It's no wonder that her nickname - which she hated - has become an idiom. Here's the chronology of Mary Mallon, the first healthy typhoid carrier to be identified by medical science, who adamantly refused to acknowledge her infection - to the detriment of 53 people:

1900: Sickens members of a household in Mamaroneck, New York, after working for them for 2 weeks.

1901: Works for a family in Manhattan, spreading the disease, which kills the laundress.

1906: Causes 6 of 11 members of a family to be hospitalized with typhoid 2 weeks after taking a position in Long Island.

1907: Held in isolation by the New York City Health Dept (1st image, foreground) after actively resisting attempts to confirm her health status (including threatening an investigator with a carving fork), and infecting 3 more families. The investigator writes, "By that time she was convinced that the law was wantonly persecuting her, when she had done nothing wrong. She knew she had never had typhoid fever; she was maniacal in her integrity. There was nothing I could do but take her with us. The policemen lifted her into the ambulance and I literally sat on her all the way to the hospital; it was like being in a cage with an angry lion."

1909: Mary sues the Health Department, calling her confinement "unjust, outrageous, uncivilized," but is remanded by the judge and remains in custody.

1910: Released from quarantine under the condition that she never cook again. Disappears and lives under an assumed name. Works as a cook in a Manhattan maternity hospital for 3 months and sickens 25 staff members, 2 of whom die.

1915: Found and quarantined on North Brother Island for the rest of her life.

1938: Mary dies of pneumonia at age 69. She is found at autopsy to still be an active carrier of the disease. Her body is cremated and her ashes are buried (3rd image) in the Bronx.

It was probably her defiance that caused her name to go down in history, rather than "Typhoid Tony" (who infected at least 100) or "Typhoid John" (who infected 36), neither of whom was quarantined.

Colma, California

The Greek Orthodox cemetery (1st image) is one of many burial grounds in Colma,
which is at the following coordinates on Google Earth: 37°40′44″N 122°27′20″W.

The town of Colma, California (est. 1924) is a modern necropolis - a city of the dead. It has 1.5 million residents - but only 1,600 with a heartbeat. Within Colma's 2 square miles are 16 cemeteries, with Holy Cross being the oldest (1887) and largest (284 acres). It started when San Francisco, 10 miles to the north, passed an ordinance in 1900 outlawing new cemeteries within city limits, and then 12 years later passed another ordinance evicting all existing cemeteries. Funeral trains had begun running to Colma in 1893 to transport mourners and the deceased to Mt. Olivet, Holy Cross, and Woodlawn cemeteries. San Franciscans would also make regular trips on Sundays to pay their respects to the dead. Today's cemetery buffs making a pilgrimage to Colma may want to stop for some food and drink at historic Molloy's Tavern, but are encouraged to designate a driver lest their visit become permanent. “I’m more afraid of the living than I am of the dead,” says Colma City Councilwoman Joanne del Rosario of her underground constituents.

Ancient spirits

It is one thing to try to replicate the ancient beer recipes of Egypt and China from the remnants found in tombs. It is quite another to find old liquid brews that can be authenticated and analyzed. But to find centuries-old drinkable spirits? Remarkable! It happened most recently when divers found intact bottles of old champagne in an old shipwreck, but it has happened before with both beer and wine...

The champagne (pictured) was found by Swedish diver Christian Ekström and team in 55M of water off the coast of Finland. The wreck contained 30 intact bottles containing a vintage from the 1780s described as amber-coloured and full of rich, mingled aromas. "There was a lot of ripe fruit, overtones of yellow raisins and plenty of tobacco aroma. This is something one dreams of. I'm very grateful that Christian came to ask my opinion. I still have a little left in my refrigerator which I keep going back to sniff!" says a sommelier, and a champagne expert says it almost certainly came from the House of Veuve Clicquot. Ekström describes it as "a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak." It predates the 1825 Perrier-Jouet champagne opened in 2009 and characterized as having "notes of truffles, caramel and mushrooms," "addictive, with a complex flavour of figs," and even with "a slight nose of the sea."

