A Scientist's Quest to 3D Scan Thousands of Species

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[Narrator] This isn't the head of a fiend

straight out of the bowels of Middle Earth.

And this one isn't the figment of

Hollywood's imagination, either.

They're fish like you've never seen them before.

These, and over 700 other kinds of fish

have gotten incredible new life in

Adam Summers' lab.

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You see, Summers is on a mission to scan

tens of thousands of fish species.

But, he isn't throwing fish into a

regular CT scanner.

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And instead of the system that you may

be familiar with from a hospital,

where a donut passes over the patient,

here, the patient, in this case a burrito

full of dead fish, spins in place while

the X-ray passes through it.

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[Narrator] Summers begins by laying out

and photographing each specimen

with its museum tag.

Then, he rolls the fish up in cheese cloth

soaked in ethanol, and bundles them together.

This cylindrical package of fish may have

six species, 10 species, even 20 species of fish.

And they're all going to get scanned at once.

[Narrator] And into the mini CT scanner

the burrito goes.

It spins while it's bombarded with X-rays,

casting shadows as the bones block the rays.

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The images, actually, come out as

horizontal slices through the fish.

Then,

using a program

that performs relatively simple math,

but a lot of it, you take these

shadow images and reconstruct sections

through the plastic container.

[Narrator] With this data, you can produce

some stunning representations of fishes,

and I do mean you.

Summers makes all the data available online

so you can tinker with it.

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But, what's the point of scanning

thousands upon thousands of fish?

Well, with many fishes in peril,

CT scans serve as priceless data.

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The technology also allows scientists

to see into specimens without tearing them apart.

But the other thing that this does is

it shows the beauty and the importance

of this diversity

of skeletons.

And so, I hope that it serves as a

way for people to become more connected

to the incredible diversity of vertebrate life,

and a little bit more invested in protecting it.

[Narrator] Speaking of vertebrates,

Summers doesn't plan on stopping with fish.

He wants to scan everything with a backbone.

Like geckos, for instance.

And yes, even two-headed geckos.

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That's a whole lot of scanning

and a whole lot of burritos.

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