When you cough, germs, spit and breath come spewing out of your mouth. Sexy.
At Penn State University, professor of engineering Garry Settles has captured a cough on film and the results are actually not gross, but beautiful. More importantly, the photographs can be helpful in preventing sicknesses from spreading.
Using some crazy technique involving light, curved mirrors, razor blades and lenses, it is possible to capture changes in the air on film, allowing us to see the invisible. The method is called schlieren photography. Schlieren is German for "streaks".
Usually, this method of photography is used to show shock waves around high speed air crafts, but Settles is applying it everyday activities, like sniffing, coughing, burning a candle or using a hair dryer.
Even though coughs are responsible for spreading a variety of sicknesses, like SARS and tuberculosis, there isn't a good understanding of their airflow. But Settles' photography can "map" a cough, allowing doctors to see how people infect one another more accurately.
If you're not using these pictures to cure diseases, they also make great desktop backgrounds.
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