skull – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Short lives, violent deaths: Two CT-scanned Siberian mammoth calves yield trove of insights

By Guest PostSeptember 5, 2014Sciencebrain, ct scans, dopingmittel, dopingstudie, dunkelziffer im spitzensport, france, imran khan, jeffrey lovich, jo dunkley, jorge piedrahita, juergen goller, kopf stehende gesichter, mammoth remains, mickey agha, most intelligent politician, permafrost, russia, schoenheit von gesichtern, sean simpson, skillful sailor, skull, smooth sea, stephanie cone, united states, university of michigan, urintest, wind energy development, wind farm design, wmap project, world leaders

ANN ARBOR — CT scans of two newborn woolly mammoths recovered from the Siberian Arctic are revealing previously inaccessible details about the early development of prehistoric pachyderms. In addition, the X-ray images show that both creatures died from suffocation after inhaling mud.

Lyuba and Khroma, who died at ages 1 and 2 months, respectively, are the most complete and best-preserved baby mammoth specimens ever found. Lyuba’s full-body CT scan, which used an industrial scanner at a Ford testing facility in Michigan, was the first of its kind for any mammoth. (more…)

Study: CT Scans Could Bolster Forensic Database to ID Unidentified Remains

By Guest PostJanuary 19, 2014Science3d id, amanda hale, ann ross, anthropology, cheekbones, contemporary skull, craniofacial surgeons, ct scans, facial characteristics, forensic database, id, kenda honeycutt, manual mapping, morton collection, museum, north carolina state university, skeletal remain, skull, unidentified remains, university of pennsylvania

A study from North Carolina State University finds that data from CT scans can be incorporated into a growing forensic database to help determine the ancestry and sex of unidentified remains. The finding may also have clinical applications for craniofacial surgeons.

“As forensic anthropologists, we can map specific coordinates on a skull and use software that we developed – called 3D-ID – to compare those three-dimensional coordinates with a database of biological characteristics,” says Dr. Ann Ross, a professor of anthropology at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work. “That comparison can tell us the ancestry and sex of unidentified remains using only the skull – which is particularly valuable when dealing with incomplete skeletal remains.” (more…)

Study Raises Questions about Longstanding Forensic Identification Technique

By Guest PostDecember 27, 2013Scienceann ross, ashley maxwell, cranial vault outline, forensic experts, forensic identification technique, north Carolina, positive id, postmortem xrays, questions, skull, state university

Forensic experts have long used the shape of a person’s skull to make positive identifications of human remains. But those findings may now be called into question, since a new study from North Carolina State University shows that there is not enough variation in skull shapes to make a positive ID.

“In a lot of cases, murder victims or the victims of disasters are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and don’t have extensive dental records we can use to make a match,” says Dr. Ann Ross, a forensic expert and professor of anthropology at NC State who is senior author of a paper on the new study. “But those people may have been in car accidents or other incidents that led them to have their skulls X-rayed in emergency rooms or elsewhere. And those skull X-rays have often been used to make IDs. I’ve done it myself. (more…)

UT Austin Anthropologists Confirm Link Between Cranial Anatomy and Two-Legged Walking

By Guest PostOctober 3, 2013Scienceafrican apes, anatomist raymond dart, anthropology researcher, austin, australopithecus africanus, bipedal, bipedal fossil species, bipedal mammals, bipedal postures, brain size, characteristic, chimpanzees, chris kirk, difference, direct link, eastern gray kangaroo, egyptian jerboa, foramen magnum, four legged postures, gabrielle russo, human ancestor, human evolution, sahelanthropus tchadensis, skull, spinal cord, university of texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Anthropology researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have confirmed a direct link between upright two-legged (bipedal) walking and the position of the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull that transmits the spinal cord.

