BODIES...The Exhibition brings education to life
With all the stories about Las Vegas' colorful persona, there’s one place where everyone knows the bodies AREN’T buried. That is at the Luxor where BODIES:…The Exhibition recently celebrated its first year of being at the hotel.
Described as a “life-changing experience,” the exhibit gives people the opportunity to learn about their own bodies and ultimately how to take better care of their health and make positive life choices via real human specimens. Having been meticulously dissected, preserved through an innovative process called polymer preservation and respectfully presented, they give visitors the opportunity to view the beauty and complexity of their own organs and systems like never before.
Through these authentic human bodies, visitors can get an up-close-and-personal look inside the skeletal, muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems. BODIES…The Exhibition also illustrates the damage caused to organs by smoking, over-eating, and lack of exercise. Additionally, it allows people to view and better understand medical concerns such as obesity, breast cancer, colon cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, ectopic pregnancy, arthritis, osteoporosis, and bone fractures.
As Dr. Roy Glover, chief medical director for BODIES … The Exhibition states, “Seeing promotes understanding, and understanding promotes the most practical kind of body education possible. The body doesn’t lie!” That’s why real bodies are used in the exhibit as opposed to idealized models that don’t allow for any variations in structure from one person to another. People get to see bodies and their parts as they really exist.
An interesting fact is that a small organ can take one week to prepare while it can take up to one year to prepare an entire body. Another is that because of its makeup, the brain is the most difficult part of the anatomy to preserve. Primarily composed of lipids (fats) and water, during the process of polymer preservation, the brain can shrink significantly during dehydration if not careful. To handle this problem, this organ is dehydrated in cold acetone, thereby maintaining its original size and shape.
While guests can get extremely close to the specimens, they are not permitted to touch them as a rule. However, if they could, the bodies would feel dry and would either be rigid or flexible, depending upon the chemicals used. The bodies last indefinitely after polymer preservation.
All of the bodies were obtained through the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories in the People’s Republic of China. Asia possesses the largest and most highly competent group of dissectors in the world, and they are highly skilled in preparing the bodies for educational and scientific purposes. The specimens all died of natural causes. .
- by Bobbie Katz, Las Vegas Reporter for HelloMetro
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