Dinosaur teeth discovered by AI could be oldest found in UK
- Published
Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to be a huge tool for future advances in science, but it is also helping with research into the past!
Scientists at the Natural History Museum have been studying fossils of mysterious teeth that might have belonged to a dinosaur never seen in Britain before, and AI has played a big part in the discovery.
AI, which is technology that enables a computer to think or act in a more 'human' way, helped the researchers identify which extinct animal the fossils most likely belonged to.
The researchers gave the computers data about thousands of teeth from different dinosaur species and made 3D models of the fossils to find out which extinct creatures they were from.
Dinosaurs like the Jianianhualong tengi (left) Therizinosaurus (right) are members of the maniraptorans.
The information the computers provided helped identify which dinosaur the teeth most likely belonged to.
It is believed the teeth, found in the South of England, could be from a group of dinosaurs called maniraptorans, who were the earliest relatives of birds.
The fossils are thought to be the oldest of their kind ever found and suggests some of the dinosaurs could have existed almost 30 million years earlier than previously thought.
Simon Wills, a PhD student at the Museum who led the research said: "The teeth we analysed include what are currently the only troodontid and therizinosaur fossils ever recorded from the UK and are the oldest evidence of these dinosaurs anywhere in the world."
The therizinosaur is a large herbivore with long scissor-like claws and was seen in the most recent Jurassic World film.