I see dead people

Went to the Ontario Science Centre today and saw the Body Worlds 2 exibit.

Real bodies

It was pretty creepy. Real bodies on display. Paritally dissected. Enough to make your stomach churn. In the science centre itself, people were talking loudly, kids screaming, running around. In this exibit (separated from the rest), people were eerily quiet. Barely whispering if they were talking. Everyone was a little edgy being around dead bodies...

After the initial shock, it's really amazing to look up close to the displays. Brings back all that stuff I learnt in grade 11 biology. Hi, Mr. Madison! *waves*

The whole exhibit's half art, half science. The bodies would be put in different positions, like skateboarding, skiing, figure skating, throwing a javelin, kicking a soccer ball, yoga, and more. For the most part, the skin was removed, perhaps organs were exposed or removed, muscles opened up to reveal the bones and tendons below, etc. The different poses were used to highlight different parts of the body or different views of it.

The picture at the top is like a guy holding his own skin. There was one where all the muscles were removed and it was put right beside the skeleton so it was as if the person walked away from it's skeleton. Pretty creepy. There was a guy that had 6 toes on each foot and 6 fingers on each hand. They called it hexa-something disease.... it was weird to say the least. One display showed this fat guy sliced into like 10 vertical slices and the slices were separated and hanging. Another took all the muscles, bones, organs, etc. apart and strung each separately so it was as if the body exploded and you could literally see the ins and outs of the person. There was a pregnant woman and you could see the fetus inside the womb. Several other fetuses were displayed. Quite sad. Another had embryo/fetus at 5, 6, 7, and I think 8 weeks. Grows quite fast. You could already see little hands, head, and feet.

There was a camel and a baby camel who's stomach was opened up to see inside and skin was removed on most of the body to see it's muscles and how it compares to humans. The camel's head was really creepy. It was cut through the head and neck parallel to it's body and split into 3 slices and it was made as if the camel had 3 heads - one drinking off the floor, one looking forward, and one looking up, except that you could see it's brain, eyes, teeth, etc., but in slices. There was also a colt that was de-skinned.

After a while you sort of forget that they are real bodies. It's really weird after carefully examining a display as if it's a piece of art, then really realizing that it used to be a real life living breathing person. How do they feel being stared at and scrutinized so intently?

There were also all these display boxes highlighting the different organs of the body and diseases that the organs can have. If you smoke, you should see the real life lungs of a smoker compared to a non-smoker. Literally black vs white. Pretty disgusting.

The scariest part was looking at the little pieces in the display, like some bones with the muscles still attached, and thinking that it looked edible. Looked just like any other kind of meat... Really creeped me out.

The exibit's here until Feb. 26th. I highly suggest that if you haven't gone to see it that you go. I also suggest that you buy the tickets online beforehand because there was probably a line of about 40-50 people just to buy tickets!

I couldn't believe how busy it was there. You couldn't just go into Body Worlds either, you had an assigned time b/c they didn't want over crowding. We got there a little before 4 and our time was 7:30... We watched/slept-through the Mystery of the Nile at the Omnimax at 6 after the science centre closed (I was really tired after blogging really late at night, not getting much sleep, shopping, and walking in the science centre, and the chairs were comfortable and really reclining b/c it was the screen was on a dome ceiling). Oh, and I almost got to ride a segway, except that the museum was closing... maybe I'll get to do it at Google b/c I hear that they have a few :p