Dinosaur fossils are awesome, but they are either super expensive or highly illegal to buy. Thanks to Kimberley Chapelle, a doctoral student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, anyone with a 3D printer can now print a completely accurate replica of a 200-million-year-old Massospondylus.
Chapelle used the school’s computed tomography (CT) facility to rebuild every bone in skull of the dino so that she could complete a full study of the features inside the skull. As a result now, paleontologists now know a lot more about the Massospondylus’ inner ear, how they contacted each other, how the nerves connected different parts of the skull to the brain, and how the bones around the brain were not fully fused.
Here’s where it matters to you. Chapelle has announced that the 3D source files for her work can be downloaded by any member of the public. That means you can now print a completely accurate (inside and out) Massospondylus skull! Science is freakin awesome!
Read the study and get the 3d source file HERE.
