h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I went for the Body Worlds exhibition for my birthday! (OK OK a couple of days after, but let's not be pedantic about it)

I'd seen a photograph of a person working with what seemed like a human model in the papers some time back, along with a caption saying something about the technician working on a display for von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition, whatever in space that was. So while I was working on my article about death and decomposition, I thought I'd Google it to see what the exhibition was all about. In doing so I learnt two things: (1) that it was an anatomical display of real human bodies, and (2) it was currently in Singapore. I was practically steaming at the ears at the knowledge that there the exhibition was, just five hours' travel away, and here I was, stuck in the bloody lab. When I complained to my friend Tycho about it, Tycho replied, 'Why don't we go then?' So! acting out of compulsion, we agreed to skive off lab work, went downtown and booked tickets to Sangey, and two days after my birthday we mysteriously disappeared. (which is why my online presence has not been felt for the last four days )

The exhibition was, for want of better words, INCREDIBLE. Mind you, we went there knowing what to expect, and with open minds, so there was nothing there that could shock us. We spent the better part of four hours gawking at every full-body display, poking our noses where people generally would not stick them. And in spite of all the scathing reviews it's received, the exhibition was very tastefully done. Despite the dissection (I suppose some critics would prefer to call it *defilement* or *desecration*) and rearrangement, the bodies were all treated with a great deal of respect and - I suppose, by the anatomists who worked on them - loving care. Their poses were all natural and graceful, never embarrassing or demeaning: a chess player bent over a chess table, thoughtfully contemplating his moves; a man gracefully posed with a fencing foil, and another with a javelin, and so on. And it's not as though they were posed for artistic reasons only - they were all positioned so as to reveal as much of their arteries and organs and nerves and muscles as possible.

Hats off to all the parents who brought their kids to the exhibition and explained to them the functions of organs and muscles (I'd have done the same if I had kids of my own); BOO to those idiot girls in front of us, whose only comments regarding the exhibits were, 'geez! Imagine being posed with your arms like that after you're dead! How embarrassing!' and 'That's disgusting!' (Mind you, I wouldn't mind being dissected and posed after death if I could achieve similar grace)

I hear that the exhibition is headed for Frankfurt next. To all of those in Europe - go see it for yourselves! To those of you in the US - hard luck, I hear von Hagens is having difficulty finding warehouse and expo managers bold enough to host the show.



PS: The thing that Tycho and I found slightly disconcerting was that as we moved from one exhibit to another, we found ourselves growing increasingly hungry - and it didn't help that we were surrounded by meat, left, right and centre. (here's an important note: we are *NOT* cannibals! we have absolutely no explanation for what happened) So as soon as we were done and had exited the hall, we made a beeline for - Burger King.

Don't worry! Getting hungry when interested in something is perfectly natural. It has been demonstrated in babies (the sucking reflex being used to judge other cognitive tests). What it does show though is that you were not disgusted by the exhibits as some people claim to be.

Well, I used to go for Monday morning biology lab at school, dissect rats and then happily go off for lunch. I was probably the only person who had severe olfactory problems, and thus was not turned off lunch by the smell as many others were. The bodies at the exhibition were, of course odourless (although Tycho did comment that they smelt a bit musty)...but I *did* 'smell' a shape around them.

Having done the whole 'tearing apart a human body with my bare (well, gloved) hands'...

Dissection classes always used to make me hungry, but I suspect that it's because they went on for two hours, finishing at midday...

I shall also note the striking resemblance between the pectoralis major muscle and a well-tenderised steak, and between subcutaneous fat and scrambled egg

My uncle had been a foot surgeon and used to teach techniques. My dad would take 8mm movies of uncle's surgeries that would then be used for instruction.

I remember the family showing of the movies; removal of a corn, a bunion, and finally a sixth toe. The poor fellow's foot was so wide he found it nearly impossible to find shoes.

I was so fascinated that my uncle had to remove the second one in (the second smallest), so as not to leave a ledge and to facilitate healing, that I hadn't noticed that I was the only family member left in the room until it was nearly over.

Some folks sure are squeemish.

Sounds very interesting.

We do have an artist here in the states that garners even more controversy than this exhibit would I think. He's a photographer named Joel-Peter Witkin. Of course his medium is photographs so the logistics are easier, but the aim of his work is NOT "to inform visitors and to open up the opportunity particularly to medical laymen to better understand their body and its functions".

I personally like his work and think it has a grace and respect that some viewers never see since their minds close shut with the shock of the subjects. If you've ever seen the video (I'll be dating myself with this one) for Nine Inch Nails 'Animal' you will have an idea of his style as that video was either inspired or stolen from Witkins work.

Anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if this does eventually make it to the States. I also wouldn't be surprised if there is a loud hue and cry against it. Controversial exhibits are almost always protested here, but believe it or not, rarely if ever stopped. The protests usually only provide free publicity.

But I digress. I'll take a look at the web site for this in anycase, it does look very interesting.

Well, I have no idea what subcutaneous fat looks like (the acetone dissolved all of it), but yes, I would have to agree with you that the pec major muscle *does* look like steak. I suppose it didn't help that they were all nice and pink.... Oh dear... I'm not sure I like the direction this conversation is heading!!

