Move ya body for me

I had a great birthday weekend. On Friday night, I went out with my awesome friends and whooped it up DeKalb-style. I really had a fantastic time.

Then, on Saturday I headed in to Chicago for more fun with my cousin and a birthday dinner with my dad (whose birthday is tomorrow) and his wife. We went out to dinner at an amazing restaurant, and then Christie and I went out to some of our old haunts.

But another thing we did was go the see the Body Worlds exhibit at the museum of Science and Industry, and it was one of the most interesting exhibits I have ever seen. Basically, it is an exhibit of different real human bodies, all in various states of cut-openness so that you can see all the insides. Some of the bodies are just missing their skin so you can see all the muscles, while others are completely dissected so you can see the inner stuff. And again, these are real human bodies with all of their real parts. The bodies are "plastinated," which is a very interesting (and slightly gruesome) process:

Decomposition is a natural process triggered initially by cell enzymes released after death and later completed when the body is colonized by putrefaction bacteria and other microorganisms. By removing water and fats from the tissue and replacing these with polymers, the Plastination process deprives bacteria of what they need to survive. Bodily fluids cannot, however, be replaced directly with polymers, because the two are chemically incompatible. Gunther von Hagens found a way around this problem: In the initial fluidexchange step, water in the tissues (which comprises approximately 70% of the human body) and fatty tissues are replaced with acetone, a solvent that readily evaporates. In the second step, the acetone is replaced with a polymer solution. The trick that first proved to be critical for pulling the liquid polymer into each and every cell is what he calls "forced vacuum impregnation." A specimen is placed in a vacuum chamber and the pressure is reduced to the point where the solvent boils. The acetone is suctioned out of the tissue at the moment it vaporizes, and the resulting vacuum in the specimen causes the polymer solution to permeate the tissue This exchange process is allowed to continue until all of the tissue has been completely saturated—while a matter of only a few days for thin slices, this step can take weeks for whole bodies.

(from the Body Worlds website)

The bodies are posed in different positions so you can see how all the parts work: there was a ski jumper, a thinker, two figure skaters, etc.




It was fascinating.