korperwelten

it's amazing how quickly a day in st. paul at a conference can go by when the minnesota science museum is 3 blocks away! they have the bodyworlds exhibit extended - i've wanted to see it for a long time, and i happened to run into a friend at lunch who was headed to the museum. so we went! it was very cool for most of the time. it was still a bit disturbing, though - particularly in terms of:
1) how many bodies did he have to practice on before he made it work?
2) how many bodies went in to just THIS exhibit, even, after the process was perfected?
3) who the hell thinks to do something like this in the first place?
4a) why do most of the bodies have black smoker lungs?
4b) if such extreme lung blackness only shortens lives by an average of 5 years, why do we care about air pollution?
5) what is it like to work in a place producing creepy platicized bodies?
6a) are prosthetic joints so common in the general population, or did they recruit donors with prostheses?
6b) are all prosthetic joints and bone patches so primitive-looking and full of allen bolts? like a bicycle?

fortunately, concern #7 ("holy crap to get the arteries ALONE to harden in such perfect detail they must have been injected ALIVE to let the chemicals circulate!) was answered less-sinisterly (the bodies are inected and then placed in a vacuum chamber to draw the chemicals down every capillary).

it was very interesting for a while, until the novelty wore off - then we realized that there was little, if any, incremental added value per posed plasticized body - then, i started to get some heebie jeebies. the room about human development was fascinating but strange - embryos from 4 day up to 35 weeks. plus a pregnant woman. (i was so glad that i was not pregnant and never had been - the former because of the fetuses with anencephaly, the second because of the collection of itty bitty first-trimester-almost-looks-like-a-tiny-dude).

but possibly the best part was the comment books at the end. some highlights:
- "i want to be the guy with his balls cut in half."
- "it would be better if there was a person we recognized....like george bush. hee hee!"
- "why not keep the exhibit forever? you're making good money off it."