Sometimes the things we take for granted end up being the most stunning when we finally see them up close. The human body offers no shortage of otherworldly glimpses into our strange anatomy. It’s easy to forget, for example, that what we call “bodies” are really just blankets of skin draped over a skeleton. Somehow our brains trick us into calling some of those blankets beautiful.

Modern science is constantly giving us new windows into that weird world inside ourselves. CT scanners, for instance, can now show in real-time the blood that pumps through your heart. They can dissect the walls of your skull to show you how blood reaches the brain and put a rotating foot on display, all the way down to the screws that hold the joints together. Then there is the trusty x-ray, which lets us peer through our own digestive system. The possibilities are becoming quite literally (and maybe a little alarmingly) endless.

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Tabletop Whale .
bodyxray
A look from below of a continuous cross-section of the human body, from the head to the feet. thealphamike
bodyxray1
A top-down view of a cross-section of the human body. Visible Human Project
timelapseface
A timelapse of a developing fetus' face. BBC One
timelapseteeth
A timelapse photo of teeth changing position with braces. Gifbin
xrayhand
An x-ray of a human hand, retracting and extending its fingers. Noah Weiss
footxray
A foot reinforced with screws. GE Healthcare
abdomenaorta
An image of the abdomen and the aorta. GE Healthcare
heartstents
An image of the human heart with stents typically used to treat narrow or weak arteries. GE Healthcare