Video footage of X-ray images offer a perspective on bodily movement we simply can't find in static images. Whether we're talking, eating, or performing some truly bizarre anatomical stunts, these gifs and videos show off the mechanics of the human body.


Singing and Speaking

MIT professor Kenneth Stevens was a great contributor to the field of acoustic phonetics, and in 1962, he participated in Sven Öhman's cineradiography experiments, including this speech video:

In 1997, Christine Ericsdotter performed her own X-ray analyses of speech. Here she is saying the Swedish word "både" ("both"):


And here is a male subject saying "pion" ("peony"):

Here, Christian Zehnder performs overtone singing for an X-ray segment of Pierre-Yves Borgeaud's film Inland:


Eating and Drinking

Nick Rossino swallows a liquid barium mix:

The barium makes the liquid visible on the X-ray. On this video, you can see that some of the liquid isn't completely swallowed and instead pools in Rossino's throat. At the time he posted the video, Rossino didn't know the cause of this.


Here's another video, this one of a patient suffering from dysphagia, or trouble swallowing, experiencing an intra-swallow aspiration:

And this video also shows us what chewing and swallowing solid food looks like:

In this one, we see a baby nursing:

For contrast (and because it's just amazing), here's a dog drinking:

Playing Instruments

Video of French horn and trumpet playing, made for Joesph Meidt's dissertation:

And a video of Central Washington State College professor Raymond Wheeler playing the clarinet:

Wheeler's research was instrumental (so to speak) in understanding how the clarinetist's tongue works while playing various notes.


Then there's this gif of a hand dancing across the strings of a violin, via autarque:


Stunts

This is a multipart video from a fellow who doesn't mind sticking sharp metal objects in his facial orifices. Chayne Hultgren, better known as Space Cowboy, swallows swords and hammers nails into his face via his nasal passages—and swallows a record 17 swords, all in front of an X-ray machine:

Another entry in the "Why would you ever want to do that?" category is stunt artist Morgue slipping a hook in through his nose and out his mouth:

He also inserts a power drill into his skull:

Bonus: Not an X-ray, but a less than sexy MRI video of a man and a woman having sexual intercourse:

(via Gizmodo)