Have You Ever Wondered What Ecstasy Looks Like Under a Microscope?

It's true that drugs have a huge amount of cultural meaning, becoming associated with different scenes, sounds, or eras. In the music world, they've even led to some of the most iconic trends, albums, and songs to ever grace our ears and hearts. But behind all of that, they're really just chemicals. It's for that reason it's so interesting to actually see what those chemicals look like through a microscope.

Dutch artist Maurice Mikkers has been hard at work on a project to satisfy that curiosity, one that actually launched because he realized the aesthetic value of these kinds of images in a former career working as a licensed medical lab assistant.

He started out taking photos of painkillers, substances you could buy over the counter, and food additives, but eventually moved on to visualizing hard drugs, a pursuit that actually sparked an interest in the evolving online drug trade. With the help of bitcoin and the deep web, he was able to create these fascinating images below; you can read his interesting backstory behind the project and see more images here.

Thanks to The Week for the tip.

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