Is This The First Brain Ever To Have Evolved? Scientists Think So

A random micro-CT scan has led to a momentous discovery.

Transcript

00:00Most creatures that walk or swim around on our planet have brains.

00:07It seems to be an evolutionary inevitability, but one creature must have grown a brain first,

00:12and scientists say they may have finally divined which one that was, and by accident.

00:16This is the fossil that led paleontologists to the discovery, and this is the fish they

00:20believe first developed a brain some 319 million years ago, called Coccicephalus wilde.

00:27The study of Michigan paleontologist Matt Friedman says he was just testing out a new

00:30micro-CT scanner on a random fossil, saying that when he looked a bit closer he noticed

00:34something interesting, explaining, it had all these features, and I said to myself, is this

00:39really a brain that I'm looking at?

00:40It's an uncommon find as soft tissue very rarely fossilizes like bone or shells do.

00:45Researchers say that this fossil, however, likely had a mineral like pyrite seep into

00:49the brain cavity and replaced the tissue while decomposition occurred slowly, in a low oxygen

00:53environment.

00:54The discovery shows just how far science has come in the last century alone, as the fossil

00:58where the brain was discovered has been in the hands of scientists since 1925.

01:03science has been done.

01:08They also have no work for science.

01:11They have no behind the smallest.

01:13They have no, it's not the most relevant.

01:15They have no.

01:17They have no.

01:19They are no blue or they have no problem.

01:22It's not the most relevant.

01:23This study shows aack año for science.