7

Kosher Salt

Photos.com

At Normal Size:

Kosher salt is the slightly chunkier cousin of regular salt, so named due to its ability to soak up the blood of various meats, rendering them kosher. It's pretty much Dracula in salt form.

But Up Close:

Museum of Science, Boston
The microscopic ancient Mayans sacrificed many innocents here.

Wait, when did Dracula leave Transylvania and move to an ancient temple? Because that's exactly what a crystal of kosher salt looks like. This isn't food; this is something a tiny little Indiana Jones would invade while searching for long-lost religious artifacts that will melt Nazis' faces off.

Dr. Gary Gaugler / Science Photo Library
We'll be shocked if that thing isn't filled with wee little Predators and Aliens.

And here's another shot, lest you think the first one was just a lucky angle. Nope: Kosher salt, across the board, is made out of tiny pyramids. So the next time the office racist starts ranting and rambling about some vast Zionist conspiracy, show them these pictures as proof that, if they've ever ingested kosher salt, they now have little Illuminati pyramids floating around inside them. Then take cover, because exploding heads tend to be quite messy and sticky.

6

Orange Juice

Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

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No false advertising here: This is juice, and it is very much orange. No other juice is that straightforward. If you ever call tomato juice "red juice," for example, you're either a baby, insane, or a straw man we just created for the sake of this joke.

But Up Close:

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY/BARCROFT
This is what a screwdriver looks like if you replace the vodka with LSD.

As it turns out, orange juice only contains the slightest hint of orange. In fact, it looks more like Jackson Pollock's busted windshield than something you pour down your gullet whenever you're sick with the flu.

This picture is courtesy of our old friends at Bevshots, who magnify dried droplets of various drinks and then photograph the results. They tend to stick to alcoholic drinks mainly, but occasionally venture into the world of non-booze, as long as you can easily mix it with booze, as is the case here.

So now you know; enjoy a tall glass of yellow-purple-blue-green-red-pink-orange-brown-silver glass shards, liquefied into juice form and then turned solid orange somehow, in the morning. It's part of a complete breakfast.

5

Snow

Emmanuel Boutet

4

Insect Anatomy

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images

3

Seawater

Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images

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It's water. Pretty much the entire planet is made out of it. It's the reason Earth isn't just some barren rock dancing lonely around a gigantic space furnace. It's the No. 1 reason you're alive today, unless you drown in it.

But Up Close:

It's not so much the water itself that's freaky; it's the inhabitants. All 247 quadrillion of them (give or take).

N. Sullivan / NOAA / Department of Commerce
So like the Bronx, but less salty.

These are diatoms, a catchall term for the various dead algae bits floating around the ocean and, almost inevitably, down your throat. Yep, if you've ever swallowed seawater, this was your dinner. And, to be fair, some of it looks delicious, especially that doughnut-looking fellow slightly above center. It looks like a chocolate-blueberry concoction that you could have for dinner while convincing your sad ass that the blueberry flavoring counts as your fruit intake for the day.

2

Fly Ash

Sigma Sales Company

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Fly ash is one of those things you see all the time, but probably have no idea what it does. It's basically ground-up coal that we use to reinforce concrete. So even though it just looks like a bunch of dirt, it's pretty much the only reason sidewalks, streets, and the foundation of your house are still standing. So the next time you see a pile of ash just hanging around, remember to thank it. Just don't get too close, cuz it's kind of incredibly radioactive.

But Up Close:

Wabeggs
Did someone just shine a halogen light in our eyes?

Fly ash, underneath it all, looks exactly like a dead planet. Its surface is littered with craters and barren, rocky islands of varying shape and size, the lack of atmosphere and sunlight result in a cold, all-black surface, and any life that somehow manages to emerge is almost immediately extinguished. Either that or it's a whimsical bubble machine party ... it depends on what kind of imagination you have, we suppose.

1

Shark Skin

Albert kok

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Sharks are fascinating creatures: They die if they ever stop moving, they can smell one tiny drop of blood in a body of water the size of an Olympic pool, and babies will eat each other in the womb until only one remains. But their skin? It's just dull gray flesh, so who cares, right? Skin has to be the one and only uninteresting part of a shark.

But Up Close:

Nope. Their skin is extremely interesting. Namely because it's made out of teeth.

George Lauder
The only reason you rarely see sharks at petting zoos.

Great holy fuck. This shouldn't be part of an animal. This thing is literally nothing but teeth. Its teeth are probably covered in tiny teeth.

Those small scales, by the way, are called denticles, and they help the shark reduce drag while it swims, allowing it to move around the ocean and eat everything as smoothly as possible.

Australian Museum
If you zoom in on these close enough, you probably find more teeth.

Dustin Koski would also like to warn people of the numerous ways Breaking Bad is coming true. Evan V. Symon is a moderator in the Cracked Workshop. Here is his Facebook and his new book, The End of the Line.

For more awesome images, check out The 8 Manliest Images on the Internet and 15 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped.