Friday, August 22, 2008

In Vivo Paleontology

Some of the medical images sent to me for interpretation come with so little patient history that I feel a paleontologist.

At times like these it's nice to be reminded of how much tougher my job would be if my patients actually had been dead for 9000 years, with no medical record left other than their bones.

The National Geographic video below shows skeletons from a wonderful find in Northern Niger.




Figure 5. Mid-Holocene burials and skull.
(doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002995.g005)

See the original paper in PLoSOne by Sereno et al. for many more details on this find.

(via Pharyngula)

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