X-ray nudes: Safe for classrooms?

June 23, 2010

Here’s one way to make study of x-rays interesting:

X-ray nudes, from Eizo Pinup Calendar 2010, via A Quantum of Knowledge

Miss September - EIZO X-Ray Pinup Calendar 2010 - via A Quantum of Knowledge; ad agency, BUTTER

See this one, a couple more, and a good explanation of x-rays at A Quantum of Knowledge, “X-rated X-rays.

Um, also there is disturbing news for Kermit the Frog.

They are x-rays.  Are they still too risqué for use in, say, a senior physics class?  Let’s stipulate that the images are sexist (did they do any nude males?).  Could they serve any educational purpose?  If a physics teacher used some of these in a presentation on x-rays, would the principal and school board complain?  Would they get students — males students, especially — interested in studying x-rays?

Maybe the best way to get kids interested, in the best Tom Sawyer fashion, would be to tell them not to go to A Quantum of Knowledge to look at the x-rays.  Does your school’s filtering block these pictures?

A Quantum of Knowledge found out about the pictures from Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy.  Phil asks the question, “Are they racy?”

Look at the comments there — it sort of boils down to the shoes, doesn’t it?  Well, that, and the series of the poses.  Any one of the poses might be clinically interesting as an x-ray, but together, they spell “pornography.”

Do they?

In the comments at Bad Astronomy:  A discussion of footbinding in China, complete with x-rays; links to more x-rays of feet (presumably female) in stiletto heels; a discussion about whether the calendar photos from EIZO might be photo-shopped or otherwise edited, and not straight up x-rays.

Science nerds, you know?

More:


%d bloggers like this: