Current events 2

The current event is about a portable 3-D laser technology that preserves a Texan dinosaur's footprint. Using the technology, scientists have electronically preserved at 110 million year old dinosaur footprint that was previously excavated and built into a wall of a bandstand at a Texas courthouse in the 1930's. When this was first found, scientists identified this as ichnospecies Eubrontes glenrosensis. The 3-D laser scanners capture the original fossil texture and morphology. The fossil has been exposed to the elements for over 75 years, causing parts of it to erode. It has effected the outer edge of the toes and heel, altering the original shape of when it was first found.The track of the ichnospecies Eubrontes glenrosensis was originally excavated in 1933 from a layer in a riverbed which is now a 1,500 acre Dinosaur Valley State Park in North Texas. Not long after it was excavated, the citizens of Glen Rose builded a bandstand and embedded the track in one of its walls. The footprint might have been the theropod named Acrocanthosaurus, found mostly in Texas, North Carolina and Oklahoma. The Dinosaur Valley State Park is home to an ancient shoreline of a 113 million-year-old sea and has some of the best dinosaur preserved footprints in the world. In a effort to preserve the specimen, as well as comparing the current state to the original, scientists must use a portable 3-D laser scanner to preform an accurate digitization of the track.The scans were processed to generate high-resolution 3-D digital models of the track. Finally the models were reconstructed in various media formats such as Quicktime, Virtual Reality and Image File Format for viewing, and publication. Scientists will soon make a raw scan data and have the 3-D format for download. The research demonstrates the advantages of using laser scanners to capture field data and create interactive models that can be archived via Internet for further research and education.

I think this is a bad idea to preserve it on computers because when you preserve it on computer, it could crash and get a virus that erases the memory and by then, the footprint will erode away. Or maybe, in my last current event they would use the supercomputer chip that exceeds every computer chip in the world, so maybe it could store it without it crashing.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091104101623.htm