X-Rated X-Rays

Just when you think you’ve seen everything.

This came across my attention whilst reading one of my favourite blogs, Bad Astronomy. It seems a company which makes displays for medical devices called EIZO, got the memo that “Sex Sells”, and jumped on the bandwagon. They hired an advertising agency called Butter, based in Germany, and Butter came up with an x-ray pin-up calendar. Awesome.

I dunno. I realize its an x-ray, and you really can’t see anything. But I think these are kinda sexy.

It’s the lingerie prinicple I suppose. Keeping something hidden is sometimes even sexier than being totally revealed.

So this is a science blog after all, and if you are interested at all in how X-rays work, here is a brief and simple description (and heres a link to another explanation on How Stuff Works).

X- ray images are made in a similar fashion as to a regular photograph on film. Only in the case of x-ray images, it is photons in the x-ray range of the electromagnetic spectrum (about 0.1 to 10 nanometers) rather than visible light photons (wavelengths in the 400-750 nanometer range) which make the image.

When x-ray photons pass through the body, they will interact with the various tissues. Bones are very good at absorbing x-ray photons, thus not many x-rays make it through to expose the film, making bones appear light on the resulting image. Tissues with a lower density, such as muscle and fat, will allow the x-rays to pass through, and appear dark on the image.

Thats it in a nutshell. But at the end of the day, x-rays are just freakin’ cool.

[Update: If you would like more information on how x-rays work, I have written a new post about it here. Check it out!]