Famous fossil secretly scanned in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Archaeologists at the University of Texas at Austin were given a top secret look at Lucy, one of the world's most famous fossils.

The 3.2 million-year-old hominid skeleton, found in Ethiopia in 1974, made a 10-day stop at UTA's High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility in September after an eight-month exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

With guards standing close watch, UT scientists were allowed to make 35,000 computed tomography images of the ancient fossil. While U.S. researchers conducted a scan on the fossil in the 1970s, the new scans provide the first high-resolution data on the early human ancestor, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman newspaper said Friday.

The fossil of a 3-foot-tall Australopithecus Francis is considered a national treasure in Ethiopia, where she is called Dinkenesh, which means "You are beautiful." Only her Ethiopian curator was allowed to touch any of the fossilized remains, the San Antonio Express-News said.

UT researchers said the scans allowed them to see inside the fossil without causing harm and should provide new information about human evolution.