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