{"id":70,"date":"2007-01-13T18:23:44","date_gmt":"2007-01-13T22:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2007-01-13T18:23:44","modified_gmt":"2007-01-13T22:23:44","slug":"bodyworlds-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"Bodyworlds 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday afternoon I went to see the exhibit down at Scienceworld.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.scienceworld.bc.ca\/bodyworlds\/<\/a><\/p>\n

To be honest, I wasn’t sure\u00a0how I felt about the exhibit.\u00a0 Way back in highschool,\u00a0I wanted a career in\u00a0medicine, and the subject I had the most interest in was Biology, especially Biology 30 where is was all about human physiology, anatomy, etc.\u00a0 This would be a chance to see the actual biological systems we only got to see in textbooks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other factor is how we, as a culture, deal with death.\u00a0 People die and are buried or cremated- the end.\u00a0 The exhibit takes what is private, and makes it very, very public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On one hand, there’s a fascination with seeing ourselves in a totally physical\u00a0context…\u00a0and then there’s the viewing of someone’s remains, that culturally, we\u00a0cover up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think to view the exhibit, I had to detach myself a bit, and not think of them as people or corpses.\u00a0 I don’t think I’m that squeamish- I remember a fieldtrip to the morgue where we got to view a film\u00a0showing a real autopsy and\u00a0I was able to have lunch afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The exhibit.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

I would say it is grouped into\u00a04 categories- anatomy and\u00a0biological systems (organs, nerves, muscles, joints, circulation, reproduction, digestion, etc), diseases,\u00a0development, and “human aesthetic”<\/p>\n

I was floored by how\u00a0well the exhibit showed the human anatomy.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0nervous system started with a human brain at the top, and like a complex root system\u00a0extending down from the brain stem were all the nerves.\u00a0 You could see the entire spinal cord as well as the nerves\u00a0branching off to the limbs.\u00a0\u00a0I didn’t think that the nerves\u00a0would be\u00a0so visible, in fact, it reminds me\u00a0of the strings on a puppet that a puppeteer would use to control all motion.\u00a0 You could see the nerves running all along\u00a0the limbs and branching off every\u00a0which way.\u00a0 The Sciatic nerve was pretty visible.\u00a0\u00a0It made me understand how easily a nerve can be “pinched.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was wowed by the exhibits showing all the internal organs.\u00a0 You read and see\u00a0photos\u00a0about them, but you don’t really understand their size and shape.\u00a0 I was amazed at how small the kidneys and\u00a0uterus\u00a0is.\u00a0\u00a0It gives me an idea of what surgeons\u00a0see when they open a patient up and need to navigate through the maze of vessels, nerves, bones, organs, etc.\u00a0 There was one exhibit showing\u00a0a man standing up, and to his right was all his skin.\u00a0 Just surreal.<\/p>\n

The exhibit starts with bones and muscles, then proceeds to add in digestion, brain and nervous system, respiration\/circulation, reproduction.\u00a0 I was astonished at seeing\u00a0how they used cross sections and other techniques to show the particular system.\u00a0 You\u00a0just have to see this for yourself.<\/p>\n

Diseases.\u00a0 Aneurysms, lung\/liver cancer, blood clots, hip\u00a0displaysia, arthritis, alzheimers… the exhibit\u00a0does an incredible job describing what a healthy system looks like, and compares it to a diseased system.\u00a0 With Alzheimers, you can see how the brain has “shrunk” for a lack of a better word.\u00a0 They showed a lung of a smoker…. and had a “quit smoking” video right beside it.\u00a0 Needless to say, it was a strong motivator.<\/p>\n

One thing that caught my attention was “metasticized liver cancer”… which claimed my Grandmother.\u00a0 It showed a healthy liver, and one that was full of tumors.\u00a0 Since the liver has a high bloodflow, it is susceptible to secondary cancer that originated from other parts of the body.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They had\u00a0a cross section of an obese man- 300 lbs, which showed how hard the extra weight is on the organs.\u00a0 It’s like the internal organs were being crushed and squeezed by the extra weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Development- the last section was one of the toughest to get through.\u00a0 It showed embryos from 4 weeks up to 8 weeks.\u00a0I couldn’t\u00a0see the embryo at 4 weeks… it was like a spec of sand.\u00a0 At\u00a08\u00a0or 10 weeks, it’s the size of a grain of rice, but you could make out little fingers.\u00a0 After the embryonic stage, they had fetuses from I think 16 weeks to 33 weeks.\u00a0\u00a0Fascinating to see the development, but hard to see as\u00a0I could relate it all to\u00a0E’s pregnancy and e’s development.\u00a0 Especially the baby at\u00a033 weeks.<\/p>\n

Human\u00a0Aesthetic- I’m not sure what to call this section, but they had exhibits where a man\/woman would be in a beautiful pose, like an organic statue.\u00a0 For example, they had a dancer “on point”, a skateboarder balancing on one hand, feet and board in the air, a male gymnast doing the splits, a female balancing on a balance beam or suspended from the ankles with an arched back.\u00a0 There were a some exhibits showing a male and a female in a really beautiful\u00a0pose together, but with an instructional message about the anatomy.\u00a0 Again, really beautiful poses, but very surreal at the same time as it’s a person sans skin, and with some organs missing to show whatever system or structure it was intended to display.<\/p>\n

So at the end,\u00a0how do I feel about it all?\u00a0 I think it raises some very interesting questions- it shows us humans in a very matter of fact manner, and in a very public way.\u00a0 Every system is displayed, and I can say I learned quite a bit in the 90min it took me to go through it all.<\/p>\n

The other question is- is that all we are?\u00a0 Are we defined in absolute terms by our brains, nerves, bones, and blood?\u00a0 From a physical standpoint, seeing how we develop from an imperceptible embryo to a full adult, it’s truly astonishing.\u00a0 The other message I learned is that under our skin color, we are all the same.<\/p>\n

In the end, as interested as I was in the science, I couldn’t help but to think about the exhibits as people.\u00a0 All the donors are anonymous, because it’s not their identity that’s important.\u00a0 You could tell that some of the donors were older, and not in the best of health.\u00a0 But you could also tell some of the donors were young and healthy and strong.\u00a0 I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to them.\u00a0 What was it that led them to donate their body to the exhibit, to display their body in a most revealing and public manner?\u00a0 For the couples, did they know each other in life?\u00a0<\/p>\n

All throughout the exhibit were signs basically asking everyone to give thanks to the donors for giving us the opportunity to be educated.\u00a0 I’m not sure if it’s suitable for kids of all ages, I personally don’t think I could have fully appreciated it highschool.\u00a0 Should everyone see it?\u00a0 I think it depends on the individual- but I did see a LOT of people, young and old, go through, and everyone looked to be very fascinated and appreciative.\u00a0 And as I mentioned before, I learned a lot in a short time.<\/p>\n

The exhibit is now open 24 hours until it closes tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday afternoon I went to see the exhibit down at Scienceworld.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.scienceworld.bc.ca\/bodyworlds\/ To be honest, I wasn’t sure\u00a0how I felt about the exhibit.\u00a0 Way back in highschool,\u00a0I wanted a career in\u00a0medicine, and the subject I had the most interest in was Biology, especially Biology 30 where is was all about human physiology, anatomy, etc.\u00a0 This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}