GOOD

The Sweet Science of Candy Anatomy

This Glasgow medical student’s technical diagrams are cheery, informative, and made of your favorite junk foods.

 Jed Oelbaum
03.27.15

It’s a rare occasion when I can indulge my love for sugar and science at the same time. But lurking the mean streets of Reddit in the hazy, under-caffeinated hours of the early morning, somewhere among the breaking news, creeps, culture-war posturing, and armed birds, I found the cheery, handmade, informative diagrams of Candy Anatomy. The project, which illustrates the human body with various sweets and confections, is the brainchild of “Magic” Mike McCormick, a 27-year-old artist and University of Glasgow medical student, who started making the diagrams to learn anatomy for his classes.

“You know how in some restaurants the staff give kids a picture to color in with crayons?” McCormick asked me by email. “We’ll I’m a bit of a big kid, so I just ask the staff for something to color on, and I quickly turned a drawing of an ice cream sundae into a shoulder joint, or a burger into a collection of vertebrae. I realized the potential to turn Haribo Fried Eggs into the stages of cellular division, and it kind of spiraled out of control from there. Now people use the diagrams for revision, and I’ve even put them in one of my exams!”

This type of thing is perfect for a guy like me—after years of abusing Sour Patch Kids and Mallomars, my organs are probably mostly made of candy at this point anyway. But I asked McCormick about his curious choice of medium, considering the medical establishment’s usual cruel discrimination against my favorite food group.

“I can see how it might be counterintuitive to advertise medicine through the medium of outrageous levels of sugar,” McCormick replied. “However, it makes for a vibrant display that many students can relate to… My friends have also suggested I make a book or postcards and the proceeds go to a charity raising awareness of diabetes.”

Here are a few selections from the project, in no particular order—All photo captions are by Mike McCormick. You can check out more Candy Anatomy on Instagram or Twitter.

anatomy candy science food and drink
Slideshows

A former Miss World contestant was disqualified for being a mom. Now she's fighting back.

Some beauty pageants, like the Miss America competition, have done away with the swimsuit portions of the competitions, thus dipping their toes in the 21st century. Other aspects of beauty pageants remain stuck in the 1950s, and we're not even talking about the whole "judging women mostly on their looks" thing. One beauty pageant winner was disqualified for being a mom, as if you can't be beautiful after you've had a kid. Now she's trying to get the Miss World competition to update their rules.

Veronika Didusenko won the Miss Ukraine pageant in 2018. After four days, she was disqualified because pageant officials found out she was a mom to 5-year-old son Alex, and had been married. Didusenko said she had been aware of Miss World's rule barring mother from competing, but was encouraged to compete anyways by pageant organizers.

Keep Reading Show less
sexism beauty contest discrimination veronika didusenko miss world

NASA's solar probe sent back its first findings, and it's more incredible than we thought

upload.wikimedia.org

One mystery in our universe is a step closer to being solved. NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched last year to help scientists understand the sun. Now, it has returned its first findings. Four papers were published in the journal Nature detailing the findings of Parker's first two flybys. It's one small step for a solar probe, one giant leap for mankind.



It is astounding that we've advanced to the point where we've managed to build a probe capable of flying within 15 million miles from the surface of the sun, but here we are. Parker can withstand temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit and travels at 430,000 miles per hour. It's the fastest human-made vehicle, and no other human-made object has been so close to the sun.

Keep Reading Show less
nasa space parker solar probe sun

The Army's football program ditched a team motto after learning it's used by white supremacists

via Sportstreambest / Flickr

Since the mid '90s the phrase "God Forgives, Brothers Don't" has been part of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's football team's lexicon.

Over the past few years, the team has taken the field flying a black skull-and-crossbones flag with an acronym for the phrase, "GFBD" on the skull's upper lip. Supporters of the team also use it on social media as #GFBD.

Keep Reading Show less
god forgives brothers don't white supremacists aryan biker gangs brian bosworth west point football anti-defamation league college football espn army motto gfbd
Culture