Scientists CT Scan An Entire Whale to Study Its Ears

A minke whale surfacing. (Credit: Graeme Snow/Shutterstock) How do you get inside a whale's head? With a CT-scanner made for rocket bodies, that's how. Researchers from San Diego State University stuck an entire juvenile minke whale inside a computed tomography (CT) scanning machine to virtually slice and dice its anatomy with X-rays. Their goal was to get a look at the structures that allow whales to hear underwater and better understand a sense that's vital for these underwater mammals.