In a major scientific breakthrough, a team of scientists has performed the first-ever 3-D, colour X-ray on a human.According to Europe's CERN physics laboratory, the team relied on a new imaging technique that promises to improve the field of medical diagnostics.

            The new imaging device, which is based on the traditional black-and-white X-ray, uses particle-tracking technology developed for CERN's Large Hadron Collider.The world-famous team of scientists at CERN had discovered the elusive Higgs Boson particle in 2012. "This colour X-ray imaging technique could produce clearer and more accurate pictures and help doctors give their patients more accurate diagnoses," CERN said in a statement.
 
              Called Medipix, the new CERN imaging technology works like a camera detecting and counting individual sub-atomic particles as they collide with pixels while its shutter is open. This allows for high-resolution, high-contrast pictures. The machine's "small pixels and accurate energy resolution meant that this new imaging tool is able to get images that no other imaging tool can achieve," Phil Butler, a developer at the University of Canterbury, said.
 
            According to the CERN, the images very clearly show the difference between bone, muscle and cartilage, but also the position and size of cancerous tumours, for example.The new imaging technology is being commercialised by a New Zealand based- firm MARS Bioimaging, which is also affiliated to the universities of Otago and Canterbury which contributed to its development.