How scientists captured a stunning, hellish menagerie of half-dissolved creatures

<em>Four-Horned Poacher (Hypsagonus quadricornis) —&nbsp;according to the scientists. But clearly a goa’uld from Stargate. Not posed in gelatin. </em>

A new imaging strategy is responsible for capturing a hellish menagerie of creatures: a skeletal frog that’s crawling out of the frame, a dead red fish that stares back at you, and a crouching shrew with a cavernous, empty ribcage. How did scientists take these shots? By making them glow red and by essentially embedding some of them, like the fish, in Jell-O.

Scientists have been imaging skeletons for decades by stripping dead creatures of their flesh, staining the bones red and the cartilage blue to highlight them, and snapping a picture. Studying the anatomy can help researchers figure out how different organisms are related and how the creatures move the way they do. The trouble with these old-school techniques is that they can make…

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