MRI: A whole new way to look at food

Published 12:56 pm Friday, August 13, 2010

It’s the peak of summer, and grocery stores and farmers markets are full of gorgeous produce. But, as it turns out, fruits and vegetables can also be beautiful in black and white.

The Inside Insides blog is devoted to MRI images of food. According to a Salon story, the blog got its start after Andy Ellison, who works at a research lab, scanned an orange one day when he needed to adjust his MRI machine’s settings. Surprised and pleased by the scan, he began scanning other produce and combining the scans of each fruit and vegetable into animations.

The animations give food a whole new dimension. An artichoke looks like a blooming flower; cucumbers and mushrooms undulate like jellyfish.

You might even gain a new appreciation for watermelon seeds.