Cerebral Gibberish

I went to “Bodies…The Exhibition” today and I must say it was amazing. I was a little worried that it was going to be crowded since this is the last weekend it was going to be open at The Streets at Southpoint location in Durham, NC (It closes 9/5/2007). A friend of mine, who has already seen it, said I should go there early in the morning, so I got there at 10:30am (they opened at 10:00am). There were no lines so I was able to walk up, buy my ticket and walk right in. By time I was done going thought the exhibit and left the building, around noon, there was already a ticket line as well as a line to let people in. Of course they would not let me take any pictures so I purchased the book about the exhibit in their gift shop. They had a really neat shirt of which showed the torso of a human skeleton on the front. If they printed the back of the skeleton on the back of the shirt I would have bought it. I don’t care much for shirts with large graphics on the front and nothing on the back. I guess I’m just crazy like that.

Any ways, I was not sure what to expect when first entered the exhibit. The first section just had four glass enclosures with small items to look at as well as a full size human skeleton, like the ones you would see in science class. I think they started out with this room to kind of warm people up to the rest of the exhibit (start out small then work your way up to the bigger items). In the next room the first thing that caught my eyes the the first glass case which had an arm and a leg in it without any skin, exposing the muscles and bones. Also in this second room you get to see the first complete body without the skin. If I remember right it was the one kicking the soccer ball. Each room basically showed a different body system like the skeletal, muscular, nervous, reproductive, etc… The room about the circulatory system was very interesting in that they were able to show you all the arteries and veins without anything else in the way. They were able to do this by circulating a epoxy like compound though the circulatory system which then hardened. They then soaked the body in another chemical which dissolved everything but the hardened arteries and veins.

There was a side room off the main path through the exhibit which showed several fetuses representing the different weeks of development. This room had a sign in front of it basically warning the people what was in there since there is always a lot of controversy around fetuses / babies etc… I saw a few people read the sign and turn around. There was a sign in this room that read something like “Everyone was a single cell for about 1.5 hours of their life.” which I thought was a neat (remember I’m crazy..hehe).

The last room had a very large display of a whole body that was cut into thin slices. This is basically what a MRI machine does to your body just in real life. There was also a station setup where you could actually pick up a heart and a brain that was preserved using the same process that all the other body parts in the exhibit used. They were even kind enough to supply some hand sanitizer after you’re were done holding them.

I really enjoyed the exhibit and walked away knowing a lot more about how we tick. The displays had detailed descriptions of everything there was to see. They do offer a audio tour which I can only guess reads to you what is already posted in the display. Seems kind of lazy to me, so much for trying to get people to read more. I highly recommend anyone that is open minded and / or curious to see how our bodies work and does not get grossed out easily to go see this exhibit.