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Photo: Tim Senden
The beautifully preserved skull of a lungfish with X-ray CT detail of the structure of its snout
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Courtesy Richard Barwick
Griphognathus whitei was a species of lungfish that lived 375 million years ago |
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Bits & pieces |
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Around since the 1970s, CT is mainly used in the medical arena |
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Previously, materials had to be cracked open for scientists to understand their chemical and physical make-up. Non-destructive analysis was slow to develop until the late 1990s when cheap commercial units became available |
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The X-ray CT is being used to characterise and model soils, sedimentary rocks, minerals, wood, bone, foams, catalysts, coatings, gels, concretes and ceramics. |
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Ancient fish heads touch a nerve |
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Remember when the world went nuts for X-ray glasses? Every kid wanted to find one in their Christmas stocking. Great fun, but hardly cutting edge science.
Now a team of Aussie scientists has combined the real thing with innovative computer technology to revolutionise the understanding of materials used in health, industry and society at large. It is offering the chance to extract new oil reserves, design the building materials of the future, further the science of bone reconstruction and inkjet printing, and expand our knowledge of how prehistoric creatures survived.
The X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) Facility, at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, can 'see' through solid rock more clearly than ever before. It lets scientists examine, in minute detail, the complex way in which matter makes up rocks, plants, fossils and other materials.
Who would have thought that coral from tropical reefs might be used to reconstruct cheek bones of car crash victims? X-ray CT technology has allowed scientists to investigate the intricate make-up of coral and accurately calculate its strength.
Who thought oil would run out in their lifetime - or that petrol would hit $1.50 a litre? X-ray CT to the rescue again, helping us to identify and recover this precious resource.
The machine can look deep into the heart of oil-bearing rocks and produce super-accurate 3D computerised models of their structures. Oil companies can use this information to calculate the most efficient and cost-effective way to get the oil to the surface. The implications are huge, which is why 12 of the world's biggest companies, including oil giant Shell, are investing in this technology.
ANU has been working closely with the University of New South Wales to further petroleum research. The ANU X-ray CT Facility is also creating 3D computer images that show the behaviour of minute granules in a bid to develop a new kind of writing paper suitable for high-quality printing.
The X-ray CT Facility is not just limited to futuristic applications - scientists are using it to look back in time and re-write the natural history books. By taking detailed 3D images of fossils found in the outback, it is providing palaeontologists with new information on parts of extinct animals such as the nerves in the face and brain of early fish that later evolved into amphibians. This furthers our understanding of the evolution of the vertebrate brain, and may prove useful for today's human brain research.
Palaeontologists have spent years sweating it out in the outback, collecting fossils dating from the Devonian Period (400 million years ago), notably lungfish whose fossils are brilliantly preserved.
They now have one of the most important collections of Devonian lungfish ever assembled. However, while they have been able occasionally to understand some of the evolution of the vertebrate brain from these fossils, the fine detail of the creatures' internal structures have been notoriously tough to observe and decode.
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Photo: Tim Wetherell
The X-ray CT facility at ANU is one of the few facilities in the world that can measure three scales of magnitude simultaneously
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The X-Ray CT Scan Facility enables them to see incredible detail: nerves coming out of the brain, the position of the jugular vein, the notochord and the brain itself. The degree of anatomical detail that has become available with this technique has significantly opened up palaeontologists understanding of these early vertebrates.
But how does the X-ray CT device work?
If you have been to hospital recently you will probably know about 'cat' scans, medical imaging machines that take X-ray images of your body from several angles, which are weaved together by a computer to form a 3D image. It is the doctor's way of seeing inside you without cutting you open.
According to one ANU physical chemist Dr Tim Senden, the team has taken this technique further, creating one of the few facilities in the world that can measure more than three scales of magnitude at the same time, from millimetres to microns.
So X-ray glasses might not be as far away as you might think...
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