Bodies the Exhibition

I know I haven’t blogged for quite some time. I just posted short poem so that I do feel like I blog about something. But this was really nothing at all. Shame on me! I hate to say this, however, I’ve been busy working my ass off for 31 days straight. Therefore, I thought I would claim my right to take a rest from the screen for couple of days.

Actually, the main reason is I can’t find an interesting thing to blog. All of the sudden, my life has been boring and dull; until my mom is here. I welcomed her by taking her to see Bodies the Exhibition at South Street Seaport.

Here is the brief explanation of the process I found from the website:

This exhibition uses real human bodies that have been preserved so they do not decay.

A human specimen is first preserved according to standard mortuary science.

The specimen is then dissected to show whatever it is that someone wants to display. When they say this meaning they cut the specimen vertically and/or horizontally. I found one body was dissected vertically into 4 pieces.

Once dissected, the specimen is immersed in acetone, which eliminates all body water.

The specimen is then placed in a large bath of silicone, or polymer, and sealed in a vacuum chamber.

Under vacuum, acetone leaves the body in the form of gas and the polymer replaces it, entering each cell and body tissue.

A catalyst is then applied to the specimen, hardening it and completing the process.

Oh wow! At the beginning I think it’s kind of scary and spooky to see human bodies like this. But after seeing couple of them, I was truly amazed by how body parts, nerves, muscles, veins and arteries work together. So much of guy bodies were shown here; the highlight of what I saw was several veins of guy’s male organ. Pretty remarkable, isn’t it? There were only two female bodies; one is to show the overweight specimen and another one is the sample of the difference between male and female body. Fetus is very fascinating as well.

After watching that black, ugly lung dissected from someone who’s been smoking, I decided not to touch the cigarettes again.

If you have time, please learn more about Bodies the Exhibition.

And this is the article from Seattle Post Intelligencer.