Some of these pictures are bizarre.

But, they do really show you what is underneath and what can’t be seen.

Below is an interview..

In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the X-ray, a form of electromagnetic radiation with a very short wavelength.

Waves that are shorter can penetrate denser materials. X-rays are perfectly tuned to barrel through soft tissues like muscle and fat, but get slowed down by denser materials like bone. That allowed early scientific photographers — and your dentist — to employ these rays to see skeletons without cutting into flesh.

To the common people at the time, this was (and probably should remain) astonishing. Within three months, Keller said, DIY X-ray kits were available on the market. The rich and famous had their hands X-rayed, their skeletons draped in rings. Photographers, who had access to most of the tools needed to make the images, began to train this new form of light on just about anything that might be beautiful.

“They were X-raying everything just to see what it looked like,” Keller said.

In this series of images, we see the strange hodgepodge of subjects that early X-rayers tackled. At the top of the post is a the boot of a shoemaker who built his own x-ray machine for fun, and just above, a chameleon. Below, you’ll find a river dolphin fetus, two fish and the hand of the wife of Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia.

[from Wired.com]