{"id":232803,"date":"2026-03-08T07:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/3d-imagery-helps-bring-worlds-ant-diversity-to-life"},"modified":"2026-03-08T07:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:12:21","slug":"3d-imagery-helps-bring-worlds-ant-diversity-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/3d-imagery-helps-bring-worlds-ant-diversity-to-life","title":{"rendered":"3D imagery helps bring world\u2019s ant diversity to life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/3d-imagery-helps-bring-worlds-ant-diversity-to-life2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more than a decade, Evan Economo\u2019s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects\u2014a subfield of entomology known as morphology\u2014but the process is costly and time-consuming.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it could take 10 hours to scan one specimen,\u201d explained Economo, who chairs the University of Maryland\u2019s Department of Entomology and holds the James B. Gahan and Margaret H. Gahan Professorship.<\/p>\n<p>As a senior author of a paper published in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41592-026-03005-0\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Nature Methods<\/i><\/a>, Economo tested a high-tech workflow to speed up their efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For more than a decade, Evan Economo\u2019s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects\u2014a subfield of entomology known as morphology\u2014but the process is costly and time-consuming. \u201cOne limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}