The oldest drinkable beer on record is 1869 Ratcliff Ale found in 2006 in a cache of 250 vintage bottles stashed in the vaults of Worthington's White Shield brewery in Burton-on-Trent, U.K. It was tasted by a connoisseur who reports, "It's amazing that beers this antique can still taste so delicious. Established wisdom would say beers this old should taste of vinegar, damp rags and Mar-mite. Instead, many show flavours of raisins and sultanas, baked apple and honey. The oldest – the 1869 Ratcliff Ale – is bright and luminous like an ancient Amontillado sherry and has a meaty character like smoked partridge with hints of molasses. It's amazing it tastes this good after 137 years."

There are 2 contenders for the oldest drinkable wine. At the Graycliff Hotel and Restaurant in the Bahamas, they serve a 1727 Rudesheimer Apostelwein from Bremer Ratsfeller. The German wine was drawn off the cask in Bremen and bottled in the 1950s. At a medieval wine cellar in Strasbourg, France, which is now a wine museum, is a barrel that is still filled with wine from the year 1472. It has been tasted 3 times: in 1576, in 1716, and when the city was liberated in 1944. No record of whether the bouquet was sweet or sour...

Free micrography!

Mammal hairs encased in 100 million-year-old amber (click image for more information).

I should have sent in a bug. Or a feather. Or a cinnamon stick. Instead, I sent in tiny insects trapped in 2 specimens of amber, hoping for images like the one above - albeit in black and white. The images I received (below) showed more of the surface cracks than the fossilized bugs. But with this in mind, perhaps you will make a better choice if you decide to take advantage of what I still think is a fun - and free - offer.

This spring, Aspex kicked off a "Send Us Your Sample" campaign, which allows anyone to mail in an object of his or her choosing and have it scanned for free under one of their desktop scanning electron microscopes (SEMs). I was contacted directly by a representative who wrote, "Since your blog primarily deals with fossils and photography, this would be a great opportunity for you and your readers to send in some of their own samples. You will be surprised at what people will send in. It's pretty cool. Once we receive the samples, we'll notify senders of their results via email."

To submit, follow these steps:

1. Download and print this form from the ASPEX website.
2. Fill it out and mail it along with the sample to:

ASPEX Corporation
Free Sample Submissions
175 Sheffield Dr.
Delmont, PA 15626

3. Await the results! (Note that the response generated by publicity in Wired, Gizmodo, and Boing Boing means that their turnaround time is more like 2 months than the stated 2 weeks, but they will return the sample if requested.)

The Fine Art of Poisoning

Jill Tracy's photo shoot with Michael Garlington, which included "Tea and Taxidermy" (1st image), the cover photo for The Bittersweet Constrain (2nd image), and "The Immortal" (3rd image).

How did I miss Jill Tracy?! I am embarrassed to admit that I was unaware of her music until she introduced herself to me recently by way of this blog. She sent me her cd Diabolical Streak and I quickly latched onto the song "The Fine Art of Poisoning":

Watch the video here
Read the lyrics here

Jill kindly agreed to share what suggested the song, which I have interspersed with quotes linking to interviews she has done:

My inspiration for the song "The Fine Art of Poisoning" (from the album Diabolical Streak) came from a fascination of the so-called "Slow Poisoners," popular in the 16th and 17th c. Since early medical science had no way of testing, poisons could be slyly administered at a dosage so slow, it would seem the victim died of natural causes. For the most part, this secretly-served revenge was done by women, to kill husbands and even children, hiding toxic substances in the evening's pork, custard, teas, and jellies. A powerful statement of the terrible circumstances women were trapped in at that time. Most felt it was their only recourse. Visits to gypsy women to procure these potions were often disguised as religious meetings for holy and 'pious oils.' Morbid curiosity is both the intrigue and bravery to seek out truth in dark corners, to allow yourself to venture between the cracks of convention and comfort. A little fear, a little magic, the unknown, the forbidden: that's what makes us feel most alive.

Throughout the animation, you will see subtle nods to famous poisoners - in paintings, faces, etc. (I even make an appearance in a floating photograph.) As in much of my work, there are hidden messages and symbols, etc. Usually not discussed by me, but it is a treat when fans discover these things. We all want to believe in magic. It keeps hope alive. Sometimes I feel that magic and the suspension of disbelief is the only thing that matters. I think that’s why my music resonates with people on such a deep level.

