These Everyday Objects Are So Much Cooler When They’re Cut In Half

Kids are told that appearance isn't everything and that it's what on the inside that counts. While our parents might have just said that to boost our confidence in middle school, that saying is applicable to more than just our personalities. Something can look much different on the inside than the outside, you just have to have the curiosity to cut it in half and find out.

From bowling balls to wasp nests, check out how much cooler these everyday objects look once you cut them in half.

Banana Tree Trunks Look More Like Seashells

banana tree trunks cut in half
RyanSmith/Reddit
RyanSmith/Reddit

Most people have never laid sight on a banana tree, nevermind seen its trunk cut in half. The unique spiral on the inside of the trunk is because banana trees aren't even exactly trees. The banana plant is actually known as a herbaceous plant, which means the 'trunk' is just leaves rolled up over each other.

That means, unlike a regular tree trunk, the core is very soft and tender. People who live where the banana plants grow often eat the 'trunk' as well and consider it a vegetable.

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The Fukang Meteorite Is Memorizing

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half of the fukang meteorite
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This enthralling slice of a meteorite was found in a mountain range in the Fukang region of China. Scientists estimate the meteorite is 4.5 billion years old, which is actually about the same age as Earth. The unique appearance of the inside of the meteorite is thanks to it being made of a mix of iron and olivine crystals.

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The meteorite is famous around the world, but it took a while for scientists to get their hands on it. For years it was in a private dealer's collection.

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The Bloodwood Tree Is Not As Dangerous As It Seems

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wild teak cut in half is now wounded
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The bloodwood tree might seem intimidating, but the bright red sap has enthralled humans for centuries. Also known as the Pterocarpus angolensis or African teak tree, the bloodwood tree offers a surprise when it's cut down and reveals bright red sap.

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The red sap had been used by humans for centuries for medicinal purposes. It has been reportedly used to treat everything from ringworm to malaria and even to increase the supply of breast milk.

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The Inside Of A Rattlesnake Rattle Shows How It Works

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rattlesnake rattle cut in half
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Hopefully, you've never been close enough to a rattlesnake to figure out how their rattle sound works. For those of us who prefer to keep our distance from dangerous wildlife, this half cut of a rattlesnake's rattle shows how the sound is made.

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The rattle is hollow and made of the same thing our fingernails are made of. The snake will vibrate its muscles which makes each layer of the rattle shake and hit the other layer, which creates the dangerous sound.

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You Can See The Golden Gate Cable If You Visit The Bridge

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inside of golden gate bridge cable
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The Golden Gate Bridge features two main cables that run the span of the bridge. This half cut of a cable is as thick as a tree trunk and looks like thick, dense metal. In reality, one cable is actually made up of thousands of other cables. Each cable is made of 61 smaller cables that are bundled from 27,572 strands of wire.

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For context, if you took every wire out on their own and put them end to end, they would circle the earth more than three times.

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These Half-Cut Pearls Look More Like Gobstoppers

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cut in half of a pearl
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Pearls have long been recognized as one of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry. While we're usually obsessed with making sure the outside is round, smooth, and shiny, the inside is just as mesmerizing.

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Pearls are made when a parasite enters an oyster's inside. The oyster coats the parasite with a fluid that hardens into calcium carbonate. The oyster will continue to apply layer after layer which is why the inside of a pearl looks like an everlasting gobstopper.

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We'll Take Five Pints, Please

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ben and jerrys ice cream cut in half
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We're more used to seeing the bottom of the container (oops, should have saved some for later) rather than it cut in half vertically. These half-pints were advertised to show the core of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but one thing you might notice is how evenly dispersed the items in their ice cream is.

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That's because Ben & Jerry's ice cream is flipped multiple times during the production process and is stored in their freezers upside down. They do that to make sure all the good stuff doesn't sink to the bottom.

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NASCAR Tires Feature A Safety Rim On The Inside

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nascar tire in half with safety liner
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The tires used for racing cars such as NASCAR vehicles aren't like the tires on your 2007 Toyota Corolla. The tires are exclusively made by Goodyear and are tested to make sure they can survive speeds of 200 mph and dozens of laps. While the thick yellow band makes the tires recognizable, many people don't realize there is an inner safety liner on the tire.

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The liner makes it so if a tire pops, the car doesn't spiral out of control. The driver can actually still race on the inner liner for a short time.

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Now You Know That Bowling Balls Actually Have A Core

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bowling ball in half to show core
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Unless you're a professional bowler, you probably never put much thought into how a bowling ball works. It's easier to just find the heaviest one and throw it down the lane. Bowling balls are much fancier than that and in order to have enough momentum to go down the lane, it has a specialized core.

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The core can change from ball to ball. Cheap ones at the ally are usually just an off-center round core, while this ball is a combination of elliptical and bulb-shaped.

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This Massive Wasp Nest Isn't As Dangerous As It Looks

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wasp nest cut in half
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While it's commonly believed that wasps are aggressive and dangerous, they're actually quite harmless and prefer to keep to themselves. Wasps would rather spend their day making an impressive nest instead of attacking you.

