The magic of x-rays

Have you ever thought about taking an x-ray of something besides your bones? Maybe a leaf? What if we could see the structure of a plant without damaging it in any way? The important issue is how to get contrast in the final image – do we look for x-rays to be absorbed (as in…

A tale of two aspens

Here are two different aspen leaves I collected over the summer. One is a bit smaller (they are at the same scale) but how similar are they otherwise? What do they look like on the inside? Here are the vein networks for each, shown at the same scale: The smaller leaf seems to have a…