When I composed the song, I wanted it to have a sweet, sickly quality--strangely slow - much like the experience of the poison taking effect. I'm fascinated with conjuring moods from sound. It's magical. My work is uniquely transporting because the origin is not coming from stale rules, trends, or textbooks, but from the kingdom in my mind's eye. I love to take people there with me. Aural kidnapping. We recorded on vintage analog equipment, transferring the final mix back onto 2" tape for that lovely noise, and oddly altered the capstans and tension on the tape machine so the playback was just the tiniest bit 'off.' You barely notice it, but you react to it. It has a kind of lulling seasick quality.

I was an only child and always felt out of sorts with the world. It was things like Rod Serling and 'The Twilight Zone' and old Alfred Hitchcock movies and Jean Cocteau films, I wanted to live inside those worlds. I couldn't figure out how you get inside those worlds and I realized that it was the music also that was conjuring emotion and the mood. Animator/director Bill Domonkos created his imagery to the song, which is the opposite of the usual score put underneath a visual. This is why it has such an overpowering emotional effect. Every action is musical - the hand opening to drop the poison as the cymbals swell, etc. The netherworld he created is absolutely brilliant- and just as intoxicating.

The award-winning video "The Fine Art of Poisoning" will be shown at the National Gallery in London on July 24th, and you can follow Jill Tracy on MySpace and Twitter.

Churchill's choppers

British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) had 3 sets of dentures, crafted by dental technician Derek Cudlipp (1915-2007) for eminent dental surgeon Sir Eric Wilfred Fish (1894-1974). One set was in Churchill's mouth as he lay in state in St. Paul's cathedral in London, was transported down the River Thames, and was taken by train to his final resting place in Bladon, Oxfordshire. A 2nd set (3rd image) was donated to the Royal College of Surgeons of England by Cudlipp in 2000 and added to the Hunterian Collection. The specimen is described as a skeletal partial upper denture with gold base, platinum clasps, and mineral teeth. It was worn by Churchill c. 1941 and was designed to leave a gap between the plate and the roof of his mouth to compensate for his natural lisp. And a 3rd set (2nd image) is being auctioned by Keys Fine Art Auctioneers on July 29th and is expected to fetch up to £5000. They are being sold by Nigel Cudlipp, who says, "My father was extremely proud of those teeth - but they are not something you keep on the mantelpiece....The dentures were extremely difficult to design and make and I think Churchill found them rather uncomfortable...they were delicate and often broke, especially when he was in one of his bad moods. Father said that Churchill had a real temper and would bite down on them and break them. He would constantly get calls to see him at Downing Street or the War Office at all times of day or night so he could pick up a set for repair and fit him with a spare set....Churchill did not have a lot of patience and would be being measured and fitted, while sitting there with brandy, cigars and dictating to his secretary." The job of keeping Churchill's dentures repaired was so important that Cudlipp was spared being called up to fight in World War II instead joined the Home Guard." His efforts were indirectly praised in a letter Churchill wrote to Dr. Fish, which was auctioned in 2008: "I am very glad it fell to me to recommend you for a well-deserved honour, I enclose one set of dentures and I should be so much obliged if you would tighten them up a little for me. The others are working very well."

Zahi Hawass

It would be impossible to encapsulate the career of Zahi Hawass in the space of this blog. Suffice to say that - as Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities since 2002 - he has had a hand in every archaeological discovery in his country for the last 8 years. That includes the most recent find, a double tomb uncovered at Saqqara. "I am the happiest man on Earth because I live with the pharaohs. I live in the past. The life of the pharaohs has magic and mystery. It makes me more alive," says Hawass. But his role is not just to announce new discoveries - it is to build museums, train guards and archaeologists, educated Egyptians about their own history, track down stolen antiquities, and promote Egyptian tourism. He also directs the Egyptian Mummy Project (EMP), which applies modern forensic techniques to ancient Egyptian human remains, successfully identifying the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut and currently searching for the family of King Tutankhamen.

