Sunday, November 9, 2008

Body Worlds

David, Marie, Jana, Julia, Becca, Aunt Toni, Uncle Grant, and I went to Body Worlds yesterday. What an amazing exhibit and experience!
This dude still has parts of his skin on, and some sections have only bone showing. And, yes, he is winking.

This is a display of plastinized human's or their body parts. Basically, through chemical alterations, scientists can turn a corpse into plastic, preserving their bones, veins, nerves, muscles, and organs. It's SO amazing!

This dude was seriously balanced on top of the hurdle. There weren't any stands under him, and no strings holding him up! It was amazing!

This particular exhibit focused on the heart. We learned a ton! For example, did you know that if you lined up all of your veins and arteries end to end, it would wrap around the Earth...twice! The biggest artery is the pulmonary, and it's about as thick as a water-hose. Pretty cool that all that stuff fits inside us. Also, the average person's rested heart rate is about 70 beats per minute. Lance Armstrong's heart beats about 32 times per minute. And when he's racing, his heart rate can be as fast as 200 beats per minute, whereas the average male's accelerated heart rate is 150. Crazy, huh?!

Here's an archer. She was beautifully posed. I which I could find a front-view, too.

This exhibit was seriously cool. There was an entire section on the lungs, showing a healthy lung next to smoke-damaged lungs (black lung, cancer, emphysema). Another one that showed the digestive track. Another with the reproductive systems. And a whole nook focused on the fetus, and it's different stages of development. That was my favorite part, to see the sizes of these babies at 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10, 18, 22, all the way up to 33 weeks, and the extreme differences in size and development along the way. It was incredible! When they tell you a fetus is only the size of your pinky-nail, they mean it! A baby is only as big as your thumb at 8 weeks, and it has fingers and toes and eyes and a mouth and ears and everything! It's SO amazing.

I thoroughly enjoyed Body Worlds! If you ever have the opportunity to see it, you absolutely should go!

2 comments:

James and Monica said...

We SOOO want to go!! we just have to find time!! I'm so jealous

Travis and Celena said...

We went to one in Vegas and we thought it was so cool. All of the exhibits are different and the one we went to in Vegas was just the body.
I so want to go and see this one. It is just so cool how they do this and just how much you learn.