Bodies

I'm a little hesitant to write about this because I have some moral questions about how this exhibit came to be. But, my husband had heard really cool things about the Bodies Exhibit which is now in Seattle and that is what he wanted to do for his birthday. So, with some hesitation, we went to see the exhibit this weekend. My hesitation comes from the fact that these bodies, came from a medical school in China. The people all died of natural causes, but we have no way of knowing if they had given consent to have their bodies used for this type of display. I know that I would be willing to donate my body for science and education. The mission of the exhibit (besides making money) is to help people better understand the body they live in and what they must do to take care of it. So, if you can get past the questions of consent, (which I am still really having trouble doing) there is a lot of cool learning to be had. I think for me, the coolest thing was being able to see the nervous system and the vascular system isolated. It was really cool to see the size and position of organs. Another really powerful part of the exhibit is that they showed organs effected by smoking, sedintary behavior and overeating. Yuck. This really makes you think about the importance of taking care of your body. As the sign said, "The Body Doesn't Lie", what you do and don't do to your body is very evident in these models. I am not a very squeemish person, but I think that the way the bodies are presented, help even the squeemish to be able to really look at this exhibit and learn without feeling ill. I learned a lot about human anatomy and how we are put together.

Here are a few of the fun facts that I learned.
* All the blood vessels in the body joined end to end would stretch 62,000 miles or
two and a half times around the earth.
* The total surface area of the alveoli (tiny air
sacs in the lungs) is the size of a tennis court.
* Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have
lost 105 pounds of skin.
* Every square inch of the human body has
an average of 32 million bacteria on it.
* Every person has a unique tongue print.

If you are interested, you can find out more at Bodies the Exhibition

And for another fun kid's site about how our bodies work check out The Yuckiest Site on the Internet.