If you want to see how this force of nature operates, just watch the new series "Chasing Mummies," which debuted last night on the History Channel. The New York Times calls his behavior on the show "obnoxious," and comments on his Facebook page complain that the program is scripted, but I still found it riveting to see the action on (and under) the ground over there. The show airs Wednesdays at 10pm EST.

Crypt uncovered

Kathy Mills, 60, was rehearsing last week in St. Mary's church (pictured) in Redgrave, Suffolk, UK., for an amateur production of the musical "Quasimodo." The timbers holding up the floor of the altar had rotted, so her foot when right through the marble flagstones. But her swollen ankle was a small price to pay for what they discovered. A light lowered down through the sand and mud revealed a tunnel with steps descending into a passageway in one direction and a cluster of about six coffins tucked inside a chamber in the other. A crypt containing the coffins of the village's aristocracy had been rumored to exist for decades. Just weeks earlier, a geophysicist had confirmed its existence with ground-penetrating radar, but had been unable to locate the hidden entrance, even though it was said to have been accessible as recently as the 1920s. The church dates to the 14th c., and the chamber is believed to have been built in the 1500s and to contain the remains of the Bacon and Holt families. "One or two people have now started calling me the Tomb Raider," said the actress. The public is now invited to the church to see remote images of the vault - and of course to see the performance of the play!

Turtles in the weird news

I recently blogged about the plight of the wild turtles in the oil-ravaged Gulf of Mexico, but lately there have been a number of turtle stories in the weird news. So here is a more lighthearted post about pets - although some of them have issues of their own. The x-ray of Polly the African pancake tortoise (1st image) reveals that she has an egg-sized bladder stone, which would have killed her if vets at Bristol Zoo had not removed it in a 2008 operation. Lucy (3rd image), an African Spur Thigh tortoise living in Wellington Gardens in Brentwood, New Hampshire, escaped and apparently survived 4 winters buried deep beneath the ground - only to resurface a 1/2 mile from home. Timmy (4th image), a Hermann's tortoise living at a sanctuary in Cornwall, England, has never had much luck with the ladies, but is now receiving some comfort from a stand-in named Tanya. A baby red ear slider named Neytiri carried on board an Airtran jet in Atlanta was the reason the plane returned to the gate and its owner - a 10-year-old girl - and her sisters were ejected from the flight.

An archaeological dig at a castle in Staffordshire has just proven that the keeping of turtles as pets in Britain dates back to at least the late 19th c. with the discovery of a 130-year-old leg bone in with the remains of dogs and cats. In Paris around 1839, a type of gentleman described as a flâneur strolled the arcades and found that doing so with a turtle on a leash was not only fashionable, it enforced a leisurely pace at which to observe the urban sights. A man in New York's East Village takes his African Spurred tortoise on regular walks, but finds he does not need a leash. When "Speed Bump" (2nd image) is on the street, he draws a crowd, and according to owner Robert Shapiro, it's "the only time in New York City that everybody talks to each other..."

Fatal lightning

Lightning striking the tower as Endeavour sits on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 10, 2009. The planned launch the following day was cancelled assess the space shuttle for possible damage from the nearby lightning strikes.

Not only do I live in the state with the shark attack capital of the world, Florida is also the lightning capital of the United States. With 449 fatalities from 1959-2007, Florida is more than twice as deadly as the 2nd state in the list. Many of the victims are tourists, like Frank Paxton, 54, of Oklahoma, killed on Melbourne Beach in July 2009. Ironically, Floridian firefighter Bill Carr, 53, died after a bolt of lightning struck the motorcycle he was riding while visiting Colorado - the 8th deadliest state for lightning strikes - in June 2010. No matter the state, lightning deaths are always a dramatic way to go. Richard Butler was about to propose to his girlfriend Bethany Lott, 25, as they were hiking in the mountains of North Carolina, the 4th state on the list, last month. "God baby, look at it. Isn't it beautiful?" said Bethany about the view, seconds before she was struck and could not be revived. The bolt that killed Bethany spared Richard, but lightning also has the power to take out a crowd. In October 2008, it was an entire herd of cows in Valdez Chico, Uruguay. This summer, 9 visitors to Yellowstone National Park in Montana were awaiting the eruption of the Old Faithful geyser when they were collectively struck - but luckily not fatally - by lightning.

