The Antikythera Mechanism is 2000 year old device salvaged from a sunken Roman ship. Scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device for many years and using the latest x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning they have unravelled it's internal structure and believe it to be a very early astronomical calculator dating from 100-150BC that can track various astronomical bodies and the phase of the moon.
It is thought to be the the earliest known example of a device that uses gears. It also has a differential gear something previously thought to be invented in the 16th century and it's level of sophistication and miniaturisation is comparable to 18th century watches.
Comments
This is extremely COOL. I love the fact that they've not damaged the relic, they've just scanned it non-invasively to the point that they can see markings. I dream of a day when they can do that on a large scale. Fit a device to a landrover and drive around britain taking in-depth images under the ground.
it's when they can get from that to cheap and easy replica a la reprap as well where things get exciting. You can sort of do it already but the machines are hellishly expensive.