Here's something else that looks like eggs - Clostridium perfringens! Fried eggs, to be exact. (Tycho and I were once toying with the idea of starting a microbe-themed restaurant where microbes would depict the actual food served. So for fried eggs and baked beans we'd have C. perfringens and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Bacillus megaterium would be excellent for linked sausages...)

Oh that will get the diners rushing in in throngs!

You can probably imagine how many dining rooms I and my fellow medics cleared with these types of conversations

Well, as microbiologists, we've never actually managed to *clear* a room - but mind you, we've done our share in turning people green! I shall never forget the day I sat opposite a friend eating sausages at the dining hall, and casually said to her, 'You know, because of the way they're processed, sausages contain a great deal more bacteria than most other meat', whereupon she dropped her fork and refused to eat another bite!

You know, Danny, I'd always thought you were a molecular biologist; gee, I was way off, wasn't I.

its been to london i think;the A-level biology group in my year went. can't say it appeals to me tho!

I'm a jack-of-all-trades (and, by implication, a master of none )

I was a medical student for three years, then did my PhD, which involved molecular biology, but also a fair amount of cell biology and a smidgin of immunology (which I copied out of a textbook ). I also taught microbiology and histopathology for 4 years. And today I don't know quite enough about any of those topics to qualify as anything much!

Danny, I'm astounded. My brain would have imploded had I followed the same path. So did you switch from medicine to molecular biology, or did you graduate from med school and *then* go into mol bio? I'm just curious, being me.

(Mind you, I'm in the unlikely position of being a microbiologist who teaches music to music students and markup language to computer science students, so I *think* I know how you feel!)

Arwen - not everybody has the stomach for von Hagens' exhibition. Tycho was fascinated by all the full-body plastinates and all the body sections - and yet all but ran out upon being faced with deformed foetuses. I guess it's a matter of how one associates the exhibits with life and/or death, and how one was brought up to view it.

I studied three years at medical school and graduated with a science degree before going on to clinical school (this isn't standard - only a few Universities in the UK do this). I then lasted half-a-day at clinical school, before realising that hospital medicine wasn't for me (although I'd strongly suspected this for the previous three years ), so I switched to the PhD - I never qualified as a (medical) doctor

I believe my dad did something of the sort, although I'm not clear on what he did *exactly*. Was your science degree something like 'Bachelor's Degree in Biomedical Science', or was it a pure science one? Because our university has two different medical courses - Medicine and Biomedicine - where the students take almost all the same papers, the difference being that the Biomed students do only three years, and no clinical stuff.

Of course, in the science faculty we also have this course called Biomedical Technology, which amounts to - CRAP. This course, along with its students, are a bit of a joke amongst us hardcore biochem/microbiology/genetics geeks because many of us have taken a BT paper and found it insultingly easy. (Not to mention many of the courses are taught by idiots who can't get their facts right)

Technically, my degree is in 'Medical Science' (in fact, it may be in Medical and Veterinary Science' - I was never quite sure...)

It was a pure science degree (those doing science degrees [physiology, biochem etc.] had the same lectures and practicals), just with a slant towards human (and animal!) biology. The 'medicine' part of the course lasts two years and covers all the subjects required by the General Medical Council (including sociology and statistics ). In the third year, medical students are free to study any subject they want: History of Art is always popular, and I know one person who did Engineering I did Pathology ('majoring' in genetics and virology).

The reason for this is a historical one: while Cambridge has always taught 'medicine', until about 30 years ago it didn't have a teaching hospital, so medical students had to go on to London or Oxford to study clinical medicine (or drop out and do something else instead ). However, students had to complete a degree before leaving Cambridge, hence the free choice in the third year.

To get onto the Medical Science course, you have to convince the interviewers that you want to be a (medical) doctor at the end of it - it's not open to 'general' scientists. Having said that, as the 'Natural Sciences' course at Cambridge is modular, you can do almost exactly the same options as the medics if you want.

The 1-year computer science course was also a popular option - although perhaps that was more with the prospective vets than medics.

Don't remember that being an option... Mind you, I didn't look very hard at the choices 'cos I knew what I wanted to do!

That's cool. The only Medical Science course available to non-medical students in my university is Sex Studies, which is by far the most popular elective course in the entire university (second only to the science faculty's Animal Behaviour, and that's only because the science faculty is a great deal easier to get to than the medical faculty).

The *least* popular elective is probably Virology from my department, which almost nobody takes unless they're forced to at gunpoint. In *fact* you find that while most of the courses offered at the departments of Biomed Technology and Zoology are swamped with students, microbiology classes are practically empty (about 6-10 people, as opposed to 40-50 at the others)... Oh, I know why - we have the faculty's most relentless lecturers!

Sex studies?

We had a term of 'Reproductive Biology' (ie, anatomy and physiology), which was one of the dryest, dullest courses we did (possibly on purpose!)

I took virology because I wanted to do some form of cancer research and, with genetics, it seemed the most relevant. The other options were cell biology (overlapped with genetics - the two couldn't be taken together), microbiology (bacteriology/parasitology) and immunology.

The microbiology and virology lecturers were all right. It's immunologists I can't stand..!