Photo of the Day 297

Virtual Surgery, NASA Ames Research Center, California, 2001

Photograph by Cary Wolinsky

A student at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, practices virtual surgery on a three-dimensional image of a rat. NASA hopes that one day such tools will help coach space travelers through medical procedures on fellow astronauts.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Surviving in Space," January 2001, National Geographic magazine)