Archaeopteryx had birdlike brain

In a nice bit of science, researchers made a CT scan of an Archaeopteryx skull and reconstructed its brain. It sits between the typical reptile brain and the typical bird brain, with relatively large structures related to hearing and flying. And they say there are no transitional fossils! The paper was published in Nature last week, and the London Natural History Museum, where the specimen is kept, has more including movies and links deeper into the museum site.

CT scans are valuable geologic tools. And the technique is used at a larger scale to image Earth's interior.