But the strangest true story about lightning that I know took place in October 1998 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which just happens to be home to the lightning capitol of the world. Two teams were playing soccer in the eastern province of Kasai and the score was tied 1-1. Suddenly, the members of the visiting team were struck down and all 11 players were killed. The home team was unharmed, so rumors swirled that they had practiced witchcraft on their opponents. In fact, the lightning that killed the young men had been drawn to the metal cleats on their shoes. The home team of Basenga wore shoes with rubber cleats and were spared.

Migrant mother

1st image) "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange (1936), originally titled "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California." 2nd image) Dorothea Lange in 1936, seated on her Ford Model C Wagon holding her Graflex 4x5 camera.

You are no doubt familiar with the photograph at the top, iconic of the Great Depression. But here you will read - in the words of the late Paul Harvey (1918-2009) - "the rest of the story."

American photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) had been documenting the homeless and unemployed for the Farm Security Administration for a month when she passed a camp that caused her to make a U-turn. In 10 minutes she took 6 photos of the prematurely-aged widow later identified as Florence Owens (1903-1983) and 3 of her 7 children - Katherine (4), Ruby (5), and Norma (1) - in California. Lange remembered, "I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it." The "Migrant Mother" photo was published in newspapers across the country and at public insistence, the government sent the camp 0f 2,500 workers 20,000 lbs. of food. But Florence and her family - living the itinerant life described in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath - had only pulled into the camp because their car broke down, and were soon on their way to Watsonville. Her family explains, "We were already long gone from Nipomo by the time any food was sent there. That photo may well have saved some peoples’ lives, but I can tell you for certain, it didn’t save ours. Our life was hard long after that photograph was taken. That photo never gave mother or us kids any relief." Florence saw the printed image when her sons brought home one of the newspapers they had been selling to make extra money. She hated the photo and was resentful of Lange, believing mistakenly that she was profiting from its use.

In the 1970s (long after Lange had died), a remarried Florence Thompson came forward to identify herself as the woman in the famous photograph. At the same time, Bill Ganzel was researching his book Dust Bowl Descent and sought her out, photographing her with the daughters who had appeared in the Lange photo. In 1983, her family appealed to the public to raise money for her medical care, Florence having had a stroke and been diagnosed with cancer. The family observed, "None of us ever really understood how deeply Mama’s photo affected people….I guess we had only looked at it from our perspective. For Mama and us, the photo had always been a bit of curse. After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a sense of pride."

Florence died in 1983 and was buried beneath a gravestone that reads, "Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood." She leaves as her legacy 10 children, 39 grandchildren, 74 great-grandchildren - and this photograph. But her daughter Norma, the baby in the photo, says, "Mother was a woman who loved to enjoy life, who loved her children. She loved music and she loved to dance. When I look at that photo of mother, it saddens me. That’s not how I like to remember her."

Cabinet of Alfred Russel Wallace

The title of my blog references cabinets of curiosity, which have been assembled - first in entire rooms and then in pieces of furniture - since at least the 16th c. They reached the peak of popularity in the 17th c. and were again all the rage among the Victorians. One of these 19th c. gentlemen was British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Best known as a co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection. for which Charles Darwin (1809-1882) received all the credit, Wallace (7th image) is also notable for advocating Spiritualism, opposing militarism, supporting women's suffrage, warning about deforestation and invasive species, considering whether Mars was habitable, proving that the earth was round, objecting to compulsory vaccination, experimenting with mesmerism, and pioneering biogeography. Imagine owning one of Wallace's historic cabinets, complete with its contents! That privilege belongs to an individual.

Unattributed to the naturalist at the time, the cabinet in question (images above) was purchased in 1979 for $600 by Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Heggestad. He began researching its provenance in 2007. Through handwriting analysis of the labels against correspondence, Heggestad demonstrated that the 1,700-item collection in 26 drawers - including butterflies, beetles, moths, shells, flies, bees, praying mantises, tarantulas, seedpods, a hornet's nest, and a small bird - was assembled by Wallace. And after finding a description of an exotic tea cup-shaped pod that he recognized from his collection, Heggestad began documenting references in Wallace's work to specimens in the cabinet, resulting in a 62-page report to support the theory that the collection once belonged to Wallace. The dates on the specimens correspond to the times and locations where he was conducting field work (U.K. before 1848, Brazil from 1848 to 1852, and Indonesia/Malaysia from 1854 to 1862) and the construction of the cabinet matches the design that the scientist himself advocated. It is Wallace's only known personal collection still in its original cabinet. It is believed that the specimens in the rosewood cabinet were assembled for instructional purposes by the scientist, who visited the U.S. only once - in 1886/1887 - on a lecture tour.