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Their nests are made out of tree bark. The wasp will eat the bark of certain trees, chew is up, break it down, and then regurgitate it in a softer form. The new 'bark' form allows them to create papery nests.

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A Halved Firework Shell Shows Just How Dangerous It Can Be

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cut cross section of firework shell
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This photo shows what an aerial firework looks like from the inside. It's all about the pattern that the various explosives are set in. Fireworks date back to 9th century China during the Tang dynasty. They remained in China until Europeans began producing them in the 14th century.

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Fancy fireworks like the colored aerial ones we love today weren't invented until the 1830s. It was Italian pyrotechnicians who began to change the inner anatomy of a firework to improve on the original design.

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This Mammoth Tusk Is Just Like Its Modern Relatives

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mammoth tusk cut in half
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Tusks are a common sight for animals like warthogs, elephants, walruses, and back in the day, wooly mammoths. A tusk is simply a super-elongated front tooth. In the case of the mammoth, it is an elongated incisor tooth. The tusks are used to make ivory, which for modern-day animals, makes them a target for hunters.

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While mammoths don't have to worry about being hunted for their ivory (since they're all dead) the tusks and cross-sections like this one are still a hot commodity on the black market.

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This Half-Rock Was Formed Naturally

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It looks like only Thor's hammer could split a rock of this size. Tokangawhā, or Split Apple Rock, is located off the coast of New Zealand. The rock is naturally formed so, sorry, no proof of Thor's hammer exists here. The native Maori do describe a godlike formation of the rocks though in their mythology.

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The split is a result of a naturally occurring "joint" in the granite rock. The joints are weak spots in the granite that, over thousands of years, the waves and wind can erode.

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This Peculiar Fruit Is Interesting On The Outside And Inside

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kiwana melon cut in half
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Cutting a fruit in half usually isn't that mindblowing, but this particular fruit is likely a new sight to many. The fruit is called the kiwano, but is known by many different names such as the horned melon, jelly melon, African horned cucumber, melano, and blowfish fruit.

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It might look intimidating, but its flavors are celebrated by foodies worldwide. The slimy green insides are described as a cross between kiwis, zucchinis, and cucumbers. Apparently, it tastes more like a banana as it ripens.

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The Inside Of An Adding Machine Is Mesmerizing

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half of the mechanical calculator machine
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Kids today probably don't even know what the outside of an adding machine looks like. For those people who worked in an office environment during the 1970s and 1980s, you might be very familiar with an adding machine. The old-school mechanical calculator used an insane amount of functions just to add something as simple as 29 + 34.

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Eventually, computers took over and adding machines were phased out of offices, but it's still fascinating to see how they worked.

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Did Anyone Ever Make It To The Middle Of One Of These?

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Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers are a favorite for children. While a special few have the patience and grit to lick it all the way to the center, most kids give up or forget before they ever see this sight.

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For those of us who never made it to the middle of an Everlasting Gobstopper, now we finally know what those beautiful multi-colored layers look like. Fun fact: each layer is actually a distinct flavor and differs between the outer and the inner layers.

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This Canon Camera Shows How Intricate Photography Is

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camera cutaway in half
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Today, the tiny camera in our cell phones can take a better photo than the first ever Canon camera from 1937. Canon cameras, like the one seen here cut in half, use multiple different curved optical lenses to filter light and produce an image on film. The speed of the shutters for each lens will change the exposure and quality of the image.

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The first ever Canon camera company was named the Kwanon after the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

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The Zippo Lighter Is More Simple Than It Seems

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zippo lighter cut in half
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Zippo lighters are a fan favorite over matches and other lighters because they're windproof. The design hails back to lighters used in Austria in the 1930s. An American inventor, George Blaisdell, saw an Austrian man using a lighter of a similar style. Blaisdell decided to return to America and recreate the lighter. He coined the term Zippo because he liked the word 'zipper.'

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The Zippo's windproof design is thanks to its constant rate of fuel delivery and the windscreen beside the flame.

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That's Why They Have So Much Room To Hide

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tortoise skeleton cut in half
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The tortoise and its cousin, the turtle, are the only two reptiles in nature that have a hard outer shell made of bone. Their outer shells are called the carapace. It is used by the tortoise as both a protective armor from the environment and a safe place to hide from predators.

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All that empty space in the shell is to fit the tortoise's rib cage. It curls up into the top to allow space for the head and neck to fit.

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The Mark Twain Tree Is A Reminder Of Nature's Power

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mark twain tree cut in half
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Nicknamed the Mark Twain Tree, this cutaway of a stump is from a giant sequoia from the Kings Canyon park in California. The tree was cut down in 1891 and the stump was sectioned off and sent around the world simply to prove that trees that big actually exist.

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The slice seen here was sent to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. On the stump, dates corresponding to the tree rings showcase how the tree began growing in 550 AD.