This ancient fly, dubbed Trichomyia lengleti, is one of a handful of bugs added to a new online database of "digital fossils." 

Paleontologists from the European Synchrotron Research Facility in France used high-energy x-rays to peer inside 640 pieces of opaque, fossilized amber that date to the Cretaceous period, 145 to 65 million years ago.

The fossils were found in 2008 in from the Charentes region of southwestern France. Until recently, fossils inside opaque amber were invisible to paleontologists. But the new accelerator technology revealed unprecedented views of 350 previously invisible insects, animals, and plantswhich could previously only be studied from fossilized mud imprints.

Using x-rays for paleontology is a new and important technique for seeing inside fossils that you can't cut or break open, said researcher Paul Tafforeau.

"When we are dealing with fossils we have to study them, but we also have to preserve them."

You won't find this cockroach crawling around city apartments--It scurried across the earth around 60 million years ago.

But now x-ray radiation has revealed the prehistoric critter frozen inside a piece of opaque amber. 

The cockroach was added to a new online database of digital fossils, which have become a new area of study in archaeology and taxonomy.

A hundred-million-year-old spider (above) is seen buried inside a tomb of opaque amber.

The digital fossil--a combination of multiple x-rays--was recently added to a new online database compiled by French researchers.

A hundred-million-year-old millipede ancestor encased in amber (pictured) was recently imaged by researchers from the European Synchrotron Research Facility.

Using a high-resolution scan called microtomography, researchers pinpointed finely detailed body parts, such as bristles, tiny legs, and insect wings--and even the hairs on the one-millimeter-long millipede.

In just 48 hours of imaging with a particle accelerator, researchers found more than 350 previously invisible creepy crawlies from Cretaceous-period amber (above right). 

Cracks and imperfections often show up in x-rays of amber (above, top left), posing a challenge to paleontologists who want to see the amber's contents. 

But a research team at the European Synchrotron Research Facility found that soaking amber in water fills in cracks, allowing for much clearer views of the insects (top, bottom left).

This prehistoric wasp-like insect, called Hymenopteran falciformicidae, was recently revealed by new x-ray technology. 

European researchers are investigating innovative ways to visualize these digital fossils, such as 3D physical models and glass blocks with the a print of the specimen inside.

This hundred-million year old isopod crustacean--an aquatic relative of woodlice--was one of more than 350 insect fossils found hiding in chunks of amber.

The critter was added to the European Synchrotron Research Facility's new online database of "digital fossils," which is accessible to the public.

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Elated archaeologists searching for the lost bodies of doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony have made a number of important discoveries.

In what could be the most thrilling finds since the tomb of Tutankhamun was unearthed in 1922, leading Egyptologists believe they are edging ever-closer to the country's most fabled queen.

This skull was found during a radar survey of a temple close to Alexandria and workers are hopeful they will also find the remains of the celebrated Roman general.

Discovery: The skull found in a tomb near the Temple of Taposiris Magna in a western suburb of Alexandria, Egypt

Egypt's top archaeologist Zahi Hawass was optimistic of making a significant find when the dig began last month.

'This could be the most important discovery of the 21st century,' he said. 

'This is the perfect place for them to be hidden.'

The skull is not confirmed as Cleopatra's but is set to be tested by scientists, alongside a complete body found in a stone coffin.

The excavation is hoped to unravel a number of questions that have lingered over the couple, including whether they were buried together, her reputed beauty and their suicide.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the three sites were identified in February during a radar survey of the temple close to Alexandria.

It is located on Lake Abusir, once known as Lake Mariut, near the northern coastal city and was built during the reign of King Ptolemy II from 282 to 246 BC.

Teams from Egypt and the Dominican Republic have been excavating the temple for the last three years.

They have already discovered a number of deep shafts inside the holy site, three of which were possibly used for burials.

Body: Another important find at the temple.

The leaders of the excavation believe it's possible Cleopatra and Mark Anthony could have been buried in a deep shaft similar to those already found.

The couple are widely believed to have committed suicide after their defeat in the battle of Actium in 31 BC.

Kathleen Martinez, an Egyptologist involved in the dig, said that Roman records suggested that the lovers were then buried together.

She added that the unearthing of ten mummies of nobles in the area has raised hopes that the lovers could be nearby.

But other experts are less convinced. John Baines, professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, said it is unlikely that Mark Anthony, who was an enemy, would have a burial place that would have stood the test of time.