To allow the historical collection more of an audience than visitors to his dining room, Haggestad has offered the cabinet for sale to the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History. The cabinet was loaned to the AMNH in New York in 2009 for a display commemorating the 150th anniversary of Darwin's seminal work, On the Origin of Species by the Means of Natural Selection. "When you see how and what specimens are laid out in this cabinet, the organizing mind of one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century is revealed," says one curator. Great yes, household name no. But Wallace never cared about notoriety and never begrudged his fate. He became Darwin's friend, used the term "Darwinism" to describe the theory of evolution they had arrived at independently, and said that Darwin deserved the glory.

X-raying fossils

Scientists are using another method to visualize details contained in fossils: x-rays. Here are some examples:

• Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium used Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography (VHR-CT) to "digitally dissect" a 53-million-year-old male spider fossilized in amber from the Paris Basin in France (1st image). The technique reveals the preservation of the internal organs. "Amber provides a unique window into past forest ecosystems. It retains an incredible amount of information, not just about the spiders themselves, but also about the environment in which they lived,"says specialist Dr. David Penney.
• A doctoral student in paleontology at Imperial College London used a CT-scanner to obtain detailed 3-dimensional images of a 310 million-year-old ancestral cockroach fossil embedded in iron carbonate from the U.K. Midlands (3rd image). The scans offer glimpses of the wings, mandibles, legs, and antennae of this 3cm insect that have never been seen before. "This is now one of the best known roach fossils from this age and we can make educated guesses about how it lived," says Russell Garwood, who has deduced that it could sweep its antennae in an arc, climb trees to lay its eggs, and run very fast.
• Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has subjected 2 Australopithecus fossils to X-ray synchrotron microtomography. The technology allows the scientists to examine even some of the soft tissue of the hominid skeletons without taking them out of their original matrix. "We have done things like CAT-scan these…creating remarkable images that have allowed us to leave part of the evidence for future generations of science, like the rock attached to it. We can eliminate that rock now with science, by making it invisible....We can thus peer inside of places that normally might have been damaged. We can put the pieces back together and you can now look into the face of a skull 1.9 millions years ago, many parts of [which] have never been touched by a preparation tool...something that could not be done before," explains Berger.
• Scientists from the University of Rennes are using a synchrotron x-ray imaging technique known as propagation phase contrast microradiography to visualize animal inclusions in opaque amber from mid-Cretaceous sites of the Charentes region in France. These include wasps, flies, ants (2nd image), spiders, and dinosaur feathers. “Researchers have tried to study this kind of amber for many years with little or no success. This is the first time that we can actually discover and study the fossils contained within," says paleontologist Paul Tafforeau.
• An international team of scientists have applied synchrotron-radiation x-ray tomographic microscopy to the study of the embryology of 500-million-year-old worms from Middle to Late Cambrian fossil beds in Hunan, China. "SRXTM provides a method of non-invasive analysis that rivals the resolution achieved even by destructive methods, probing the very limits of fossilization and providing insight into embryology during the emergence of metazoan phyla," reads their letter to Nature.
• Synchotron x-rays are being used by researchers at Stanford University in California, where the Thermopolis archaeopteryx fossil was recently scanned to reveal additional details about its soft tissue. This method, which involves a particle accelerator, can even illuminate specific chemical elements. "These X-rays work a thousand times better than what you could do with a commercial X-ray machine – only a synchrotron can do this," says Stanford's Uwe Bergmann.

As it turns out, this post was entirely appropriate for today, because I had an MRI of my brain done for my neurologist this afternoon. I confirmed with the technician that helium is used in the maintenance as well as the production of the machine, and she was well aware of the looming shortage.