Mar. 3, 2009 A 300-million-year-old brain of a relative of
sharks and ratfish has been revealed by French and American
scientists using synchrotron holotomography at the European
Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). It is the first time that
the soft tissue of such an old fossil brain has ever been found.
As in many scientific discoveries, it all happened by chance.
The team from the National Natural History Museum in Paris (MNHN
in French), the ESRF and the American Museum of Natural History
in New York was using the synchrotron to study one of the few
skulls of an iniopterygian fish that has maintained its three
dimensions (most of them are squashed). Inopterygians are an
extinct relative of sharks and ratfish, and used to live on the
shallow and muddy marine ground. They were not bigger than 50
centimeters. The scientists used the technique of absorption
microtomography to study different samples. One sample, stemming
from Kansas (US), revealed a peculiar structure: it was denser
than the surrounding mat