Inside from head to toe

Experience the power of a scanning electron microscope (SEM), in a journey of self-discovery that starts in your head, travels down through the chest and ends in the bowels of the abdomen. Along the way, you’ll see what’s normal, what happens when cells are twisted by cancer and what it looks like when an egg meets sperm for the first time. You’ll never see yourself the same way again.



Coloured image of a 6 day old human embryo implanting
And the cycle of life begins again: this 6 day old human embryo is beginning to implant into the endometrium, the lining of the uterus.



Sperm on the surface of a human egg
Here’s a close-up of a number of sperm trying to fertilise an egg.



Red blood cells
They look like little cinnamon candies here, but they’re actually the most common type of blood cell in the human body - red blood cells (RBCs). These biconcave-shaped cells have the tall task of carrying oxygen to our entire body; in women there are about 4 to 5 million RBCs per microliter (cubic millimeter) of blood and about 5 to 6 million in men. People who live at higher altitudes have even more RBCs because of the low oxygen levels in their environment.



Human embryo and sperm
It looks like the world at war, but it’s actually five days after the fertilisation of an egg, with some remaining sperm cells still sticking around. This fluorescent image was captured using a confocal microscope. The embryo and sperm cell nuclei are stained purple while sperm tails are green. The blue areas are gap junctions, which form connections between the cells.



Alveoli in the lung
This is what a colour-enhanced image of the inner surface of your lung looks like. The hollow cavities are alveoli; this is where gas exchange occurs with the blood.



Tongue with taste bud
This colour-enhanced image depicts a taste bud on the tongue. The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds that are involved with detecting salty, sour, bitter, sweet and savoury taste perceptions.



Human egg with coronal cells
This image is of a purple, colour-enhanced human egg sitting on a pin. The egg is coated with the zona pellicuda, a glycoprotein that protects the egg but also helps to trap and bind sperm. Two coronal cells are attached to the zona pellicuda.



Blood clot
Remember that picture of the nice, uniform shapes of red blood cells you just looked at? Well, here’s what it looks like when those same cells get caught up in the sticky web of a blood clot. The cell in the middle is a white blood cell.



Lung cancer cells
This image of warped lung cancer cells.



Hair cell in the ear
Here’s what it looks like to see a close-up of human hair cell stereocilia inside the ear. These detect mechanical movement in response to sound vibrations.