14 FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2018 features Vacant for decades, Detroit’s train station may get new life Guests attend Detroit Homecoming IV at Detroit’s most iconic structure, the Michigan Central train station

AP | Detroit in the Detroit area, some lo - People living and working near the station are cals are taking a wait-and-see he last train left approach to the company’s in- excited that the Ford Motor Co. is considering Michigan Central terest in the property, which buying the massive old building, which has sat Station 30 years has been pitched as a possible ago and it has stood KNOW WHAT police headquarters or retail vacant for 30 years vacant ever since, space and casino over the years. Ta hulking embodiment of De- The City Council wanted it de- troit’s long decline from Ameri- molished and forgotten. ca’s manufacturing engine to its “We’ve heard a lot of stories. biggest municipal bankruptcy. Images of the They come and go,” said Ste- The 105-year-old building building remain a phen Bryant, general manager that once handled all of De - premier example of the nearby Mercury bar and troit’s passenger rail traffic of ruins pho- restaurant. “I’m not going to closed in 1988 due to a decline tography dwell too much into it unless I in ridership and took on a new see a (Ford) sign go up.” life in the subsequent years as a Stephen McGee, who is re- must-see destination for urban storing an old house near the explorers, the homeless and station, said such a large rein- scavengers, who picked it clean blocks from the train station. vestment by Ford would send of anything valuable. The move allows the automaker “an international signal to other After years of failed short- to strengthen its development companies” about the city. lived plans to repurpose the of self-driving vehicles. It could “A company of that size dated 500,000-square-foot, use the train station for a sim- would be the only way a build- 18-story building, its future ilar purpose, as it’s unlikely to ing of that size would come may be crystallizing: The Ford use it for manufacturing. back the right way,” McGee, Motor Co. is moving into the “We expect to grow our pres- 36, said of Ford. surrounding neighbourhood ence in Detroit and will share Michigan Central Station of Corktown and — according more details in the future,” Ford was completed in 1913 and was to Ford board member Edsel B. spokeswoman Dawn Booker a busy rail hub for decades. Ford II — is in talks to buy the told The Associated Press. But as people travelled more old station. Billionaire Manuel “Matty” by car and plane, demand for Few details about the com- Moroun, who bought the build- rail service waned. In 1986, its pany’s interest have been made ing in the 1990s and also owns 3-story depot handled about public. On Thursday, the Dear- the nearby Ambassador Bridge 64,000 passengers, down from born-based automaker began linking Detroit and Windsor, 82,400 the year before. It closed moving about 200 members of Ontario, didn’t reply to requests two years later, giving way to its electric and autonomous ve- to discuss the former train sta- scavengers who stripped it of hicle business teams into a re- tion’s future and possible sale. everything of value, including The old Michigan Central Station in Detroit furbished former factory a few Though Ford has deep roots its wiring and plumbing. The mother of all lizards found in Italian Alps

group back in time by 75 mil- Megachirella, discovered Scans of the fossilised lion years, and means that “liz- some 20 years ago buried in • ards inhabited the planet since compacted sand and clay lay- skeleton of Megachirella at least 240 million years ago,” ers in the Dolomites mountain revealed the chameleon- study co-author Tiago Simoes range in northeast Italy, was in- sized reptile was an of the University of Alberta in itially misclassified as a close KNOW WHAT ancestor of today’s Canada told AFP. lizard relative. That, in turn, suggested that But Simoes had questions. lizards and snakes squamates had already split “When I first saw the fossil from other ancient reptiles be- I realised it had important fea- AFP | Edmonton fore the Permian/Triassic mass tures that could link it to the ear- Lizards are very extinction some 252 million ly evolution of lizards,” he said. good climbers. cientists said they had years ago, and survived it. So he hooked up with col - Gecko lizard is tracked down the old- Up to 95 per cent of marine- leagues to perform a more de- the master of est known lizard, a and 75 per cent of terrestrial life tailed analysis of the tiny skel- all lizards when tiny creature that lived on Earth was lost. eton, which included CT scan- it comes to about 240 million years ning. climbing Sago when Earth had a single con- The scans revealed previously tinent and dinosaurs were brand unseen physical features, includ- new. ing the underside of the fossil, Scans of the fossilised skele- embedded in rock. understand the early evolution ton of Megachirella revealed the The team found a tiny bone in of reptiles and lizards,” Simoes chameleon-sized reptile was an 240 Megachirella’s lower jaw that is explained. ancestor of today’s lizards and million years ago, when unique to the squamate family. “I used this dataset... to con- snakes, which belong to a group dinosaurs were brand “I spent nearly 400 days duct the phylogenetic analysis called squamates, an interna- new. the Megachirella visiting over 50 museums and presented in this study.” tional team wrote in the science lived on earth university collections across 17 Phylogenetics is the study of journal Nature. countries to collect data on fossil how different species relate to This finding dragged the and living species of reptiles to one another in the tree of life. An artistic rendering of a life scene in the Dolomites region, Northern Italy