Garlic, axial view, MRI

Collage of multiple cross sections through a bulb of garlic. The bulb of garlic has been virtually sliced along a horizontal axis from left to right, giving you a bird's eye view into the centre of the cloves (axial or transverse plane). A series of sequential ultra-thin slices through the entire bulb were taken and selected slices from that series are shown here. These images were acquired by spin-echo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which reveals details inside the garlic cloves without damaging them. The images are digitally coloured where contrast corresponds to MRI signal intensity and hue was changed to match the natural colour of the vegetable.