Body Worlds III

For my Christmas present Joe took me to go see Body Worlds III down at the Leonardo. IT WAS AMAZING! Some people think that it would be mutilating... but it was really educational! For those of you that don't know... some people donate their bodies to science and education. They use a process called plastination to preserve the bodies and basically make them into plastic. They remove the outside skin and disect the body so you can see the inside network on how the body works. They had animals too. It was about the Journey of the heart.

Did you know that if you were to streatch out all of the veigns and arteries in your body they would wrap around the Earth twice?

It was very interesting to learn about obesity and how high blood pressure really effects a lot of Americans. They had a sectioned leg from an obese person and a blurb that talked about obesity and a video that talked about the process of how obesity effects the heart and puts you at greater risk for an MI. (Miocardio Infarction aka a heart attack). They then had a bunch of 50 gallon drums out to represent how much blood the human body produces in a year. My all time favorite part was the development of a baby. They had cilindars that were labeled 1-8 weeks and it showed actuall development of an embrio and then they had fetuses that had been plastinated to show the development of unborn babies. It made me very greatful that Zoey was a healthy and happy child!

One of the greatest things I saw was the letters of the donors. They made me cry. Before they passed away they wrote a letter to the instatute and stated that hey wanted their body to be donated for a good cause. They also expressed how they loved education and wanted to be able to be part of educating the future health care professionals and also the public.

There is controversy about the Body Exhibit in Las Vegas. They say that the "donors" are really Chinese prionsers or something like that. But this exhibit that travels around the world (hence Body worlds) are donated persons who willingly gave their body for education before they passed away.

Okay I know that I keep saying this but another favorite of mine was how they talked about the soul. The exhibit brought a religious twist to it. They stated that the body is the house for the soul and after the soul has left it then they have preserved the body. It was interesting to hear what other faiths thought about the soul being in the heart and other things like that.