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A really powerful microscope is the sort of thing nobody would buy for entertainment, yet we can't shake the feeling that if we had one, we'd use it all the time. That's because, as we've proven several times over , the most mundane crap in your house is transformed into surreal, freaky, trippy, and sometimes terrifying works of art when viewed at a microscopic level. It's like seeing into an alternate universe.

8 Chalk

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At Normal Size:

For decades, chalk was used in classrooms to spread knowledge to large groups of students, and in recess to spread the myth that hopscotch was fun. It turns into powder when you use it, so up close it probably just looks like, what, sand or something? It can't be too exciting ...

But Up Close:

PLOS Biology

It kinda looks like we should be worshiping it.

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Huh. Apparently, chalk is a bunch of tiny little soccer balls ... if soccer balls were made out of dead bodies, that is.

Yes, those yarmulke-looking things are actually the shells of dead microscopic organisms like foraminifera mixed with the corpses of sea algae. So the next time you see a chalk outline of a murder victim, just know that it was created with the help of about a billion teeny-weeny corpses. It's pretty much the ultimate counter to that circle-of-life crap that Disney likes to shove down our throats.