Hopes of finding their tomb were raised with last year's discoveries at the site of: a bronze statue of the goddess Aphrodite; the alabaster head of a Queen Cleopatra statue; a mask believed to belong to Mark Anthony; and a headless statue from the Ptolemaic era at the excavation site.

Lovers: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as her lover Mark Antony in the 1963 film of the Egyptian queen

The expedition also found 22 coins bearing Cleopatra's image.

Dr Hawass said the statue and coins - which show an attractive face - debunk a recent theory that the queen was 'quite ugly'.

'The finds from Tabusiris reflect a charm... and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive,' he said in a statement.

Academics at the University of Newcastle concluded in 2007 that the fabled queen was not especially attractive based on Cleopatra's depiction on a Roman denarius coin which shows her as a sharp-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a protruding chin.

Excited: Dr. Zahi Hawass walks inside the Temple of Taposiris Magna

The popular image of the lovers is of Cleopatra played by Elizabeth Taylor opposite Richard Burton in the 1963 Hollywood film of the Egyptian queen. It was during filming that the co-stars became lovers.

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For a millennium it has lain undisturbed beneath the waves a stone's throw from one of Britain's best-loved beaches.

But now modern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.

In Photo : The giant fish trap, built during the Norman Conquest and designed to trap fish behind rock walls, was spotted on Google Earth.

Stretching more than 280 yards along the sea bed, the V-shaped structure was used to catch fish without the need for a boat or rod. Scientists believe it is one of the biggest of its kind.

The trap close to Poppit Sands on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed was discovered by archaeologists studying aerial photographs of the West Wales coast.

In Photo : This image shows the coastline curving round with the trap visible out at sea. It is in water just 12ft deep, and the wall is around three feet wide.

It was designed to act like a rock pool, trapping fish behind its stone walls as the tide flowed out.

At its point is a gap where fisherman would have placed nets to catch fish. They could also have blocked up the gap, and then scooped up fish trapped in the shallows.

Now, however, it is submerged even at low tide and fish are no longer trapped as the water recedes. Researchers believe it has sunk into the sand over the centuries.

Dr Ziggy Otto, a diver and lecturer in the coastal environment at Pembrokeshire College, believes the trap is around 1,000 years old.

'It is an amazing structure,' he said. 'It looks well defined on the photographs, but when you are in the water it looks just like a natural reef.'

In Photo : The trap, made of stones, is located on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed, Wales.

Although it was only recently spotted on aerial photographs, an armchair archaeologist could have discovered the trap on Google Earth.

Google said the V-shaped structure has been visible on its collection of satellite and aerial photos since at least December 2006.

Fish traps, or fish weirs, were common and controversial in Britain 1,000 years ago.

They were so effective at removing fish from rivers that they were banned in the Magna Carta, and were allowed only on the coast.

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Geologist Winston Seiler with some of the dinosaur tracks he identified for his thesis as a University of Utah master's degree student. The impressions once were thought to be potholes eroded by water. But Seiler and Marjorie Chan, chair of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, published a scientific paper in the October 2008 issue of the journal Palaios identifying the abundant impressions as comprising a large dinosaur "trample surface" in northern Arizona. There are so many tracks they wryly refer to the site as "a dinosaur dance floor."

University of Utah geologist Winston Seiler walks among hundreds of dinosaur footprints in a "trample surface" that likely was a watering hole amid desert sand dunes during the Jurassic Period 190 million years ago. The track site, which also includes some dinosaur tail-drag marks, is located in Coyote Buttes North area along the Arizona-Utah border.

This Eubrontes dinosaur footprint, including three toes and a heel, measures roughly 16 inches long. Dinosaur footprints are named by their shape because the species and genus of animal that made them isn't known, although Eubrontes tracks are believed to have been made by upright-walking, meat-eaters smaller than Tyrannosaurus rex. Eubrontes is one of four types of dinosaur footprints identified by University of Utah geologists at a Jurassic Period dinosaur "trample surface" in northern Arizona. The footprints previously had been thought to be modern potholes eroded by water. The inset outlines the footprint shape.

Photo on left shows eroded dinosaur footprints, and tail-drag marks highlighted in the diagram at right, at a northern Arizona site that University of Utah geologists are calling "a dinosaur dance floor."

This 4-inch long Grallator dinosaur track is among four types of dinosaur footprints identified by University of Utah geologists at a large dinosaur "trample surface" in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness near the Arizona-Utah border. They were left by a small dinosaur, perhaps only 3 feet tall, some 190 million years ago.

