A Baby Dinosaur Was Found Hiding Inside a Rock — Without Cracking It Open

Professor Pip set a chunky brown rock on his workbench and grinned. He adjusted his crooked spectacles, patted his bulging green lab-coat pockets, and pulled out a small brass flashlight — and then a wobbly block of pale amber jelly, with a tiny toy dinosaur nestled inside it like a raisin in a bun.

"Ah! Just what I need," he said. "Come see, come see!"

Mia, Leo, and their friend Theo crowded around the workbench.

"Today," Professor Pip announced, his tail swishing, "we're going to peek inside a rock — without breaking it!"

"Without breaking it?!" gasped Theo. "But how would you see what's inside?"

Professor Pip winked. He held up the amber jelly block. "The jelly is our pretend rock. The little dinosaur inside is our pretend fossil. Now watch closely."

He clicked on the brass flashlight and shone it right through the jelly. A soft glow spread across a piece of white paper on the other side — and there, in perfect silhouette, was the tiny dinosaur!

"WHOA!" all three children cried.

"You see?" Professor Pip whispered. "Even though the jelly is solid, some of the light can pass right through it. When light passes through something, it can show us the shape of anything hiding inside!"

He carefully turned the jelly block. The little dinosaur shadow twisted too.

"That trick, in real life, is called a CT scan — that stands for computed tomography. Instead of a flashlight, scientists use tiny gentle X-rays that pass through solid rock. A computer stitches all the shadows together and — presto! — a three-dimensional picture of whatever is hiding inside."

He tapped his pocket notebook, which was open to a small pencil sketch of a friendly baby dinosaur. "And just this week, scientists in Korea used a very tiny CT scanner on a chunk of rock from Aphae Island. Inside, they found the very first baby dinosaur skull ever discovered in Korea — the first new Korean dinosaur in fifteen years! They named it Doolysaurus, after a beloved Korean cartoon dinosaur named Dooly."

"Doolysaurus?!" Leo laughed. "That's the best name!"

"Precisely!" said Professor Pip. "And here is the marvelous thing — chipping that rock away with a chisel would have taken years and years. But with the scanner, they could see the whole little skull in just a few months, without so much as a scratch."

Mia's eyes went round. "So it's like… reading a book without opening the cover?"

Professor Pip's whiskers twitched with delight. "Exactly right, my dear scientist!"

He handed each child a piece of tissue paper and a little pebble. "Now you try. Tuck the pebble inside the tissue, then hold it up to the sun. What can you see through the paper? Every wrapped-up secret has a shadow waiting to be found."