The study, published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, confirms a controversial finding made by anatomist Raymond Dart, who discovered the first known two-legged walking (bipedal) human ancestor, Australopithecus africanus. Since Dart’s discovery in 1925, physical anthropologists have continued to debate whether this feature of the cranial base can serve as a direct link to bipedal fossil species. (more…)

Dwarf Species of Fanged Dinosaur Emerges from Southern Africa

By Guest PostOctober 4, 2012Nature, Scienceafrica, canines, carol abraczinskas, Chicago, China, different, dinosaur, dinosaur anatomy, dinosaur era, dwarf sized, dwarf species, fanged dinosaur, harvard university, herbivore, heterodontosaurs, lifestyle, new species, parrot shaped, paul sereno, pegomastax africanus, plant eating, porcupine, punk sized, radiation, rock, sereno, skull, south african, stegosaurus, supercontinent pangaea, thick jaw, tianyulong, todd marshall, toothed reptile, triceratops, tyler keillor, university, vampire, volcanic ash, zookeys

A new species of plant-eating dinosaur with tiny, 1-inch-long jaws has come to light in South African rocks dating to the early dinosaur era, some 200 million years ago.

This “punk-sized” herbivore is one of a menagerie of bizarre, tiny, fanged plant-eaters called heterodontosaurs, or “different toothed reptiles,” which were among the first dinosaurs to spread across the planet. (more…)

Critically Endangered Whales Sing Like Birds; New Recordings Hint At Rebound

By Guest PostAugust 1, 2012Natureacoustics, alaskan beaufort sea, Arctic, Arctic sea ice, birds, bowhead whales, breeding ground, catherine berchok, christian lydersen, commercial whaling, declines, endangered whales, fram strait, greenland, hydrophone, islands of norway, kate stafford, microphones, migration path, population, sing, skull, sue moore, university of washington, variety of tunes, whale song

When a University of Washington researcher listened to the audio picked up by a recording device that spent a year in the icy waters off the east coast of Greenland, she was stunned at what she heard: whales singing a remarkable variety of songs nearly constantly for five wintertime months.

Kate Stafford, an oceanographer with UW’s Applied Physics Lab, set out to find if any endangered bowhead whales passed through the Fram Strait, an inhospitable, ice-covered stretch of sea between Greenland and the northern islands of Norway. Only around 40 sightings of bowhead whales, which were hunted almost to extinction, have been reported there since the 1970s. (more…)

Growing Threats to Biodiversity ‘Arks’

By Guest PostJuly 25, 2012Natureafrica, agalychnis callidryas, arks for biodiversity, asia-pacific, barro colorado island, biodiversity arks, bukit palong, cameroon, carolina usech, cyclopes didactylus, deforestation, forest elephant, green iguana, iguana iguana, kadiri serge bobo, loxodonta cyclotis, national park, oil palm plantation, panama, peninsular malaysia, red eyed treefrog, silky anteater, skull, southern gabon, thomas smith, threats, tropical americas, tropical forests, tropical research, university of dschang, william laurance

Many of the protected areas in tropical nations are struggling to sustain their biodiversity, according to a study by more than 200 scientists from around the world. The study, which will appear Thursday in the journal Nature, found that deforestation is advancing rapidly in these nations and most reserves are losing some or all of their surrounding forest.

Among the scientists participating in the study were lead author Professor William Laurance of James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, who is also a senior research fellow at UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research; and Thomas Smith, a professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and director of UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research. (more…)

Iconic New Zealand Reptile Shows Chewing is Not Just for Mammals

By Guest PostJune 5, 2012Nature3d, angles, bbsrc, beetles, chewing technique, computer model, crickets, dinosaurs, harmful xrays, iconic, lizard, marc jones, metabolism, musculoskeletal model, neil curtis, new zealand, new zealand tuatara, reptile, sea birds, skull, small lizards, sphenodon, spiders, steak knife, tuatara, university college london, university of hull

The tuatara, an iconic New Zealand reptile, chews its food in a way unlike any other animal on the planet –challenging the widespread perception that complex chewing ability is closely linked to high metabolism.

Using a sophisticated computer model, scientists from UCL and the University of Hull demonstrate how the tuatara is able to slice its food like a “steak knife”. The tuatara’s complex chewing technique raises doubts about the supposed link between chewing and high metabolism in mammals.

The New Zealand tuatara (Sphenodon) is a lizard-like reptile that is the only survivor of a group that was globally widespread at the time of the dinosaurs. It lives on 35 islands scattered around the coast of New Zealand and was recently reintroduced to the mainland. Its diet consists of beetles, spiders, crickets, small lizards and, occasionally, sea birds. (more…)

Tag Archives: skull