This photo shows a trackway, or set of prints made by the same dinosaur, as it walked through a wet, sandy oasis some 190 million years ago in what is now the Coyote Buttes North area straddling the Utah-Arizona border. University of Utah geologists published a new study showing that numerous impressions at the site are dinosaur tracks, not erosion-caused potholes as was believed previously.
This 14-inch-long Sauropodomorph dinosaur track actually is two footprints in one and was left by a creature that walked on four legs. The imprint includes the deeper central circular portion, which was left when a dinosaur's "pes" or rear foot, stepped into the larger, shallower print left by a "manus" or front foot. The toe prints, top and upper right, were left by the front foot, obscuring prints from the rear toes. The print is one of many identified by University of Utah scientists at a large dinosaur "trample surface" in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona.

University of Utah geologist Winston Seiler walks in the path of dinosaurs. The dinosaur tracks were preserved in a "trample surface" where the reptiles likely gathered to drink water at an oasis among arid sand dunes some 190 million years ago. The site is in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness along the Arizona-Utah border.

The "dinosaur dance floor," formally known as a dinosaur "trample surface," is outlined by white dashes in this photo taken from a hill above the three-quarter-acre site. The site's numerous holes in Jurassic sandstone were identified as dinosaur tracks by University of Utah geologists Marjorie Chan and Winston Seiler.

A dinosaur trample surface has been identified on the Arizona side of that state's border with Utah. Geologists from the University of Utah determined the numerous impressions at the site are dinosaur tracks, not erosion features.

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A proposed underwater museum in Alexandria, Egypt, came closer to reality in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the design process with the Egyptian government.

Fiberglass tunnels would connect aboveground galleries, near the New Library of Alexandria, to the underwater facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places at the site of Cleopatra's now sunken palace.



Cleopatra's palace sank long ago into the Mediterranean, but visitors to Alexandria, Egypt, may eventually view the complex's remnants via the world's first underwater museum.
A site for the museum has been proposed near the New Library of Alexandria, where the famed queen of Egypt is believed to have sheltered herself with her lover Marc Antony before taking her own life.
Shown with a 2008 illustration of the proposed underwater museum (upper center), the Bay of Alexandria once contained Cleopatra's island palace and the Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Both of them were done in centuries ago by earthquakes.

"It will not simply be a museum as such. It is part of a whole vision to revitalize the whole city and its heritage," said Naguib Amin, the site-management expert from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.



The proposed museum's underwater facility (at bottom in an artist's conception) will be difficult and expensive to build and is the focus of the just launched two-year feasibility study. But planners believe that the benefits of plunging visitors into the historical context of the objects--on the sunken island that once held Cleopatra's palace--will be worth the trouble.

"When you go to an archaeological site, you have an irreplaceable emotion. It's not like going to see a movie," said architect Jacques Rougerie. "It's like the astronaut who cannot share with other people what it is like to be in space."



Twin sphinxes flank a statue of a priest of Isis amid fallen columns on Alexandria's sunken island of Antirhodos in a photo from the late 1990s. The statue was raised in 1998 and became part of a traveling exhibition.

Similar tableaux remain on the sunken island, which was found by underwater archaeologists in 1996, and should be visible from the proposed underwater museum.



The marble head of Roman princess Antonia Minor, mother of Emperor Claudius, rests on sand at the now sunken site of Cleopatra's Alexandria, Egypt, palace in an undated photo. Behind the head is a toppled statue of a Ptolemaic, or Greco-Egyptian, king in the guise of Hermes-Thoth, messenger of the gods.

Visitors to the proposed underwater museum should be able to view these artifacts in situ.



An eroded sphinx, shown in an undated photo, isn't much more than a silhouette in the Bay of Alexandria's dusky waters. The murk is driving the proposed museum's planners to propose covering the monuments, then cleaning the enclosed water.

"Try to picture a glass tube," said Amin of the Egyptian antiquities agency in September 2008. "You simply put it over the main monuments that we need to highlight."



Rich with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, a reproduction of two granite blocks--found a third of a mile (500 meters) apart in the Bay of Alexandria--helped prove that the pieces originally formed a single tablet.

"Sort of the whole ancient city of Alexandria is lying under the water, just meters away from the shore," said Amin of the Egyptian antiquities council in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the museum-planning process.



Divers raise a 4-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall), granite, first-century A.D. statue of a priest of Isis from Alexandria, Egypt's bay in 1998.

A UN convention advises that submerged artifacts should remain on the seabed as a way to respect their historical context--a view endorsed by the planners of the proposed underwater museum in Alexandria, Egypt. The proposed museum got a boost in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the museum's planning.

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