Body image these days is all about celebrating what's inside as much as what's on the outside. A new book from Batsford Publishing, Science is Beautiful by Colin Salter, takes us even deeper, placing the human body, as well as the diseases and medicines that affect it, under the microscope. The truly magnificent images are a reminder of the storied intersection between science and art, and of nature's endless ability to create sublime beauty in the most obscure places. The image to the right is a polarized light micrograph cross-section of tongue tissue.
This cotton candy-esque image is of a process called spermatogenesis in the human testis. The sperm cells, seen in green and red along the bottom, are embedded in the red layer of Sertoli cells which give them nutrients. The green and red head contains the genetic material for fertilization.
Some of the more psychedelic images are those of neurotransmitters and hormones—dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, insulin, and in this image, melatonin. This polarized light micrograph is of melatonin crystals, which are released to induce sleep.
This image is a colored scanning electron micrograph of an artery that supplies the muscle tissue of the tongue.
While these crystals look anything but relaxing, that is in fact their job to aid those who suffer from asthma. These crystals of salbutamol sulphate mimic adrenaline to get muscles in airways to relax.
Try saying that five times fast. This colored scanning electron micrograph is of a fimbriae of a fallopian tube. The fallopian tube is the connection between an overy and the uterus. The fimbriae are the folds next to each ovary at the opening of the tube.
The book also contains stunning imagery of various human ailments, from herpes to measles. This colored transmission electron micrograph is of a bacteriophage. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. In this image, a T4 bacteriophage is injecting its DNA into an E. coli bacteria.
This may be the most important part of your human body the day after the Super Bowl. The kidney glomerulus, writes Salter, "is a filtration unit in the kidney which removes toxic waste from the blood and disposes of it in urine."
Science is Beautiful, by Colin Salter, is published this month by Batsford.
