25th Oct 2009
Chicken heart
Since we weren’t getting enough science at the Q2C, Melle, Andrew, Melissa and I trundled off to the Ontario Science Centre yesterday for the “Body Worlds & the Story of the Heart” exhibit.
In case you don’t know what this is, it’s the next installment of Gunther von Hagens’ ongoing program to teach us about the human body … using real human bodies of people who have donated their bodies after death.
There are 2 key parts to the program: plastination and live autopsies:
- plastination is a process patented by von Hagens whereby parts or bodies have the water and fats removed and replaced by a mixture of plastics that preserve the original structures while arresting decay.
- the live autopsies are his way of exposing our anatomical selves, so to speak – he definitely sees it as education (and you can buy live autopsy videos in the gift shop, but I must emphasize how disappointed I was that there were none with aliens).
The overwhelming feeling of this exhibit is how impressive and beautiful and intricate the human body is. The bodies are posed in a variety of athletic poses (archery, skiing, gymnastics) with certain elements flayed outward (in one case, as angel’s wings, which was very interesting) or certain elements removed so that you can see into a further layer. Plus, they left the belly buttons, nipples and, at least in one case, anuses on so you can orient yourself on the topography and make jokes like a 12 year old.
Since this exhibit is focused on the heart, there were plastinated vein sculptures interspersed with the body parts and body sculptures. What is that? you might ask. Well, basically, plastinate all the veins of something–say, a foot–and then remove all of the other stuff like skin and muscle and bone, and you have the outline of the foot in bright red gauze-y looking stuff. They really looked more like a crazy craft project than real veins. Kind of disturbing when you’re looking at an entire lamb, … or a rooster. Very edumacational though, in terms of seeing where the blood goes, and how integral it is to the entirety of an organism.
It was also pretty amazing to see how much “stuff” we pack into certain areas. Like, for example, the wrist. Given our proclivity for using the hands for stuff, and the relatively small conduit of muscle, bone and blood in that area, the wrist is this crazyass superhighway of tendons and veins. Another intensely packed area is the whole “trunk” part – lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, stomach, spleen, appendix, upper and lower intestines- all strategically placed in such a way to make a professional organizer weep with joy.
The plastinated specimens were complemented by body slices – basically cross-sections of bodies and body parts (either horizontally or vertically). These are fascinating, since you can see how organs relate (in a cross-section of the abdomen, for example) and/or how they are made all the way through (in slices of the brain, for example). There was an entire giraffe done with cross-slices that was gorgeous – and it took the Bodyworld people thousands of hours to make.
Special exhibits focused on each of the main organs. An enlarged heart? Really kind of intimidating. Seeing a heart with the pacemaker still in it? Cool. Cat heart? Bigger than one might expect. Chicken heart? Scary!
And we got to hold some organs! They sprung some poor guy from the morgue for the day to do some “public relations”. He seemed rather pleased to be tossing around a plastinated heart and having people who actually talk back. It was kind of freaky in that the organs remain a little…Â spongy. Particular the kidney.
If the exhibit is coming to a city near you, I’d highly recommend it.