High-energy Physics Machine Reveals Secrets of 1.5 Million-year-old Big Cat
http://www.newsweek.com/high-energy-physics-machine-reveals-secrets-15-million-year-old-big-cat-947489
Usually, the fancy physics machine known as the European Synchrotron spends its time doing fancy physics, like trying to crack the mysteries of exotic states of matter. But the device is at its heart just a super-powerful X-ray machine, so sometimes scientists put it to work tackling more unusual questions.
Questions like what type of big cat a skull discovered a century ago belonged to when it was alive about 1.5 million years ago. The skull, which was found in Tuscany, is still encased in extremely hard rock, making it difficult for scientists to study it.